Julian
Very interesting.
I looked into this unit in some detail recently. If you buy it in the USA, you need to spend a
fortune (about 400 quid) to get the Euro database afterwards. It's a right con, a nice cartel, and not unexpected given that the US enroute and terminal charts are all free (and geo-referenced, so with a pocket/pc or Windows Tablet device you can run them under Oziexplorer) so Jepp can't rip people off for the US data as much as they can rip off the rest of the world.
I also never established if the two databases can co-exist. This won't bother most Euro pilots.
The unit is very poorly supported. You can email avmap.it and you may get a reply the same month. If you are very lucky, the moron might have even read past the first line of your email. None of the Euro dealers I contacted know any detail, like the update process, the update pricing, the pricing structure for different update frequencies, the ability (if any, and I believe there isn't any) to load different data into it, etc. The mapping data comes from a big map data marketing outfit called Cmap, which appears to own (or be associated with) Avmap.it. Cmap have done a deal with Jepp for the standard Jepp aero database, like everybody else does nowadays.
The unit was well marketed in the USA, where there is a proper setup for database updates etc. But even then, none of the dealers know anything about it...
It's a pity because this is the best GPS on the market, IMV.
It's probably OK because a handheld isn't going to be used for approaches
so one might update the database say once a year. At Jepp prices, you won't want to do it more often!
The main downside is that there is no flight planning software that supports it. Loading PC-planned flight plans into a GPS avoids the principal gross error modes. And, for Europe, there is just one FP software that's relevant: Navbox. The other properly updated solution is Flitestar, bloated, much more expensive and very few UK PPLs use it, and it doesn't support the Avmap either.
The trouble is that, at this price range, you are close to buying an LS800 tablet and loading something like Flitemap onto it... except that Jepp have recently dropped Flitemap. The Yanks have it good