When we covered SatMap‘s new Route Planner and Route Share last week, we noted that this would no longer be free to new purchasers of the Active 10 from today (and existing purchasers only have until the end of March to register for free access).  Well, SatMap have today extended their range with the Active 10 Plus, which will include free access to both these services.  On top of the standard Active 10 device, it will also offer postcode based lookup facilities, a new function not previously available on the Active 10, and due to license limitations, will not be available for retro-fitting to the Active 10 either.

The Active 10 Plus will retail for £379.99, compared to £299.99 for Active 10.  As well as access to the Route Planner and Route Share services (via a voucher in the box), the Active 10 Plus also ships with a World Base Map, a Lithium Polymer Battery (the unit will also take AA Batteries), a wall charger (with multi-country adaptors), and another voucher for 1/3 off a 60km² site-centred map (worth £35).

The new 1:5 million World Base Map allows better use of the device outside of the UK (or the main area you have bought maps for), providing some basic level of mapping.  For comparison, the Active 10 Plus ships with this 1:5 million base map, a UK 1:1 million high level OS map, and a 1:250,000 raster road map of the UK.  For those existing Active 10 users who would like this world base map, it is available as an upgrade for £39.99 plus postage.

The World Base Map is part of the European wide launch of the device, with plans to release OS type mapping for a number of Western European countries by Easter this year, including The Netherlands and Norway, where the device is already on sale.

Given the range of extras the Active 10 Plus ships with, it’s likely to count for the majority of sales moving forward.

Although still a little expensive (even as a waterproof GPS unit with access to UK OS Maps), if SatMap improved their geocaching support within the device’s software (and their FAQ says they are looking to incorporate in the future), we think they would sell even more units.

More information direct from SatMap here.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.