Just in - Memory Map GPS

New in for review is the latest contender in the GPS with Ordnance Survey mapping stakes, the Memory Map Adventurer 2800 which turned up this morning.


In short it's a lightweight GPS unit with a 2.8" high resolution, colour touch screen GPS unit with a rechargeable internal battery - charger for mains and car included - that comes preloaded with Memory Map sofware and a 2GB microSD card with mapping of selected 1:50,000 OS maps of Britain's National Parks along with credits for more 1:50,000 mapping at the MM Digital Map Shop.

Also included is PC Memory Map software, so you can plan routes on your computer before downloading them to the GPS unit and vice versa. You can use any Memory Map maps on the unit.

The first thing that strikes you about the 2800 is that it is incredibly light compared to the competition. The unit weigh 135 grammes on our scale compared to 197 grammes for a Garmin Oregon and 225 grammes for an Active 10. In fact it's not much heavier than a Nokia 5800 Smartphone running Viewranger at 116 grammes.

The pay off is that to be frank, it doesn't feel quite as sturdy as either of the GPS units, though that may just be psychological.

We'll go into full detail on the software when we review the Adventurer 2800 properly, but what we can tell you is that the screen detail is excellent and map reproduction along with speed of scrolling and zooming is superior to either the Satmap or the Garmin. That said, so far we've not found the software particularly intuitive.

Battery life is claimed to be around 8 hours, or a day's worth of walking, and the unit has energy saving settings to eek that out.

Price is very competitive at £250. More information at www.memory-map.co.uk