Eartha Global Explorer DVD

Rating:
Summary: This is excellent !!!
Review: Eartha Global Explorer never took off because
back when it was released nobody's pc had the
hardware power to run it at its best.
Today on my P4, it is absolutely fabulous!!!
Just think about it, a single dvd with the entire
world, in high resolution, also containing
the major roads of every country. Amazing!!!



Rating:
Summary: Global Explorer falls short on details
Review: It's impressive list of features may not work on every machine. Although I was initially amazed at the 3D map of the world, the 2D travel routing never functioned on my machine despite repeated contact with tech support. I found their tech support personnel friendly and prompt to respond to email, but they were unable to help correct a problem with a DLL file that kept it from running on my system, even though my system is far superior to the minimum requirements. The DVD installed a version of MSJET35.DLL that the software refused to recognize.

The road maps are fine for city to city travel, but lack the street level detail available in many competing products. Due to the DLL file problem the guided tour and local information features would not work.

More detailed maps and travel instructions are available through web based travel routing sites.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing, for the price
Review: We used this product to navigate a small plane 9,000 miles throughout the US and the Caribbean (Bahamas, Trinidad, ABC's, & home). Extremely helpful. Helped in pre-flight planning, primarily. Provides great circle distances between airports, as well as tourist info along the route. One draw back, we couldn't figure out how to load it onto our hard disk, so had to use the CD version, which required an external CD reader. That problem could be overcome by a computer whiz, no doubt. One can hook a cheap GPS to it to provide real-time position info.