Rating: 
Summary: A little Outdated
Review: I find streets and trip easy to use. I like the feature of mapping many different points at one time. However it is outdated. There are many addresses I cant find. It only updates the highway construction but not new local housing areas. That is a big hassle trying to find a cross street close enough to where I am looking for.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but lacking in some ways
Review: I got this product free with MS Works when I bought a new PC. It sat unused untill recently when I started traveling a lot more and began buying paper maps. Suddenly I realised I had a good solution to my travel woes sitting right in my CD case. I installed it and so began my journey to gorwing to love and hate this product.
Learning to Use Streets and Trips can be a long and twisted road indeed. The interface is intuitive in some ways, but sorely confusing in others. There's no tool for centering/zooming so you need to manually center the map over the portion you want before using the zoom slider to zoom in or out or you'll lose your spot. The routes it gives are pretty good for the most part. Sometimes however it seems to give some odd travel suggestion. I occasionally find myself questioning the accuracy of the roads. On the bright side you can zoom RIGHT in, and see every contour and curve of the roads. This is nice. It even lists exact exits and will very clearly show you your journey down an off ramp, down to the circle and all. Many paper maps just show an exit without really showing you any conceptualization of what you'll be doing. This is good for people less experienced at traveling on interstates or who are going to unfamiliar places with "interesting" road layouts. However ocassionally these details seem a bit off, and when that happens it can be very vexing indeed.
I was disapointed by the shortage of information. I expected microsoft to create an all-inclusive product with a vast database. But sadly S&T 02 is lacking. It doesn't show speed limits, traffic statistics, city/town statistics, or anything like that. Maybe this is asking too much, but knowing where construction or road work is currently being done, or knowing speed limits or statistics could help in planning a more effecient route. Also when you're traveling to the country in winter and you're unfamiliar with the area, it'd be nice to know which roads tend to suffer worst from the elements or deer or well you get the idea. Or how about looking at a city that is on your route and seeing what the population or crime rate is... not vital info, but nice to know.
No, mostly this is about maps and simple directions, a one trick poney. And the route planning and other tools are sometimes complicated to use and many times lack features you wish they had included. I personally found it a little clumsy to use for making very precise routes. You will be able to find travel times and such, but the versatillity is lacking. Ask for directions and it gives you one route. No alternative routes or choices. Sometimes I want the fastest, others the most direct, and sometimes (such as during snow) I want all main roads... but S&T cant differentiate.
lastly... I found the things listed on the maps to be VERY poor. Only a small fraction of resteraunts, businesses, hotels, etc are actually shown!! And it doesnt clearly outline plazas... nor does it show important landmarks... all this is sometimes very helpful in navigating! I was shocked at just how many businesses were NOT shown on these maps. Phone numbers and addresses for those shown are included which is nice, but what good is it when the one you want is non-existant!? Sometimes entire malls are missing from the maps!
In short.. this isnt bad if it's only used for certain purposes. But it lacks in features, completeness, polish, usabilliity and integration of the features it DOES have. If it shows a theater on the map why not link to the website for the movie times for example. Or plan your gas stops for you? I could be expecting too much, but even just as a mapping tool, the occasioanl inaccuracies means you should always have paper maps, and/or use one or more online mapping services in conjunction with this product. It's nice to have this installed on a laptop with you in the car, and if you got it with works or with a new PC then you might as well use it. Other than that... you're probably better off using yahoo or mapquest in conjuction with paper maps and saving your money. Hopefully the newer versions will be imporoved and enhanced... but Ill have to check them out before I ever shell out the money.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice product, and fun to use...
Review: I have read the negative reviews about missing streets, wrong directions, etc. I wanted to add a positive review because I really enjoy this product.It is worlds better to use than online mapping software because of the expanded view and interactive zooming. You can drag your mouse and make a little square and zoom right into that area. There are many zoom levels. I like that I can also measure distances by using a tool that you can drag along the roads. It will display the distance as you drag and leave it on the screen so you can measure a different route for comparison purposes. One thing I don't like, and which may be the cause of wrong directions it has given others, is that it doesn't seem to have one-way streets listed. If there is a way to view this information, I haven't found it, and I have looked. I live in Boston, and this is an issue as most streets downtown are one-way. I have an HP Jornada 568 Pocket PC and have downloaded maps to it using Pocket Streets 2002, which comes with the product. Microsoft has some pre-fab city maps on their Pocket Streets website, which is nice, and saves you the time of creating maps. The install was very easy. Because the screen is so small and the map navigation isn't as smooth as on the desktop, I would not recommend using your PDA for driving directions, unless you pull over or memorize the directions. It seems to be more for fun or desperate situations than anything. The desktop software prints out nice big maps, which are useful to keep on the seat with you in your car for quick reference, as opposed to a street atlas with tiny little print. I have found myself spending time zooming around and looking at different areas of the map, finding new ways to get to work, etc. In summary, I would recommend this product to people who spend a lot of time on maps.yahoo.com or other similar websites. You will absolutely love the vastly expanded interactivity this product gives you.
