ADDITIONAL UPGRADES

In addition to Passport charts, Jeppesen Marine offers several options for their basic Nobeltec VNS package. These include subscription services, software add-ons, and hardware devices.

If you prefer a higher level of technical support, you can become a VIP member. Different tiers of service, ranging from $300 to $500 per year, give you escalated support, including priority phone queuing and premier support technicians.

You can also unlock three additional software applications, called Plus Packs. These include Sailing, XM Weather and a Bathy Recorder. The Sailing Plus Pack ($300) integrates laylines, wind arrows and polar diagrams. The XM Weather Plus Pack ($300), which requires XM satellite hardware and an annual subscription, provides a continuous data stream from XM satellite weather. The Bathy Recorder Plus Pack ($800) enables you to record sea floor topographic information using your sounder/depth finder device and incorporate that data into your VNS 3D display.

Jeppesen Marine also sells a wide variety of supplemental hardware accessories in the Nobeltec line. For example, private labeled radars are available as well as the Insight Radar 2 Black Box ($3,000), integrating an existing radar system with Nobeltec software. Each allows the overlay of radar images on your electronic chart display. Also available is the sunlight-readable touchscreen Wireless Nobeltec Display ($2,500), which lets you view VNS on an 8.4" Panasonic portable device.

Unfortunately, almost everything seems to come at additional high cost. For example, Nobeltec separately sells a very professional, yet expensive ($30), 222-page, spiral-bound User's Guide. To be fair, many software packages no longer include a traditional user's manual, and Nobeltec's User's Guide is available in four other languages, but this price seems high to us. Alternatively, the application's Help menu allows you to print out your own PDF of this guide.

Jeppesen Marine also provides toll-free phone and email customer support, separate from its VIP service. Additional technical support is available through the website, which includes a searchable Knowledge Base and FAQ page. The Knowledge Base is a great concept, but may be in its infancy in terms of the topics it covers. For example, we entered "AIS," a device supported by VNS, but the search came up empty. Other search strings did bring up documents on installation questions and related topics. The FAQs are nicely grouped into categories including Installation, Chart Usage, Integrated Devices, and Usage/Miscellaneous. Jeppesen also offers an electronic newsletter, which includes information on updates and technical tips.

ASSESSMENT

Overall, Nobeltec VNS is a solid and very extensible package, integrating an established software application, proprietary vector cartography, and supplemental software applications and hardware devices. It's a package designed to grow with a serious long-distance boater while staying within the Nobeltec family. In fact, an initial choice of Nobeltec marks a long-term decision to stay within Nobeltec. VNS and Admiral are not "welcome the outsiders" packages, as evidenced by their inability to read many common chart formats or to easily import and export data.

In our opinion, it doesn't make sense to use Nobeltec software without their Passport charts. The power of Nobeltec is the synthesis of their software, cartography, and probably even hardware. But this is a charting and navigation package that comes with a price.

In addition to the supplemental software packages, subscription services, and optional hardware devices, Nobeltec is one of the last hold-outs selling charts at prices not seen since NOAA opened its chart library for free in 2005. Other companies, including Maptech (which held the exclusive contract to distribute NOAA charts), have adjusted their prices to reflect the changing world of free or inexpensive chart cartography.

At $250 per region, Passport charts for the U.S. are the most expensive charts per nautical mile. And although the vector charts are good, the quality of the supplemental data was a disappointment. But once again, Jeppesen's changing company landscape-namely the recent acquisition of C-Map, with its top-notch marine data-may help balance this value-to-cost equation.