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Topo USA 4.0

Topo USA 4.0

List Price: $99.99
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not as up-to-date as one would hope
Review: Just purchased Topo USA 4.0 Mountain States Region for $39.98. This is a good product, but the maps are way out of date. For example, I live in an area that is over 6 years old and still does not show up in the maps -- period. In fact, I'm amazed how out of date these maps appear. My little old Microsoft Streets & Trips 2004 is much more up to date. That's a shame because Topo USA 4.0 gives me the layout of the land, elevation, etc. It believe it also will update it's screen about once a second from my Garmin GPS while Streets and Trips updates about once every 15-30 seconds.

If Topo USA 4.0 had maps as up to date as Streets and Trips, It would be 100% better IMHO. As it is now, I have to continue using Streets and Trips because I do need to locate streets that have been built within the last 6 years. I am quite disappointed actually. I have already spend more than $300 on DeLORME mapping products over the last 3 years and each time I find some problem that makes the product half as useful as it should be. They should tell me on the cover of the CD how old the maps are because this is silly to have such old maps.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A whole nation of maps, but functionality is pretty rough
Review: This review may only help those of you with a GPS, or perhaps those of you with a long history with Windows. I own a Garmin eTrex GPS and was looking for a topo basemap for it rather than the default basic basemap that comes with it. I bought Topo USA because it claimed all sorts of GPS functionality and it covered the entire country. I also liked being able to use the 3D to visualize environments.

It turns out that I've been very frustrated with this product, but still had some fun along the way. Topo USA does not have base maps, but will supposedly transfer waypoints, routes, and tracks. I created a trail in Topo USA, (then had to fight the software by exporting the trail as a text file, then reimporting it as a draw file before I could send it to my GPS because Topo USA will not allow you to send a 'trail' to your GPS)sent it to my GPS (it said it was successful) then didn't see it in waypoints, tracks, routes, or on the map in my GPS! I still don't know where it went after trying it about 5 times. This could be my due to my own ignorance, but if so, some hints from the software on where to find stuff would be useful.

This software has some cool features, is fun for navigating around in 3D, and allows you to print maps with your custom trails or little icons if you're willing to search through the interface for the tools you need. The interface, however, is what I would expect from a 1.0 version of software. By version 4.0, things should be much cleaner with more intuitive behavior and simpler to use tools.


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