Delorme Mapping Street Atlas 2005 for Handhelds

Rating:
Summary: Outdated software
Review: Delorme Handheld 2005 is claimed to be a full-featured navigational package. Instead, it does the following:

1) Creates routes onboard the handheld.
This is good, but it takes a ridiculously long time. I would be surprised if it can calculate a long route at all, since attempting to plot a 10 mile route on Molokai, HI (an island 38 miles long with 3 highways total) took almost a minute.

2) Cannot re-route automatically
(probably because it would freeze it up for a long time) Instead it announces: "off-route" and waits for you to press a button. If you're off route, most likely you're busy driving in an unfamiliar territory and probably shouldn't be trying to click an on-screen circle.

3) Cannot announce turns descriptively.
Instead it says "bear right", and leaves it at that. You can read the street on screen, and you'd better do that, because it seems to announce the turn a mile in advance, but sometimes there is less than a mile to go, so you really have no idea which "right" it's talking about.

4) Maps are COMPLETELY inaccurate.
OK, I'll admit, I haven't used the maps it came with. I used Delorme TOPO 5, and exported vector maps from that. Technically it should have the same street data.

I tested it in an area I know well. Sometimes, the street you should be on is nearby (you're between streets), other times - it's not. Sometimes I really have no idea what it's showing me - it shows me in a forest, or in some small neighborhood while I'm actually on a highway. As a result, it's constantly announcing "off route". I click the "re-route" button and it plots a route from a "forest area" :)

(Note: all other software I've used accurately displayed my on-map position in this area)

5) Map paging.
This is pretty bad (or maybe I'm spoiled by other software). The map is stationary while you're moving, and pages over once you reach the edge of the map. Not before. Basically, you don't know where you are going until the little arrow reaches the edge of the map, and it recenters.

6) Voice prompting on routes has to be turned on manually.
(Maybe if I read the manual I would have known that sooner)

7) The good:
-Street maps are displayed with good contrast.
-There is a collapsible status line which tells you what's happening and is good as a running log for figuring out what the program is up to (or what's wrong with it)
-Moving and zooming map is relatively quick.
-It has track logging which is hopefully compatible with desktop Delorme products

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Notes:
Hardware: Mitac Mio168 (Navman PIN 100) - Pocket PC2003, 300mhz
Other comparable products I've used:
-Mapopolis
-IGuidance
-Navman SmartST

All of these are better hands down. There are no features I can think of that Delorme offers that these do not, and everything Delorme can do these do better.

In fact, the only reason I even bought this was to display TOPO maps from TOPO 5.0 while I'm on vacation in Hawaii. It remains to be seen how well it can handle that.

Rating:
Summary: Most horrible mapping software - total waste of money for me
Review: I got this software because MS Streets and Trips for PocketPC did not deliver on its promise, and Mapopolis is excellent, but very expensive software.

I cannot believe that Delorme has released a software of this poor quality. Its amature at best, an alpha release if at all.

What bothered me:
1) Map creation on the PC took too long - almost 15 min for an area about half the size of NJ. Maps created are huge too, but that's ok.

2) This software fails to even load the PC generated map - I tried to coax it to load a map of entire NJ and NY states and it choked.

3) Once you get to load the map, good luck finding landmarks. I tried to find World Trade Center, Empire State Bldg etc. which are obvious landmarks recognized by other software and this one has no clue where they are. Not only this, it cannot even find the building I work in when I give it the exact US mail address!

4) GPS functionality is good. Map resolution is good. But if you want to move (pan) the map around its awefully slow. Mapopolis is blazing fast at this. I had to figure out how to zoom in and out as well - not intuitive and not very good at all.

5) Tracking - this one beats me. The thing does not keep track of your vehicle on the map while tracking. It knows where u r since its telling u about the distance to the next turn etc., but I cannot see the red dot on the screen moving (at a very appropriately zoomed in level). There might be a way around this, but if I have to spend time to figure out such basic features, this is not worth my money.

6) Voice prompts are weak, I have to strain to hear and understand what its saying. Directions are mostly way off as well.

7) Does not recalculate the route, and when u press the recalculate button, it takes for ever. You can get lost more while its recalculating and ofcourse the generated directions are no good now since you are several miles from the place when u hit the recalculate button!

8) Map generation in general is extremely slow. Took about 5 minutes to generate a route of about 10 miles. Mapopolis takes about 30 sec to do this in the demo version.

For the money wasted, I do not regret my purchase, if only for the learning experience!



Rating:
Summary: Get the desktop version
Review: I love Street Atlas on my laptop, so I decided to try to miniturize it and stick it on my handheld...bad decision. The handheld software is horrible. Nothing like the desktop/laptop version. The user interface is horrible and the software lags constantly on my Axim X3i (400 mHz X-Scale and it lags). There are much better handheld navigation software titles out there, especially TomTom Navigator (in my opinion the best handheld navigation program out there). Street Atlas is a waste and I cannot recommend it to anybody.

Rating:
Summary: Worst handheld application ever!
Review: I've been developing software for over 30 years and have never seen (and spent money on!) a worse piece of commercial software!! It's not even good enough to be called an Alpha version! If the developers ever used this software on a road-trip, I'm sure they're all dead by now since it's so badly designed that it's actually a danger to anyone that uses it!

Here are just a few things to hate about this program:
1) Selecting map rectangles in the desktop app is slow and anti-intuitive.

2) The handheld software draws maps very slowely, if at all!

3) None of the controls on the display are intuitive. I tried for hours to figure out how to make the icon that represents the car, stay in the middle and have the map move. Still haven't figured it out!!

4) Trying to route to an address is impossible!

5) The map display doesn't even have the names of many of the smaller side-streeets.


There are many more, but you get the idea. I've used Garmin's excellent "City Select" software and found it to be excellent. My Garmin GPS got broken so I bought an NMEA-standard BlueTooth GPS and wanted to get a mapping/routing program that would be similar to City Select. This definately ISN'T it!! My next purchase is i.Guidance from iNav.

I used Street Atlas USA many years ago and loved it. Maybe the laptop version of 2005 is better, I don't know. The handheld version totally sucks though. Shame on Delorme for ripping loyal customers off like this!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Actually ZERO stars
Review: In addition to the incredible slowness on the handheld, the accuracy is awful. It is not just the handheld version. The laptop version suffers the same bugs. The maps are simply not calibrated right. It was often as much as 1,000 feet off. This is not only suboptimal, it's outright dangerous because it keeps distracting you by telling you that you're off-route.

The only good thing about this junk is the return policy. DeLorme has a 30 day no questions asked guarantee. Of course, you're still out the tax and the cost of shipping it back.

Avoid it like the plague.