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

Borisw37 · 01-09-2007, 03:18 PM

I recently purchased Earthmate GPS LT-20 packaged with DeLorme Road Atlas USA 2007 I also borrowed MS Streets & Trips 2007 from a friend of mine.
I have to say, I am not impressed by either one. Prior to now I have been using Garmin iQue 3600 and I LOVE it. It doesn't offer as many options as the PC software (such as gas usage calculation, connection to windows live, etc..) but who really needs them. But the iQue is extremely easy to use, especially in on the road environment. With a few buttons that allow the user to access all the necessary info.

Streets & Trips 07:
Pros:
Nice looking, clean maps.
Familiar Windows standard menus and navigation
Cons:
Maps do not zoom & rotate while driving.
Does not auto re-calculate if I make a wrong turn
Does not automatically start GPS tracking on start

DeLorme Street Atlas USA 07:
Pros:
PLENTY of options and settings
Rotates and zooms the map while driving
Shows next AND the following turn
Announces directions and street names

Cons:
The interface is way too cluttered/complicated to use while driving
Does not put the location on a the closest road. Driving around a mall today my location was in between a couple small roads screwing up the directions
Have to move the mouse to the edge of the screen to move the map around.

Check out this link to see what the iQue navigation screen looks like
http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/Palm/iQueGPS.htm#GPS

Neither PC software provides info like:
Trip odometer, max speed, average speed.

This post is hardly a decent review, more of just my opinion.
Can anybody recommend some navigation software thats as close to iQue software as possible?

By the way, I only used the PC software for a couple days, if some of my complaints can be fixed by options that I haven't found yet, please let me know.

Thank you,

Boris.

Cross_ · 01-12-2007, 05:01 PM

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.

Quote: 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.

mwmcginn · 01-12-2007, 05:26 PM

Good to see the analysis, I have both streets and trips 06 and Copilot Nav 9, Copilot is a lot easier to use, but it seems that Streets and trips has more data on points of interest, even though both are lacking, I havent used Copilot live, (I missed the cheap discount code) and now I wish I had it. It seems like a good product and it seems to have good support.

Cross_ · 01-12-2007, 05:53 PM

@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.

mwmcginn · 01-12-2007, 06:13 PM

Little experience, and there is little information out there. It does voice with names I think. I'll have to try some of those things out and get you more information, I have my car pc spread out through the car, so it gets used rarely so far, I have just been doing some testing with it. I'll give it a shot on your questions and let you know, but I dont have a front end yet.

cobase · 01-18-2007, 03:00 AM

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.

Queenambeach · 01-26-2007, 09:45 AM

Quote: 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?

cobase · 01-26-2007, 07:16 PM

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.