Review: Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009

Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 - the newest version of this trip planning and GPS navigation software is here. Download a free 60-day trial version now, and share your first impressions with other users here in our Streets and Trips forum at Laptop GPS World. Tell us what you like or dislike about this newest release.

What's new in Streets and Trips 2009:


Free trial version

download (free trial version)

Kudos to Microsoft for offering this free trial download! As far as I know, no other software developer offers free download of a trial version of trip-planning software, or laptop GPS navigation software. And this is not a one week or one month trial, either. Try Streets & Trips 2009 for 60 days!


Map data


Streets & Trips 2009 has approximately 12 months fresher map data than the previous Streets & Trips 2008 version. The road map is now based on © 2008 NAVTEQ data.

I see a huge improvement in Mexico map coverage. While the address find feature is still not functional for Mexico, the country now does contain street-level map coverage for even many smaller towns. Are you planning a vacation in Mexico soon? Microsoft Streets & Trips 2009 is the only consumer GPS product that I'm aware of, that actually includes navigable map data for popular tourist destinations including locations such as Acapulco, Ixtapa, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta.

I briefly checked the major online map services, but none of them (including Microsoft's own Live Maps) contains as good map coverage for Mexico as Streets & Trips 2009. More on Mexico: Mexico map coverage in Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008 vs. 2009

Thanks to Terry (a.k.a. tcassidy) for pointing out that his home town, Ladysmith, BC, Canada, now (finally) has street names:

Old version of Streets and Trips 2008:


New version of Streets and Trips 2009:


There are still smaller towns in Canada that show no street names on the map of Streets & Trips 2009, but it is nice to see that the situation is improving each year a little bit. Keep up the good work, Navteq!




Europe

There is a version of Microsoft Streets and Trips that includes street-level map data for Europe. For more information on the product read our review: Microsoft AutoRoute.

Voice direction prompts that include street names

Previous versions of Streets and Trips would simply say: "Turn right", the new version of Streets & Trips 2009 will say: "Turn right on Main Street".

"Pan" and "Select" tools

Tao wrote the above when he first tested Microsoft MapPoint 2009. The same functionality is now in Microsoft Streets & Trips 2009. S&T Team wrote an article about this feature: Where did the "Pan" and "Select" tools go on the Toolbar in S&T 2009?

Automatic re-routing

First introduced last year in Streets & Trips 2008. Most users liked it, but some users said they wanted the ability to turn it off. Microsoft understood the concerns involved, and the new implementation of this feature in Streets and Trips 2009 allows users to turn in off, or keep it on.

Integration with Live Search


The Streets & Trips 2009 built-in POI (points of interest) database contains approximately 1.6 million POIs. However, if users of Streets & Trips have Internet access, they may use this Live Search feature to search much larger database of POIs online, and the POIs will be displayed on the Streets & Trips map.

This feature was included in the previous Streets & Trips version, but the geocoding was quite bad - at least in my area. I tested this issue in the new Streets & Trips 2009, and I'm glad to say the geocoding seems perfect now.

Genealogy, anyone? The above picture shows a successful search result for cemeteries. The "Find nearby places" feature doesn't have the cemeteries category, but the "Live Search" feature in Streets & Trips is not limited by the "Find nearby places" categories. I don't know the exact number of POIs in the database, but I suspect the number is quite large. I've tested products with 12 million POIs, and I was unable to find many of the POIs I can easily access now.

Navigation map view (3D-view)


This feature was introduced in Streets & Trips 2008. It was then called "Perspective map view". There were problems with it, and the feature didn't become popular. Issues reported by users have been addressed by Microsoft, and the feature is usable now. It works as it should.

This feature is optional. Turn it on if you like it, Don't use it if you don't. I personally do like it. The first picture above shows Streets & Trips 2009 with the feature off, and the second picture is me driving home with the feature on.


The following are random new items located in Streets & Trips 2009 Options:


There is no longer the need to visit online communities to read about rumors of upcoming update. Your Streets & Trips 2009 will automatically notify you when Streets & Trips 2010, or Streets & Trips 2011, or Streets & Trips 2012 becomes available.


Remove the check-mark if you just cannot stand Microsoft Anna mispronouncing the name of your street.


I see truckers, RVers, and others sending thank-you cards to Microsoft for not making the auto re-route mandatory.


This feature will make many people very happy! Start GPS when program starts! Finally!



GPS trail - problem fixed

Create GPS trail feature was introduced in the 2005 version of Streets & Trips. There was a known issue that caused map refresh problems on long road trips. This has been corrected, as reported by Larry in another thread. I tested it while driving on a highway for several hours, and the feature indeed appears to be working flawlessly in the new Streets and Trips 2009.

Entertainment Online


Microsoft added integration with Entertainment Online to download their discount coupons into Streets and Trips 2009. To learn more details about this feature, please read Find Money Saving Coupons Easily in Streets and Trips 2009.

Streets & Trips with Connected Services has been discontinued










This is a better implementation of this feature. Latitude and longitude are always visible in the new Streets & Trips 2009. Users no longer need to enable Location Sensor.

Versions











Buy

• Buy Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 - Buy this one if you already have a compatible laptop GPS receiver, or if you use Streets & Trips for trip-planning only (without GPS receiver).
  

• Buy Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 with GPS Locator - This package includes a USB GPS receiver.
  

Other reviews:

Review: Microsoft Streets and Trips 2010



Questions? Comments?

My UMPC (and only my UMPC) offers to speak street names with either Mary or Anna (with Mobile PC) I am going to try S&T 2009 on this device to see if Mary is better than Anna.

