I have been a
Nobeltec user for nearly 15 years, although lately using Coastal Explorer more. On (Boat Show)
sale this week at Defender, so I bit the bullet and bought an upgrade for my Windows 7x64 computer. W7 compatibility is about the only useful new feature in the upgrade, although I had mixed feelings about the dongle. You can now just buy the upgrade and use it as the full system, with no previous version, with no
registration, but need to move the dongle between
computers to do it. Main issue I have had with it so far is my cat decided it was a toy, and I had to chase it all over the house. Looks like the new owners cleaned the slate, although everything shows they are still partners with Jeppesen.
The USG vector
charts are still unusable, as are the old
Nobeltec Passport
charts unless you pay for an upgrade
The significant bugs from v9 do not appear to be fixed. Marks are not organized alphabetically, so finding them when creating or editing a
route is quite a chore. The
GPS transfer wizard is still broken, and does not usually
work for inbound transfers. And still no user support webite. But at the Defender upgrade
price for the full version it is a bargain. And I got good
email support when asking questions before I bought it.
On the plus side,
installation was flawless, and there was no more making calls to get a new site key. Things seem to
work very crisply and rapidly, and the GUI is as before, quite good. I also found out you can transfer data both ways with Coastal Explorer using the ONF format. Definitely a full featured
navigation package, now at a reasonable
price (unintentionally?), but the dedication of the company to repairing/improving the product appears to be questionable.