Furuno NavNet TZtouch3 16" MFD with 1kW CHIRP Sounder, GPS

The TZT16F is the 16-inch chartplotter in Furuno's NavNet TZtouch3 family, sitting alongside the 12-inch TZT12F and 19-inch TZT19F. The F suffix means built-in GPS receiver and the unit is ready to navigate the day you mount it without a separate antenna. The dual-channel 1kW TruEcho CHIRP sounder is integrated into the chassis, which means you can run a Furuno B175 series thru-hull or a 1kW transom transducer directly off the back of the MFD and have a serious offshore fish finder without an external black box. For most boats up to about 50 feet that's enough sonar. If you fish deeper than the built-in sounder can reach, the DI-FFAMP 2kW or 3kW Deep Impact amplifier connects on the network and gives you bottom-finding capability past 5,000 feet, and the BT-5 connector pack lets you use 5kW or 10kW transducers if you're chasing tilefish or commercial-grade deep-water work.

The display itself is what most operators talk about first. 16 inches of multi-touch IPS with edge-to-edge glass and an anti-reflective surface, and Furuno's optical bonding that keeps the picture readable in direct sunlight with polarized glasses. Off-axis viewing is what IPS does well, which means the captain at the helm and the mate at the cockpit station both see the same colors and the same contrast on the same screen. Touch operation handles pan-and-zoom, waypoint placement, and menu navigation. The quad-screen display config lets you split the panel into 1, 2, 3, or 4 different functions at once, which on a 16-inch panel gives you enough real estate to run sonar, radar, chart, and engine data side by side without any of them being too small to read.

Network connectivity is where Furuno's professional positioning shows. The TZtouch3 is backwards-compatible with NavNet TZtouch2 networks, which matters if you're upgrading one helm without ripping out the rest of the boat's electronics. NMEA 2000 and NMEA 0183 cover the standard data instruments, autopilots, and VHF radios. Full autopilot control from the MFD works when paired with the Furuno NAVpilot-300 or NAVpilot-711C. CZone digital switching lets you put the boat's DC control panels on chartplotter pages instead of separate breaker switches, which on a glass-helm install cleans up the dash dramatically. SiriusXM weather works through the optional BBWX4 receiver, and free weather data from NavCenter Weather is built in for cruisers who don't want a satellite subscription.

For sonar work specifically, the dual-channel CHIRP runs two frequencies at the same time, which means you can keep one channel on a wide-cone shallow scan for fish-arch detection and the other on a tight-cone deep scan for bottom-finding, side by side on the screen. Furuno's TruEcho processing is the algorithm that separates fish-arches from rock and weed in a way that competitor sonar processing usually doesn't match. The NXT solid-state Doppler radar (sold separately) is Furuno's open-array radar that pairs with this MFD over the network. NXT radar adds Target Analyzer (colors moving targets approaching the boat), Fast Target Tracking (auto-acquires up to 100 targets with vector overlays), Bird Mode (surfaces feeding bird flocks), and Rain Mode (filters out precipitation returns so you can see real targets through a squall).

The Furuno cloud sync ecosystem is what closes out the package. TZ Navigator on a PC, TZ iBoat on iOS, and the cloud at MyTimezero.com all share waypoints, routes, and tracks with the MFD. Plan a route on the laptop at home, sync it to the MFD, and it's ready when you step on the boat. TZ First Mate app keeps a fishing log with catch locations tied to GPS waypoints, which builds up a real database of where the fish actually were over a season. PIN code lock secures the MFD against unauthorized startup. The 16-inch TZT16F ships with mounting hardware, power cable, NMEA 2000 drop cable, and the documentation. The GPS antenna is internal and the transducer is sold separately based on your boat's install needs.