Having sonar built directly into the chartplotter (rather than requiring a separate black-box sonar module) means it works as a complete standalone fishfinder/chartplotter combo out of the box, with no additional hardware needed to see fish arches, structure, and bottom composition alongside chart and GPS data on the same screen. It's network-capable over NMEA 2000 and the Garmin Marine Network, so it can also be paired with additional chartplotters, radar, and other sonar sources for a larger multi-display helm setup, and its full-HD IPS touchscreen delivers the same wide viewing angle and sunlight-readable performance (including through polarized sunglasses) as the rest of the 8000 series. Multiple units can be flat-mounted edge-to-edge for a glass-helm look or individually flush-mounted. Combining serious sonar performance with a genuinely large 16-inch screen in one unit makes it a popular choice for a boat's primary helm display, where a skipper wants full chart detail and fishfinding capability on the same screen without splitting attention across two separate units.