Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: Microsoft had a really good mapping product with Streets 2000. With 2001 and later, they came up with "MapPoint", and besically Streets & Trips is MapPoint with all the useless demographic mapping features stripped out. This program is worthless. Any features that are useful from and end-user perspective are gone. There are practically no configurable options. Absolutely no changes have been made to the code base in three versions no, and the program is plagued with useability issues. One of my personal gripes is that with this "MapPoint" based version, the mouse wheel, commonly used to zoom in/out, jumps so far in/out on each adjustment you don't know where you are.. The routes that it decides are the best are not necessarily the best, the Location Sensor doesn't support many common formats of longtitude/latitude (You'll care about this if you have a GPS and want to manually enter / get coordinates).. Pushpin management is practically gone, now there's "data sets" for which you have no real way of manipulating groups of landmarks, pushpins, routes, you've created, etc. Microsoft needs to just throw away MapPoint, pull out the code-base for Streets 2000 and update the map. Streets 2000, like I said was the only decent product for mapping that they had.
Rating:
Summary: Disapointed
Review: Microsoft Streets and Trips 2004 should be called Microsoft Streets and Trips 1992. There are many streets missing in this program. There are streets in my city that were built 3+ years ago that are not in this program. I do not recommend.
Rating: 
Summary: Who needs AAA?
Review: MS Streets & Trips is an easy to use, intuitive, mapping/route planning software that covers the entire US and most of Canada. Although there are free mapping/route planning websites out there (Mapquest, etc.), they are nowhere near as fast or as versatile as Streets & Trips. I was going on a business trip to Tucson, Az and needed to find my hotel. With Streets & Trips loaded on my notebook PC, I simply typed in Doubletree, Tucson and in an instant, it pinpointed the location. Printing was a snap and planning the route from the airport to the hotel was so intuitive, there is little need to refer to the software manual. After a few minutes of playing around with the menus, search interfac, and map navigation, the features become quite evident. Streets & Trips really is the next best thing to having a Nav system in your car. I highly recommend this software, you'll never need to go to AAA for a map again.Pros: fast, intuitive menus and functions, easy printing, decent directions for route planning.
Cons: Some locations are not quite pinpoint accurate but will get you close enough to find your way.
Rating:
Summary: This will get you from here to there with little trouble.
Review: Planning a trip? Tired of bad direction from those internet sites? Want to be able to find places to eat, get money and have fun along the way? Microsoft new release of Streets & Trips 2004 may be just what you need. This is a 2 cd application, the first cd is the setup and installtion cd, while the second is for the data. The data cd is very up to date and accurate, being that it list the street I live on and several interent sites do not. Also I found the number of things you can add to the map to be a fairly large assortment of items. Fomr bank ATM's and resturants to amusement parks and historic sites. You can also uses a "Pushpin" to mark the places of importance as references for other maps and trips you plan. The application has a very useful and easy to work with router planner, I was able to plana trip and then go back and make modifications without any real trouble. I also like the ability to enter personal data into the system, giving the application a more freindly appearance. Finally the maps are printable, which makes the travel a little easier to handle. Also the application I tested had the ability to run on the Pocket PC. I think that this application should ne ported over to other PDA devices, and this can handled in furute updates. Also they could find a way to have this work with GPS systems as well. Overal if you are looking to get from point A to Point B, Street & Trips 2004 should help you get there without making a wrong turn.
Rating:
Summary: This will get you from here to there with little trouble.
