SatMap have just landed on our door….but, we know nothing about them?

Any user experiences on here?

Worthy alternative to Garmin?

I like mine but with reservations.

A good size screen and OS mapping is brilliant. Not the most intuitive and at least when I bought mine (early doors) the instructions included were poor. For walking it is brilliant. On the bike it has some drawbacks. It is quite weighty and mounted on the bars/stem does affect the feel of the bike. Screen can be hard to see in sunlight. It would be nice if you could get a unit in two parts. Light weight screen unit of the same size for bar mounting with the battery and electronics/receiver in a separate unit that could be mounted under the top tube. If it hasn't been used for quite a while it takes seeming ages to collect all the satellites required for navigation. Once hooked up though it hangs on to them pretty good. Also if you use it everyday for a week tour it will pick up sats each day quick. Internal lithium battery has a pretty good life. From full charge I can usually get an 8-9 hour day out of unit. Battery gauge is ok but is not accurate at the empty end. Always charge overnight before using.
7/10 imo/e

I absolutely love mine, if you like navigating by OS maps then you'll love it too. If you want HRM and other training data you should look elsewhere, its not for that.

Its robust enough to stand up to crashing and the worst a British winter can throw at it. Big buttons you can operate with winter gloves on, cheap replaceable outer screen so that it doesn't matter too much when you scratch it wiping gritty mud off it as you ride along. I'd recommend getting the Zagg shield thing that Satmap also sell to protect the inner screen.

I did eventually have a problem with a loose battery connection, but that was replaced immediately with no fuss – so warranty support is good too.

Love, love love it. The ability to program routes on the unit, without having to hook it up to a PC, is one of the best things. We did a multi-day off-road tour with it and plugged in a new bit of the route each day, adding more or fewer hills and off-road sections depending on how we were feeling. To do the same on paper would have needed 3 or 4 1:50k OS maps, and just wouldn;t be possible with some GPSs due to the limited number of waypoints they can hold. It also seems well suited to outdoor use and the battery life is great – plus you can keep stuffing AAs into it if you're touring with no access to a charger.

Minor niggles are that since doing a firmware update it sometimes crashes (on/off sorts it but you lose your stats), you need to convert .gpx files to .map before using them, charging from a computer USB port is a bit iffy (the unit tends to stay switched on and run down again unless you disconnect it and turn it off) and the mount has gone a bit rattly after over 1 year of use.

I don't find it has an effect on handling but it is a fairly chunky thing – but that's also necessary for it to be a user-friendly substitute for an OS map.

Mr Agreeable – I found the same with the mount, but putting a strip of gaffer tape on the connector at the back was enough to take up the slack and stop the rattling. A bit of a bodge, but good enough until I can be bothered to buy another mount. And still many times better than the horrible Garmin zip-tie mounts.

Used mine (second hand off ebay) for the firs time yesterday. Very impressed.

Took me ages to get the software installed on my PC – satsync (or what ever it's called) wouldnt run. There was a reference to a piece of windows software in the instructions and after I'd installed that it worked fine.

I used the gps-ies web site to convert a few tcx to gpx files and satsync to load them onto the satmap.

I then loaded up a route (around Swinley) and followed it very easily. I love the red dots showing you where you've been and the red arrows showing you in which direction to go (sounds daft but on the garmins you can't tell and it's easier to take a wrong turn as a result).

It is a bit big on the bike but can't say I noticed that much difference – mine's mounted close to the stem.

Definately recommend it but as a 2nd hand buy (i;e I wouldn't pay £500+ for one, a bike mount and OS maps of the UK.

smurf

Works very well for OS navigation

My favourite gadget by far.

– Robust (I've had a few daft falls with mine and it's hardly marked)
– Clear easy to read screen (it does scratch a bit too easily though)
– Straight forward menus can be navigated quickly
– cracking bike mount
– some might argue otherwise but weatherproof. Yes water gets behind the screen cover but doesn't affect functionality.

Have used mine for biking and walking and it's saved loads of time when trails become unclear or poorly marked. I'm not wanting something to measure heart rate, cadence etc etc, just a mapping & navigational device and its absolutely perfect at that (I still carry an Explorer map as back up when off the beaten track though)

Very happy with mine.
Really like the ratchet fitting for the
bike mount, makes swapping the unit between bikes very easy.

'tis good + they offer a cheap "refurb" service. OS mapping with GPS == killer app IMO.

I've got one. It's ok but with reservations:

Screen isn't that easy to see in sunlight when you will be naturally wearing sunglasses

It isn't a SatNav. In the sense you can't program in waypoints that the unit will then direct you to and tell you when to turn. (more significant if you are using it on the road)

I find the route overlay covers the detail of the map. Annoying at difficult junctions. Overall, it is good at telling you where you are. Less good at telling you where to go.