Community Forums

jphansen · 09-13-2006, 12:32 PM

Hi,

I am currently using the Delorme trip stuff. Earthmate GPS, Street Atlas mapping, running on my laptop.

I am getting more and more upset with it. Many of the street are wrong, (even my 2 year old paper map shows the streets correctly but not my mapping software.) I do not like the way it saves files. I can't seem to get it to give me more than one trip at a time. I would like to plan several trips and call up the one I want without deleting the others.

I like running on the laptop with the larger screen, but would consider a hand held if it did the job.

Has anyone used any thing else that they like? I am looking for alternatives.

Thanks

jphansen · 09-13-2006, 12:32 PM

Hi,

I am currently using the Delorme trip stuff. Earthmate GPS, Street Atlas mapping, running on my laptop.

I am getting more and more upset with it. Many of the street are wrong, (even my 2 year old paper map shows the streets correctly but not my mapping software.) I do not like the way it saves files. I can't seem to get it to give me more than one trip at a time. I would like to plan several trips and call up the one I want without deleting the others.

I like running on the laptop with the larger screen, but would consider a hand held if it did the job.

Has anyone used any thing else that they like? I am looking for alternatives.

Thanks

BlauMax · 09-13-2006, 01:35 PM

Delorme was my first.. I didn't care for it.. Didn't like the laptop booted up all the time in he cab.

Bought a Garmin Street Pilot III and like it quite a bit. It's about 5 years old and has an "outdated" City Navigator but it works great. The CN is relatively inexpensive to upgrade.. and if I don't sell it.. I'll likely upgrade.. but not sure it's worth it as streets in city's don't change for all intents and purposes.. unless you are likely to need new subdivisions.
I'm going to sell it (if'n y'er interested

)and purchasing a Garmin handheld that I can use on my m/cycle; b/cycle and other portable needs.

If you are interested in a handheld.. and you belong to Costco, they have a great bargain on Costco.com (only-not in stores) a Garmin 76Cx for $339+shipping. That's a big bargain.. really, but, only if you are interested in a handheld.

Edit.. forgot to mention.. Costco sells a Magellain in the stores. Looks pretty nice, but, I'd get online in one of the newsgroups where the guru's hang out and ask questions. I hang at alt.satellite.gps and sci.geo.satellite-nav. These, if you don't understand, are newsgroups and not websites. You may have to contact your ISP provider to ask how to get these made available to you. Some ISP's make them avail w/o asking.

NeilV · 09-13-2006, 01:55 PM

You may want to consider a GPS cell phone as alternative. A friend was showing me his which he uses all the time for his work and it looked impressive. Can't remember the provider off the top of my head but it did seem promising. He had a dash mount for it to keep it in a usable location.

**Petro** · 09-13-2006, 03:36 PM

I am on my 4th upgrade with Delorme. I have no problems saving different routes or reloading different ones. My biggest complaint is they are not up to date. We have a new 4 lane road built south of the old 2 lane road. The old one was renamed. This all happened almost 4 years ago and they still don't show the changes. All the state road maps do.

Don

Kablewizard · 09-13-2006, 04:38 PM

We have a Garmin 2620 dash type mount, that I have bout the adapter and cables for that I can take on our motorcycle. My brother in law has a new cell phone with GPS. A few weeks ago we wherein New Mexico for our sons wedding . Both units proved very useful, but when we were in Santa Fe he kept losing signal and missed a few turns . the phone was able to recalculate, but he pays a fee to use it.

There are a lot of GPS units out there from a $100.00 up to over 1000. The choose is yours. I would get the GPS for its portability and voice operation of the full size make it easy to drive you don't have to look at it to use it. Check out a demo and get one you can afford with what ever features appeal to you.

jphansen · 09-14-2006, 03:31 AM

GreatWhite, thanks for the web sites. I will go lurk there and see what is happening.

I really do not want a hand held. The screens are very difficult for me to see and hard to program. (I currently have 2)

The cell phone sounds nice but again the screen is small and the cost is high. We are in areas that do not get cell coverage a lot.

