DeLorme Street Atlas 2008/2009 vs. Microsoft Streets & Trips

Ok now for this trip from AZ to MT via Vegas and Denver, my wife and I are swapping seats and I will be the driver and she will be the navigator. She has to plan everything from A-Z on Delorme SA2009 and Microsoft ST2009. And here are the comments that she has for you.

About her: not a computer buff, uses internet to check mails, browses Google maps and uses Google street view to know the place better as she does most of our driving.

1. Go to the edges of the map, once “grabby” shows up, select the map and pan it slightly north to see the places in South. Without leaving the “grabby” keep panning. "What the… I don’t see any details on the map, until I leave the “grabby”.

Streets & Trips has the smooth effect while panning or zooming and it is fast in showing the tiles. I don’t see any delay and feel that I am using a paper map.

2. I wanted to search for an address and it took me 5 minutes to figure out ‘how to search addresses’. I went to FIND tab, it showed me keyword search and when I searched for ‘293 East Wickenburg Way, Wickenburg’ and it showed me error alerts . And then I tried Quick Search and entered the full address here ‘293 East Wickenburg Way, Wickenburg, AZ 85390’ then it separated the address and showed me another area. Now what? Then I clicked the search button and it did not search that either. Then somehow I made the search to work and now it gives me a range of addresses and not the one that I was looking for.

And in Streets & Trips, ‘293 East Wickenburg Way, Wickenburg’ was a direct hit. Man!!! I call that “The mapping program”

3. Travis told me how to select grabby and keep it on always as I am so much used to that in google maps. I still have the grabby selected and I can see some restaurants on the map. So I wanted to get some details on these places. So I clicked on them and viewed the Info tab. Hmmm, not details are shown for the businesses that I am looking for. Don’t know how I can get the addresses of these businesses that are shown on the map.

In Streets & Trips, it was so easy for me to just do a right click on the businesses and see the details of them. From the reviews Travis learnt how to zoom and pan in ST2009 and it really helped us

4. Ok, now let me add the start point to the route. My husband told me that I can just right click on the map and do that. But I don’t see anything happen when I right click. Travis was pretty sure it used to work maybe it is broken this year.

Streets & Trips on the other hand did what my husband said ‘Delorme would do’. Good that we have ST2009 for this trip.

5. And I also noticed that in ST2009 I was able to add points in much easier ways. And I tried the same thing in SA2009 and it sucks to see the experience that I had with the Delorme program.

In Streets & Trips just click on the car icon on top and bring the ‘route planner’ tab. Now click the desired location on the map and you see it listed in the route tab. Now you just select ‘Add to route’ and each and every point gets easily added to your route. And I tried the same thing in SA2009 and it did nothing like Streets & Trips.

Now I am totally pissed off with SA2009 and plan to use ST2009 for my trip. We have made the complete planning now using Streets & Trips with Stops, fuel stops, places to stay, places to visit enroute, and …... with just 2 days I have cleanly drafted 20 days of activities with Streets & Trips. Now we hit the road and don’t turn back. We also took some printouts of the maps and itinerary because we are running a trial version of the software. I am hoping this program will work till we reach Montana. We will post a review when we reach our destination as we don’t have any source of internet during our travel. With areas avoided and 24 stops added we have a route with 3459.4 miles.

Long way to go, I will update with more comments from my wife once we are there. I am sure she will have some more notes to add.

- Travis

Travis, please say hello to your wife, and thanks for sharing the thoughts. Enjoy the travel, and keep posting more info.

I hope you enjoy the trip, Travis, but I think the results of the trip would be more appropriately posted in the Streets&Trips forum. User interfaces are very much a matter of personal preference. For every person who likes Streets&Trips you'll find another one who finds Street Atlas easier to learn.

And then you'll find people like me who don't think much of either one of them.

You are definitely wise to make sure that your wife has one that works for her. If Momma's happy, everyone's happy.

...ken...

Very true! Recently actually a user mentioned that most of people he knows in RV communities actually use DeLorme Street Atlas.

I last used S&T 2004. The "lay down" of a new "popcorn" was too slow as compared to SA. When I wanted to make a certain turn, I would drive past it before it showed on the screen. Once I had 2 S&T, 2 SA, & 1 topo on my car laptop at the same time. And yes I've had 2 laptops on in the car at the same time With a serial port feed & a usb fed. Is S&T now faster than it used to be? GEO

Hi Geo,

There obviously been many many improvements in Streets & Trips since the 2004 release. I would encourage you to take advantage of the 60 day free trial of S&T 2009 from here and let me know what you think.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with multiple laptops and GPSes going at the same time Nothing wrong with a second opinion.

Larry

Hi Larry, Thanks for the info. I have dialup & to download would take 47 hours!! But I might consider buying. I've never tried running a mapping prog. from a thumb flash drive. What is your opinion about getting it into the drive etc. etc. I use & compare IBM thinkpads T30, T42, T43, & DISKTOP. I HATE wide screen. In the car I built a turntable stand in the consul middle & velco the pc into place. I like my old T30 best because of wire etc. placement. Yuh, need to be able to get my foot on the gas.
Suggestions welcomed. Thanks, GEO

Yes, absolutely correct! Those early versions refreshed GPS position only once every 15 seconds!!! That rendered the product completely unusable for GPS navigation.

I think the reason for refreshing only once per 15(!) seconds was a Navteq licensing limitation. For Microsoft to implement real time navigation (to refresh GPS position more often), Microsoft would have to go to a higher level of licensing with Navteq, but that would cost more money. (Larry, if he wishes to, may shed some more light on this now a historical fact.)

Starting in version 2005, Microsoft did implement, for the first time, refresh rate of once per one second.

DeLorme, using it's own map data, is free to implement any features it wants. For example the excelent Street Atlas feature that lets users draw their own routable roads on the map of Street Atlas would not be possible to implement in an inexpensive consumer product like Streets & Trips, without Microsoft having to pay more money in licensing fees to Navteq.

Each of the two products has its strengths and weeknesses. Some people feel S&T (Navteq) map data may be better in some geographical areas, and some people say SA has some better features. Some of us like to have both programs installed on our laptops.

Hi Marvin, That is what my feble memory told me...15 seconds. Sixty MPH = 88 feet /second, 15 sec = 1320 feet, = 1/4 mile!! I sometimes have that problem with my tiny Delorme USB feeding a laptop that I did not have (I think ) with a serial port Garmin 12XL back with windows 2000....change in interrup in XP. What are your thoughts of using SA or S & T on solid state usb instead mechanical HD for high speed roads & rough off road usage? Yesterday I was driving on figure 8 roads in East Hartford that were made in 2006 that were not on SA2009. With a thumb drive I could put on the roads & transport to any PC that I was using at the moment.
GEO