Review: Microsoft Streets and Trips

I'm not comparing S&T vs AR. It's the same product - AR 2010!

Since my previous post I've found where MS US is selling AR 2010 and the price is still USD 39.95:

Microsoft AutoRoute

Oops. No they aren't. It's still AR 2007.

On this page:

Detailed Driving Directions for Europe Using AutoRoute 2007

it talks about AR 2010 but when you click on the Buy Now button it takes you to the page linked above which only talks about AR 2007.




Andrew Watson

Would love to win this to update from S&T 2008.

It'd be nice to win a copy of this for a friend...

Thanks for the very comprehensive coverage and screenshots of all this for Microsoft Streets and Trips 2010...I have been trying it out until the trial expired and felt that it was quite accurate, but needed a better receiver connected to it than a Garmin handheld with serial NMEA. Now, I am giving a copy of DeLorme Street Atlas USA 2008, that I had found for $29 packaged with their USB GPS receiver, a run on my laptop...I do agree that Microsoft Streets and Trips 2010 is definitely easier to use for the first-time user, or someone who has used vehicle-based GPS NAV, like the Xanavi GPS NAV system in my 2004 Nissan Quest.

I like the product, but I still have the original GPS receiver for the first version of S&T that had it available, so a newer and better version would be nice to have and as a pensioner, I hate paying :-) so I hope I win.

Does anyone know if the "night map" setting changes the appearance of the GPS Sensor Pane in 2010? It hasn't in any version up 'til 2009. Are we still stuck changing our display properties in Windows? And will that actually work for the sensor pane? I'm not sure it does in S&T09... I'll probably download the trial to see for myself, but if anyone knows offhand...

No it doesn't change the colour of the GPS sensor pane. However, you can close the pane.

Terry

Thanks Terry - BTW, your rig (from the member's picture albums) looks an awful lot like where I want to get mine - especially the mounting position of the HP tablet (I have a TX1420ca - I think it looks a lot like yours) = Got any closeups or details of that mount? What's your source?

Jonathan

HP TX 2110 and RAM Tough Tray II.
I have found it is still too far from me to see and manipulate comfortably. Unfortunately that is the best I can do with a display that size and the pickup truck layout.

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I am a first timer to onboard mapping. I have used other maps.---.com sites alot, so I am really excited about S&T.

Walmart is offering S&T 2010 w/GPS for $50. Target has a Garmin 205W for $99. Seems S&T is loaded with capabilities . You touched on the strength of the GPS-168 on page 1. Is there any reason to believe the S&T option will not work on the road as well if not better than the 205W?

If you use a longer USB cord to reach the dash, would it help/hurt reception?

The length of the USB cable won't hurt signal (unless it starts getting ridiculously long, like 25 feet or more - just move closer to the front of the bus!) and a moderately short extension will usually improve reception (away from the laptop is gooder - even as little as 6" is enough to get noticeably improved reception).

I've had no experience with the Garmin unit you mentioned, but have found the S&T units to be quite the bang for the buck, and have rarely had issues with them in the field.

Depends on what you mean by "work ... as well if not better".

If you want to know if the MS GPS receiver is as good as the one in the 205W, the answer is Yes. You won't notice much difference as long as you get the MS receiver up on the dash where it can get a good view of the sky.

The answer is more complicated if you're talking about usability.

If you just want something that's dead simple to learn and use to get you from where you are to someplace else, like a gas station, donut shop, hotel, car dealer, hospital, etc. and that's super easy to set up when you get into the vehicle so that it's easy to see but not in the way of your driving vision or other things, you can't beat a personal navigation device (PND) like the Nuvi.

PNDs generally come with an automobile dash mount of some sort (or they're cheap to buy) that will position the screen so it's easy to see without taking your eyes off the road but it's not in the way of your view of the road. They have a simple touchscreen interface that makes it simple to find addresses and other points of interest (POI) and get driving guidance to them. It takes a couple of seconds to snap them into their dash mounts and off you go.

Streets&Trips is great if what you want is rich trip planning features. It's super for that sort of stuff. Even without the rich feature set, just the large screen of a PC makes it so much more usable than the small screen of a PND when you want to do planning for long trips.

However, the realtime navigation functions of Streets&Trips are nowhere near as easy to use as a PND. Finding a place to mount a laptop or tablet or netbook in your vehicle so you can see and operate it safely without it getting in your way is quite anothe set of problems. The larger your vehicle, the easier it will be to find a useful and safe mounting location. The smaller the vehicle the bigger the problems for mounting and using.

...ken...

The full version of this program would be neat to win for navigation in my car with my laptop!

Streets&Trips sounds doable in our little CRV. I have been doing some reviewing on the interface. Even though I have a tablet laptop, without a touchscreen interface it seems I may need access to the keyboard to use some shortcuts (i.e. spacebar) during the realtime navigation. I am also going to need to make sure I can actually see the screen in the daylight.

I have an '07 CR-V and my previous "car" was a '00 CR-V. In addition to making sure you can see the screen in bright daylight, you will also have to decide what part of the central instrument cluster you are going to make inaccessable. There's no way to mount anything bigger than about a 5" screen anywhere on the dash. That makes in front of the radio and heater controls about the only place for a bigger screen. Which means you have to take your eyes completely off the road if you need to look at the screen.

If you will use your tablet for navigation you will also need to make sure you can hear the voice guidance. Some folks have difficulty getting enough audio volume out of their portable computers to hear over the road noise and have to resort to external connections, e.g. headphone or external powered speaker or connection to the car radio if it has an AUX input.

...ken...