Thread: New User: MS St&Trips and DeLormer Street Atlas...

My experience has been similar to yours, except that I used SpaceMachine's PocketMap Navigator which is awesome. Too bad they won't make a PC version of it.

Originally Posted by Borisw37

Maps do not zoom & rotate while driving.

You can make Streets and Trips rotate the map. There's a tiny checkbox close to where you enable GPS tracking which enables rotation.

Now I wonder how the latest versions of CoPilot and iGuidance compare.

@Mike: What's your experience with CoPilot ? Do you have it integrated with any frontend? Does it speak streetnames? Does it do auto-zoom? Is there a countdown to next turn? How does it deal with hibernate/standby? Enquiring minds want to know.

I just got and installed the same package, DeLorme Street Atlas 2007 bundled with the Earthmate LT-20 GPS receiver. It wanted 800x600 or better to install, but once it was on there it runs fine on 640x480. In fact the buttons are much more usable at lower resolution, otherwise they're TINY. I just installed it yesterday and had a couple of hours to try it out. I'm very happy; maybe because I've never used any other GPS nav software before.

I'll agree that the interface is cluttered at first. But you can remove toolbars and minimize menus and side-panes until all you have is one row of menu options up top, one row at the bottom and the panning controls on the right. See below. I haven't relied on it for directions yet, just tested around home. It has a "High Contrast," color scheme that is great for night driving or driving in general. Here's a picture at 640x480:



I've cleaned up the interface even more since then; the left pane is totally gone and the bottom menus are minimized so you see only the tabs (Map Files, Print, Draw, GPS, Route, etc) Also, the turn-by-turn directions it speaks out loud are detailed. It tells you to turn on a particular road name, tells you the distance and estimated time, and re-routes if you go off the path. It did already screw up once during testing though; it told me to make a left on an overpass instead of telling me to get on a ramp.

Originally Posted by cobase

I just got and installed the same package, DeLorme Street Atlas 2007 bundled with the Earthmate LT-20 GPS receiver. It wanted 800x600 or better to install, but once it was on there it runs fine on 640x480. In fact the buttons are much more usable at lower resolution, otherwise they're TINY. I just installed it yesterday and had a couple of hours to try it out. I'm very happy; maybe because I've never used any other GPS nav software before.

I'll agree that the interface is cluttered at first. But you can remove toolbars and minimize menus and side-panes until all you have is one row of menu options up top, one row at the bottom and the panning controls on the right. See below. I haven't relied on it for directions yet, just tested around home. It has a "High Contrast," color scheme that is great for night driving or driving in general. Here's a picture at 640x480:



I've cleaned up the interface even more since then; the left pane is totally gone and the bottom menus are minimized so you see only the tabs (Map Files, Print, Draw, GPS, Route, etc) Also, the turn-by-turn directions it speaks out loud are detailed. It tells you to turn on a particular road name, tells you the distance and estimated time, and re-routes if you go off the path. It did already screw up once during testing though; it told me to make a left on an overpass instead of telling me to get on a ramp.

Were you able to get rid of the left pane while GPS tracking was on?

No, I think you're right; the left pane comes back when the GPS is on. I just noticed the "Auto Display GPS Overview" checkbox under Display options - haven't tried it in the car though.

It's not the best interface for a 7" touchscreen but its OK. I mean it could have a full-screen option. You can remove all the toolbars except for that "Options/Help," one so you don't save any space that way. It has that "Street Atlas USA" banner in the corner as if we forgot (it's on the title bar too); the space could be used for bigger zoom buttons. With the bottom pane in view, you're looking at three maps (center, left pane and bottom right corner). So yeah, it wasn't meant for 7" touch-screens, but it's pretty usable. I'm playing with the voice recognition part - my car seems pretty noisy for it to hear.