The 3 Mobile Broadband Starter Kits are good value for money, offering, for example, a USB dongle modem and 12GB of data (valid for up to 12 months from purchase) for £150.  However, right now, Maplin are selling that same deal for just £99.99 (available here), which seems a very good price.  If you bought the PAYG modem from the 3Store, you would pay £50, and then £10 each month for 1Gb of data.  Overall, that’s going to cost you a lot more than the Maplin deal.  Conversely, if you committed to an 18 month contract, you would still pay £10 per month for that same 1GB of data (with little or no upfront cost).

If you plan to use Mobile Broadband on a fairly regular basis, but don’t intend to use it too much, then you may well find this Maplin deal is good value for money.  It appears the Maplin offer is limited to the Huawei E160G modem, which can’t run as fast as the new E169, but should still be fast enough for most users.

Maplin have reduced the price of the Maplin minibook between now and 24th December. Instead of the RRP of £169.99, it’s now just £139.99. Maplin have offered discounts on this small netbook before, but this is the largest discount we’re aware of. Also available from that webpage is a downloadable Wi-Fi patch for the device to deal with wireless connectivity problems. From that webpage there is also a link to CnM Lifestyle, from where you can download system restore tools, a few extra applications and games, and even a driver for the Huawei E220 USB Modem for 3G access.

This may not be as feature rich as the Asus Eee PC units, but price wise it certainly may serve as a device for kids to have internet access.

We’ve featured a number of products from Maplin, but just wanted to draw attention to the fact that Maplin are having a free delivery event at the moment on their website, which finishes tomorrow (Tuesday) at 9am.  So, if there’s a little something you had always wanted to purchase from Maplin, but that additional delivery charge was putting you off, go order it quickly, and save that money today!

After the Asus Eee PC, here comes Maplin with their own equivalent.  The Maplin minibook has a quite impressive spec:

• Small on price and very small on size - ultra compact and just 650g!
• Ideal for web surfing, email, word processing and spreadsheets
• A perfect travel or business companion with built in Wi-Fi technology…be truly mobile
• 7-inch TFT widescreen screen and stylish piano black finish casing
• Easy to use Linux operating system
• 3 x USB 2.0 ports
• Stereo speakers and built-in microphone
• Touch mouse pad
• Email and Office (word processor and spreadsheet program)
• PDF viewer
• SD / SDHC Card reader
• 10/100Mbps Ethernet port
• 2GB SSD (soild state disk) shock proof storage
• Expand the storage with USB or SD Flash Memory (not external hard drives)
• Supports up to 4GB SD cards and 4GB USB sticks
• Multi-theme display (Child or Adult mode)
• DDR2 128MB memory
• AC adaptor / charger
• Complete with Xip office applications
• 12 month warranty

Even better, it’s on special offer during August at £169.99, and will be £219.99 from 3rd September.

Malcolm over at SMS Text News has reviewed the Pocket Surfer 2. Although currently on special offer (again) at Maplin, it’s actually cheaper still at Amazon. We like the idea behind the Pocket Surfer 2 for those who want occasional internet access (apart from the initial cost of the device, it’s then free of charges for 12 months as long as you use less than 20 hours of internet access each month). Head over to SMS Text News to read the review. Finally, as SMS Text News point out, there’s an unofficial fan site for the Pocket Surfer 2 here.

If the idea of leaving your phone with Orange for a while doesn’t appeal (there may be queues to use the facility, or simply you don’t want to be parted from your phone, or you want to charge something else), then you’ll need to consider your own charging options.

Freeloader chargers

Firstly, there’s the Freeloader Charger, currently on offer at Maplin, and shown above.  This will recharge itself from the sun, and then you can use the device to charge your gadgets and phones (it comes with roughly 10 adaptors to fit the majority of devices you would have).  It also can be recharged via USB before you go.  The freeloader comes in Silver or pink.  It will take some while to charge itself (5 hours is stated), which might be too long to wait.

In that case, you’ll need to add the Freeloader Supercharger, which attaches to your bike or rucksack, and will charge your Freeloader much faster (it’s listed as 4 hours, but we would expect a greater difference between the two, so one of them must be stretching the truth).  This comes in green or pink, and includes it’s own case.  If you want a case for the Freeloader to protect it too, they are also available in the same green and pink (but not silver strangely).

Other gadgets

What else has Maplin got for the good weather: a Solar powered fan, a solar powered clock (designed for outdoor usage), a solar powered torch (which also functions as an alarm clock).  Finally, if you are worried about losing children, you might want to look at the Loc8tor Lite, which comes with 2 tags, and you can then use the control unit to locate the 2 tags (and hence whatever is attached to the tag).

Any special offers are valid until July, although if you want them in time for Glastonbury, you’ll need to buy them fast (some offers may be website exclusives).

Maplin are selling a GPS Tracker, which offers the ability to record your location as you travel around.  It can record at a variety of differing levels, providing either greater accuracy, or a greater time period the logs are recorded for.  Unlike other units, it doesn’t support external media cards, so you are limited by the internal memory, but for most people it will still easily cover a day or two of photography.  It uses the Sirf Star III chipset for greater accuracy, measures 47 x 29 x 12mm and weighs only 21g.  It’s claimed to be compatible with Google Maps and Google Earth, and is water resistant.  For £39.99, it might well be worth a look for many budding photographers…

Thanks to Mark at Automated Home for the heads up.

If you head off to the online Maplin special offer catalogue, you’ll see the Pocket Surfer 2 on the front cover at £179.99.  However, click on the Pocket Surfer 2, and you’ll be taken to Page 6 of the special offer catalogue, and then click on the Pocket Surfer 2 again.  This will take you off to the Maplin website where you’ll find the Pocket Surfer 2 on special offer at £149.99 until 10 June (and free delivery is included too).  Alternatively, just click here.

Here’s something we strongly approve of… It’s a SatNav unit designed for HGV drivers, but priced at a similar level to other SatNav units. As a driver, you enter the height, weight, length, and any other potential factors, and the SatNav will choose HGV-friendly routes which will avoid roads / bridges / corners / weight limits that the vehicle cannot navigate. It can even avoid roads with cross winds or steep hills. The device uses NAVTEQ Transport data which includes all this additional data to help the unit. It’s also got hazardous goods information, information on loading bays and HGV fuel stations.

With a few button presses, the unit can have the HGV restrictions removed, so can be used in normal vehicles too, but anything that helps to avoid HGV drivers blindly follow their SatNavs and ending up on the front page of the BBC website or a national newspaper has to be a good thing.

There’s no support for receiving traffic data, although the unit does support a safety camera subscription, which is free for the first 6 months.

Maplin seem to have picked up, and the ProNav should be available from their stores in the near future. We expect other Navteq SatNav manufacturers to look at this unit and work out whether there’s a market, so we may well find other units offering this amount of customisation in the next year or so.

More information at Pocket GPS World.