I know I could test with MPC but I need an excuse.

Terry

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Pretty light on POIs in my area. One listing only for Ladysmith. I bet iNav could beat this. But at least it finally has street addresses for here.

Oops! I didn't have second page selected. It adds the Royal Bank and Ladysmith Inn. Oh well.
Terry

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I'm going to try the 60 day trial. I would be buying it when released anyway.
The thing I notice most from the review is that so many of the new items are Microsoft reacting to feedback from user's complaints and suggestions.
Kudos to Microsoft for listening and responding.

Glenn

Terry, the only text-to-speech engine that my Windows Vista laptop has, is Microsoft Anna. I tried Microsoft Mary few years ago (she came with MS AutoRoute), but I still liked Anna better. However, there are better text-to-speech voices I've heard. Some may be purchased online, but I've never tested any 3rd party TTS engine with Streets & Trips, so I don't know which ones are compatible.

Is Streets & Trips 2009 the very first S&T version to include street names for Ladysmith, BC? Navteq seems to be improving map data each year a little bit.

Glenn, yes, kudos to Microsoft for listening to Streets & Trips users, and for all the fixes and improvements in Streets & Trips 2009. The release of the 60-day free trial version was a big and a pleasant surprise, too!

Marvin,
You haven't been listening to my diatribes (and who can blame you). S&T 2009 is the first version of this program to include street names and addresses SINCE S&T 2004.

I know I live in a backwater underdeveloped area but they don't have to keep reminding me.


Terry

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It looks pretty good on the UMPC at 800x600 but the Navigation area should be adjustable. It shows the adjustment cursor but it doesn't work.

Terry

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hi everybody

Strictly speaking, 800x600 is no longer a supported resolution. Notice the System Requirements are now 1024x768. This is unfortunate, I feel, as UMPCs and netbooks become more popular.

In future versions, I hope there will be some tweaking of text-to-speech so that common highway abbreviations are not mispronounced. SR-27 is currently spoken as "Senior twenty-seven", and US-1 as "Us One." It's not that hard to fix this -- just do some preprocessing of the text with regular expressions before sending it to the TTS engine.

Yes, the best this UMPC can do is 1024x600 and the navigation bar does not get much smaller at that resolution. I think 800x600 is the best compromise between clarity and screen waste though.

Terry

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This is very disappointing news. Why has this decision been taken? Were there simply not enough sales of the product in Europe?

It seems that since S&T and MapPoint Europe are to be continued as usual, surely doing an Autoroute build with the European maps would barely take any time at all.

Are there any other decent desktop route planning apps for Europe that people can recommend instead?

If you buy Garmin's City Navigator Europe, it comes with a desktop planning program called MapSource on the DVD. It does not have all the features of Streets&Trips but it is decent. Garmin uses the same Navteq data for its North American maps that Microsoft uses. Garmin also uses Navteq data for Europe. I don't know what Microsoft uses.

If you decide to investigate this option, phone Garmin and ask whether you can use MapSource with the maps without having a Garmin navigation device to unlock the maps to. Garmin has the annoying habit of only unlocking their maps to one of their own nav devices. With the North American maps I've got, if you don't have a Garmin device to unlock them to you can't even look at them on the desktop in MapSource. They may have a different policy with the Europe maps. It's an email to their Product Support or a free phone call to their toll-free support line.

...ken...

Decided to download the 2009 sample.
To a large extent, the new version looks good.
I use mine S&T for pizza deliveries. I have trailed every street in my area because many of the 2007 streets were either missing or not aligned to where I travel.
I have also used the pushpins to note house addresses.

My reaction after looking at one of my work maps, is Thank God I had custom pins. The Pin set is down to very few. I had used the S&T 2007 numbers to indicate the hundreds digit for the house numbers. And created my own set to go from 00 to 99. (I had created my own because the S&T set only went to 50.)

The other pin set that was removed, that I was using, was the letters. Since the text box obscures the map, I did not like using it. I would put a letter pushpin at the end of the new or missing street, based on the first letter of the street name.

It would have been nice, if there was a simple way to import the images. The solution I came up with is to put the desired pushpin image on a map. Copy the map image into an editor. And crop the image down to a 16x16 pixel image based on the pushpin.

One thing that I would have liked to have seen was to be able to rotate the text box. This way, if it is used to name a new street, it can be aligned to the street. Or, better yet, you have a street naming option. Or, it may have to be a way to have a street name on a line.

As mentioned above, I had trailed all the streets where I deliver. But, the memory use was creating significant display lags. So I redrew the lines using the draw line feature. So longer streets may have 30 points or so, instead of thousands. Being able to have the name appear on that line would be nice. Or better yet, having some way to designate the line as a routable street, with a name, would be perfect.

I have barely looked at the 2009, so I am sure I will have more comments later.

John

theorange, the discontinuance of Autoroute is a business decision. With Mappoint Europe, you can sell it to globalized corporations at €300 a copy, so it is just a matter of producing a new build and stamping out DVDs, like you said.

But Autoroute costs far less, and to a first approximation, it has decent sales figures only for one market: the UK. French and German sales are about 1/5 of that, judging from Amazon sales rankings. Streets and Trips is already a small product by Microsoft standards. Autoroute, then, would be merely tiny. At some point, someone in product planning apparently decided that it was no longer worth the hassle to continue selling it.

Hi Cypriot, Welcome.

Marvin:
Your review of 2009 S&T is great. Did you use the trial version for the review?

Ed