Rating: 
Summary: Great product!
Review: I have used MS Streets and Trips for years and highly recommend it. When I travel to locations where I am not familiar and find myself easily lost, I pop out my laptop, fire up the Streets and Trips, type in where I am, where I want to go, and the software creates easy to follow directions. No more stopping and asking for directions. The software also has information about various landmarks (hotels, restaurants, etc.) along the way. This is a must buy for those who travel frequently and like to drive themselves around rather than taking cabs.
Rating: 
Summary: You Gain Some, You Lose Some
Review: I have used Streets & Trips 2000 for a while now and have loved it. So naturally when the latest release was touting new features like GPS support, I was eager to get it. When I finally did I was very disappointed. The new 2002 additions are nice but they took away my most time-saving feature from the older version. In the old version, whenever I was planning a trip lasting many days and needed to find hotels and see which ones were suitable for me I would use the "More Information" option when selecting a specific hotel. This would then give me all the features about the hotel such as; does it have a pool?, what are the rates, and so on. Well, now when you click on the "More Information" option all it does is give you the street address along with a link to some partner website where you can do your own searching to try and get more details. This feature saved me so much time in the past and now it's gone. At this point I'm ready to send it back for a refund.
Rating:
Summary: Who can live without MS Streets?
Review: I keep the Streets CD in my drive at all times because I use it just about every day. There is an incredible amount of data on this CD; it is comprehensive and accurate. Save yourself a lot of hassle and bother on trips, short or long, with this bargain of a lifetime. No more stopping at gas stations or yukky truck stops to get road information. It will pay for itself in a month. Microsoft has outdone themselves with this one. Buy it!
Rating:
Summary: Great for bike/run routes.
Review: I know I'm a minority but I got the program free with my Dell laptop and love it so much I keep it in the drive 24/7. In fact, for me it's almost worth the price of the laptop. I use the program to map and get distance on running and bicycling routes. I have found it to be very accurate when doing spot comparisons with my car and bike odometers. I set points at corners and get a route distance and have amassed at least 30 run or bike routes of varying length. If I could only make it do elevation I'd be thrilled but then it would cost [more money].
Rating: 
Summary: Pocket Streets: Great Idea, Great Disappointment
Review: I purchased Streets & Trips 2002 so that I could download state maps into a PDA. Installation and operation are familiar and straightforward. And maps download quickly to the PDA if you have a USB connection. But despite the fact that my PDA is equipped with a 128mB flash disk, Streets & Trips 2002 severely restricts the size of a downloaded MPS map file to a region that is about the size of Rhode Island, pretty much a joke out here in the Western US. The restriction seems more related to the size of the region rather than its density. Pocket Streets is useful for an urban area, but disappointing for a roadtrip.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth it.
Review: I read some of the negative comments and had to add a positive one. I had become an online map junkie. Everytime I needed to find directions to someplace, I'd check yahoo or vicinity. I really didn't think that I would need this software, and I thought it was a bit pricey, but I bought it anyway. Excellent choice. I found it very easy to use. Much easier than I remember some old Delorme software that I had used several years ago. I can type in the name of a restaurant, business or landmark or the actual street address to find a location. It is very easy to determine other points of interest in the areas. The maps refresh surprisingly quickly. You really need to try it to appreciate how much better it is than the online services.
Some of my friends are planning a trip to a city where I grew up. I used the web page creation features to post some maps to my website so they know of some cool places to go when they get there. It was hassle free. The maps may be outdated as the other reviewers mentioned, but it is still very useful. I haven't yet tried the pocket pc feature, nor the GPS.
Rating:
Summary: MUST HAVE IF YOUR GOING ON A ROADTRIP.
Review: I will be moving up to upstate New York and figured I'd take a few breaks here in there until I get there. Roadtrip. Excellent software that will let you map any roadtrips. Must have if your one of those people who always get lost and always end up asking the guy at the gas station, but never understand a word he says :) yeah you know who you are ;)
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