I’m surprised nobody has recommended the Deeper Fishfinder yet. I love mine for ice and soft water.
I have a vex and a marcumlx7 when we get some good ice you are welcome to come see them in action. Just a warning it doesn’t end there the next toy in the arsenal is a camera 
I have the vexilar fl-20 and I added the tri-bead ducer. It has the 8, 12, and 20 degree cones. It does great at 20 feet of water or 100 feet. I’ve never had an issue with battery life. And my fish catch rate is at least double over my friends that don’t have a finder/flasher. It is important to know the limitations of the flasher in order to get the best proformance out of one. You can find a lot of info on vexilars website.
I’ll chime in in support of flashers as well. One thing to think about is that if you fish in shallow water, you may want to choose a flasher with a wider transducer angle or a dual angle transducer that can switch between narrow and wide. I like the Marcum line (LX-5 and up) that come with an 8 and 20 degree dual angle transducer.
The narrower angle 8-9 degree, Vexilar’s Pro-View transducer, etc… are great for deeper water or reducing clutter on the screen when you are over a school of future dinner, but give you a limited transducer “footprint” in shallow water.The dual transducers on the Marcums may be one of the reasons they cost more than Vexilars. Vexilar has a tri-beam (8, 12, & 20 degrees) optional transducer ($130) if you fish the full spectrum of depths (0 -300 feet) that the Vexilar offers. I may upgrade to this option after this season with the FLx28 (my first) is over.
Yes the marcum cost a bit more but you get what you pay for in the sense Marcum Technology continues to outpace Vexilar in terms of imagery, options, peak power, and overall quality. While certainly opinions are relative I suggest given the opportunity from one of the members to try them both side by side. For me the LX7 has an 8" lcd screen you cannot beat. U can run 3 split screens at once while maintaining your view of the dashboard.