Request For Information

terry8 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 03, 2005 Posts: 44

Thanks Roger for your prompt reply. I take on board all you have said but unfortunately at 83 patience is not a luxury I can afford. As walking season for me does not start for a few more months, I will leave my options open and who knows. Terry

Rogerfrit · Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2008 12:01 pm Post subject:

jonesbach · Regular Visitor Joined: Jun 07, 2008 Posts: 185

Dave_the_Hiker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Posts: 48

I'm sorry to say that Satmap have lost a sale to me. It was not the few negative comments on this forum; generally the users have been pretty happy. What has totally put me off is the many unkept promises together with the almost total lack of news on the Satmap website. I read somewhere on here that Satmap have put more resource onto the website. Surely this is a joke. It looks to me like no more than 10 minutes has been spent in updating it in the last year!

It may or not be a good product but if they can't learn how to communicate they are surely doomed.

LostMike · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 4:05 pm Post subject:

Dave

I'm sorry that SatMap have so upset you with their website but for most of us it is the A10 that we have bought and while it is not perfect it is a very good and useful item. I agree that I would like to see a bit more info on the website and ideally at SatMap forum but this one does pretty well. Most people even seem to have got around the lack of planning software to some degree.

If you have not yet bought an alternative you might like to just take a few more days to think it over.
_________________
LostMike
Satmap A10. Platform 21
Software version 1.5.9193
Satsync 1.525

davidor · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 14, 2008 Posts: 117

I agree with you Mike, it is the equipment that counts, not how flashy the website is. HOWEVER, a high-tech company that has barely updated their website for the best part of a year is usually a sign of a company going out of business. I'm very happy with my A10, but in view of their lack of information, promises not kept and a very out-of-date website (NEWS: V1.16 now available!) I think I would be thinking twice before spending £500-£600 on their hardware and maps.

Dave_the_Hiker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Posts: 48

Bosun · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 6:59 pm Post subject:

Dave,

There is no guarantee that Garmin won't go to the wall,after all six months ago who would have thought that Lehman Brothers would go bust and that Ford,Chrysler etc. would be teetering on the edge.

I take your point though,I have decided to buy all the maps I can forseeably need ( it's not that many ) just in case things take a turn for the worse.

What gets me most is the "wall of silence" from SatMap,they seem to have a very strange way of dealing with their customer base who have invested a fair amount of money in them,for a small company I find this quite strange.

Ian

Dave_the_Hiker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Posts: 48

LostMike · Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:36 pm Post subject:

Dave

If you have read this forum you will see that sadly SatMap have always been bad at responding to e-mails. It is therefore unsurprising that they are not good at responding to e-mails over the Christmas period.

They have however always been renown for responding well to telephone calls. I rang them last week and got a very helpful and immediate response.

Not sure about faulty units but I think everyone who has commented on this forum has found that after a phone call to SatMap their unit has been returned and repaired very speedily and at no cost. Which seems like good service to me.

I have said before that SatMap and the A10 are not perfect but I remain impressed and see no reason to assume that they will go under. It would be a shame if they did given the quality of their product and their responsiveness to telephone calls from customers. Agreed that they can improve their e-mail and their web updating but in my view both are far better than those offered by Microsoft. Anyone heard about them going under? Wink

_________________
LostMike
Satmap A10. Platform 21
Software version 1.5.9193
Satsync 1.525

Bosun · Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:26 pm Post subject:

Reading these posts makes it seem obvious that SatMap are in dire need of an in house PR/communications person,someone whose sole task is to sort the website out,provide a forum/blog and be the public face of the company,or if they have one he/she is not very good.

They make a good product,repairs/warranty problems are rapidly sorted out,the mapping is good but it seems from the outside looking in that the techy people are doing the promotions as well.Someone said on one post/thread that they spoke to a tech. who sorted them out but she was updating the website as well.If it is true that a lot of units are faulty ( and I don't know if that is true or not ) then the techs.must be busy spending their time sorting those out ,then there is the software to update,mapping to do,sales etc.,so it is no wonder that the site is not updated

Ian

Dave_the_Hiker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Posts: 48

Hi,

I am not knocking the Satmap itself. It appears to be in a class of its own. I am just a little surprised that they announce upgrades i.e forum, route planner etc. but never seem to deliver. Just about every promise seems to be broken or delivered months behind schedule without explanation.

Follows a quote from Richard Calthrop-Owen the man behind Satmap.

"That means the Active 10's been developed from the ground up to work purely as an outdoors navigational unit. It's not a re-shelled PDA. That meant choosing each component to maximise battery life and, not content with that, including the ability to work either with normal AA batteries - which can give up to 60 hours of use with lithium cells - or an integral, rechargeable lithium polymer battery pack."

But what do I read in these forums. Lots of complaints about battery life.
It appears that Satmap have now disabled the real time clock, limited the screen brightness and set the unit to north up only and still I don't hear of anyone getting even close to 60 hours. So much for being designed from the ground up for battery life.

Bosun · Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:39 pm Post subject:

Dave,

These restrictions you quote,I have not seen them mentioned anywhere before,are they just on new units as mine ( about six weeks old ) certainly has Trail Up,as for the real time clock,I didn't even realise there was one and the screen brightness is OK.

Will these restrictions be in the next software update ?

As for battery life I don't think there has been that many complaints since software version 1.2 came out,it seemed to be the early adopters that weren't happy.I don't know about battery life with the lithiums as I use the Li-Pol battery which seems adequate to me.

Ian

John65 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 03, 2009 Posts: 3

Hi all,

I would describe myself as a novice walker and new to gps. I got in touch with satmap via email at the end of December and they got back to quickly. I was asking them whether there was any plans for a new active model in 09/10 and they said they had no plans to do so as are quite happy with the way the Active 10 is.

With this information I decided to buy the Active 10 from Amazon and received it on new years eve and am so far very happy with it and it's very easy to use. Highly recommended.

Best

John

Bosun · Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:11 pm Post subject:

John,

Welcome to the forum.Glad to hear that you are happy with the SatMap,apart from the odd niggle here and there most people seem happy with it.

They didn't mentiom when the on-line mapping would be out did they?

Ian

	PocketGPS
	Web