Review: Planning a trip? Tired of bad direction from those internet sites? Want to be able to find places to eat, get money and have fun along the way? Microsoft new release of Streets & Trips 2004 may be just what you need. This is a 2 cd application, the first cd is the setup and installtion cd, while the second is for the data. The data cd is very up to date and accurate, being that it list the street I live on and several interent sites do not. Also I found the number of things you can add to the map to be a fairly large assortment of items. Fomr bank ATM's and resturants to amusement parks and historic sites. You can also uses a "Pushpin" to mark the places of importance as references for other maps and trips you plan. The application has a very useful and easy to work with router planner, I was able to plana trip and then go back and make modifications without any real trouble. I also like the ability to enter personal data into the system, giving the application a more freindly appearance. Finally the maps are printable, which makes the travel a little easier to handle. Also the application I tested had the ability to run on the Pocket PC. I think that this application should ne ported over to other PDA devices, and this can handled in furute updates. Also they could find a way to have this work with GPS systems as well. Overal if you are looking to get from point A to Point B, Street & Trips 2004 should help you get there without making a wrong turn.
Rating: 
Summary: Bluetooth GPS Support
Review: Pocket Streets 2004 includes support for Bluetooth GPS units. I have tested the Socket Bluetooth GPS unit with this version. It now allows you to select Com Port 8 for use with the GPS unit. I have experienced a problem with my HP h2215 IPAQ PDA refusing to turn back on after using Pocket Streets 2004 with the Socket Bluetooth GPS. A soft reset was required to restore operation. Bluetooth GPS support was my primary reason for upgrading.
Rating: 
Summary: Great until you try to use it
Review: Streets & Trips 2004 crashes every time I try to find a particular address. MDAC 2.8 and Jet 4.0 Service Pack 8 didn't fix anything. Nice software, Microsoft. What is it that you do again?
Rating:
Summary: Great until you try to use it
Review: Streets & Trips 2004 crashes every time I try to find a particular address. MDAC 2.8 and Jet 4.0 Service Pack 8 didn't fix anything. Nice software, Microsoft. What is it that you do again?
Rating: 
Summary: Great Map Software, Improvements over S&T 2003
Review: Streets and Trips 2004 is the third version of Microsoft's popular map software that I have owned and reviewed. This latest edition offers both major and incremental improvements over its predecessor. It is vastly superior to online map offerings and other map software that I have owned. For more information on how S&T compares to competing products, please look at my previous reviews for 2002 and 2003. Specific Improvements for 2004 include: 1)Real-time GPS
2)Drive-time zones (show me where I can go in X minutes)
3)Arrows showing one-way streets on maps
4)Markers representing exists on major highways Apart from these improvements, there appears to be an increase in accuracy. However, Microsoft doesn't seem to have a good method of removing long-defunct restaurants from its points of interest database. What it is lacking: 1)Integration with real-time traffic
2)Map and location data updates via the Internet
3)Paths for pedestrian and bicycle travel
4)Coordination with other online map services, such as municipal door-to-door public transportation travel planners
5)Better integration and standardization of imported data so data sets like health clubs and WiFi hotspots could be included in the points-of-interest database at the user's choosing. In general, the absence of connectivity is my biggest complaint. However, I would guess there is no business model for this as it would have to be supported by user subscriptions or advertisements, neither of which would be accepted in the marketplace. As a final note, I recently tested the real-time GPS as a passenger with my Deluo USB GPS receiver. It is operates smoothly and with [apparent] great accuracy. Unlike OEM navigation systems, it doesn't include real-time direction, speed and travel status. Perhaps this is intended as watching the screen as a driver would be extremely dangerous. Nonetheless, it was helpful for finding obscure locations in rural areas.
Rating:
Summary: Good program, but don't bother upgrading
Review: Streets and Trips is the best mapping software I've used - and I make a lot of maps. It's easy to use, generally gives good driving directions, and makes great printed maps. I much prefer it to using online maps such as Mapquest or Yahoo. That being said, there isn't much new in the 2004 version. I upgraded from 2001, and there are really no new useful features to speak of (a few small things, but come on, it's been *three* releases since 2001!). The only major improvement I've seen is that the maps have been updated with some road changes around here and I would assume some of the business listings have been updated as well. Bottom line: if you don't have Streets & Trips, this is a good version to buy. If you have S&T 2001 or later, don't bother upgrading.
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