Thanks everyone for the input. I will continue to read and see what comes up.

Thanks again.

Cruzer · 09-14-2006, 05:42 AM

I prefer the laptop screen myself. I also like to lay the routes out on my desktop and then send them over the LAN to the laptop. I've been using Street Atlas since - well, forever I guess.

When I switched to SA 2005 I wasn't very happy. A number of issues surfaced with that version. I did a few registry hacks to patch some of them but in the end I went back to SA 2004. Unlike SA 2005 the SA 2004 revision does do multiple routes. I thought about trying SA 2006 when it came out but there really wasn't anything new to it of any substance and I was a bit leary that it would have many of the same issues as SA 2005. Plus, Street Atlas generally doesn't keep up with the route revisions so the same errors are present 3 years later as when the roads first changed. Therefore, why upgrade?

chasfm11 · 09-16-2006, 09:20 AM

Mark, I agree with your assessment of the persistent inaccuracies in Street Atlas. I started with SA2004 and went to SA2006. I thought that 2004 was actually more accurate but couldn't prove it without a lot more work than I was willing to put into. The user interface in 2006 was a big improvement and the 2007 version that I loaded just before our big trip was even better.

We drove 2,921 miles on our trip. SA was only really off a couple of times and never significantly. The response time improvement was worth the upgrade costs ($37 I think). Maybe we were just on roads that are more accurately mapped in SA2007.

Cruzer · 09-18-2006, 05:43 AM

From what I understand there are only two databases out there so the chances are that if I were to switch to MS Streets and Trips I'd get the same out of date road data. Still, I'll keep an ear out for other SA2007 users to see if they've found any improvement over the years. I do like the ability to preplan trips on Street Atlas and have'nt had any real issues with the out of date roads affecting me. At least , not yet.

Footloose · 09-18-2006, 06:08 AM

I have been using Delorme SA for years but the last two versions were error prone and the interface was becoming more and more user-unfriendly(complex).
I just finished a 3000 plus mile trip using the current version of Microsoft Streets & Trips and can report that the software had absolutely no routing errors ANYWHERE. I use it with a Garmin Street Pilot III which has the prior version of City Guide on it. Streets & Trips was showing roads in many many areas where the Street Pilot was showing Blank & Driving ##.
The user interface is different from SA and there are a number of shortcuts which I liked in SA that are missing but the map database is excellent. As an example, there is no easy way to do a reverse route or start a new route from your current GPS location. You have to manually delete stops and go through a cumbersome re-route procedure.
If Microsoft listens to users and continues to improve the interface, it will give Delorme some serious competition.

Rich & Zara · 09-19-2006, 09:49 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by NeilV:
You may want to consider a GPS cell phone as alternative. A friend was showing me his which he uses all the time for his work and it looked impressive. Can't remember the provider off the top of my head but it did seem promising. He had a dash mount for it to keep it in a usable location. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
The provider is NEXTEL ...the cell phone is called Nextel Plus GPS. Even if you were to get that particular phone, I believe you are getting two separate pieces of electronics within one case, the cell phone and GPS, both working independently from the other. In other words, Nextel is not providing you with the GPS information.

Rich

Summit · 09-22-2006, 12:38 PM

Does anyone know anything about the Microsoft streets and trips GPS for a laptop? I seen one at wal mart today with the gps receiver and the software for 118.00. I like the idea of having it on my laptop, easier to see.

chasfm11 · 09-23-2006, 01:09 PM

Summit, the Streets and Trips program for the laptop works about like the Delorme Street Atlas in that you get a GPS antenna with the package and the laptop has routing information and can display the GPS location. Many have expressed their belief that Streets and Trips is easier to use than Street Atlas. I guess it comes down to personal preference.

We just completed it a 2,900 mile trip using Street Atlas 2007. I'm very comfortable with the user interface on it and like the voice response and voice recognition that it offers and Streets and Trips does not.

BTW, Street Atlas with the GPS antenna was $99. at Best Buy.