Jon Westfall
09-26-2007, 04:00 PM
<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-box.jpg" /><br /><br /><b>Product Category:</b> Mapping / GPS Software<br /><b>Manufacturer:</b> <a href="http://www.delorme.com/">Delorme</a><br /><b>Where to Buy:</b> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000PIFU7A/ref=ase_jasondunn-20">Amazon</a> [Affiliate]<br /><b>Price:</b> $36.95 USD<br /><b>System Requirements:</b> Windows XP / 2000 / Vista, DVD Drive<br /><br /><b>Pros:</b><br /><li>Price;<li>Route on desktop Or PDA;<li>No cumbersome copy protection / activation required.<br /><br /><b>Cons:</b><br /><li>Unpolished interface;<li>Unintuitive;<li>Unable to copy to storage card.<br /><br /><b>Summary:</b><br />GPS Mapping software for Pocket PC can be downright expensive! In addition, it usually includes no desktop interface with which to route and plan longer trips. Delorme Street Atlas USA 2008 provides not only a desktop interface, routing on the device, and map downloads to Palm, PPC, or iPod - it provides all of this under $40. But does it do the job right, or does the price show through in a mediocre job? <br /><br />Read on for the full review!<!><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Need For A Change</b></span><br />I've used Pharos Ostia since I first started doing any sort of GPS work on my Pocket PC. It came with my first receiver, and I've bought upgrades so I can always download the latest version and maps. Ostia is a great on-device navigational tool, but it really suffers when you're trying to map over long distances. If I'm planning on driving from Cleveland to North Carolina, I cannot simply plug in both destinations and map - Pharos breaks up the map files into too many small chunks and can't open them on the fly fast enough to map me through. It fails, miserably. I could download maps that are purely highway maps, but it annoys me that I'd have to do that when I already have the maps for all fo the states / regions in question on my storage card! <br /><br />Now don't get me wrong, Ostia is nice for around the city types of things, or when travelling to a far-away city that I'm going to be walking around in and need to find the nearest drug store, eatery, subway station, etc.... But sometimes I just wish I could take the route I plan on Mapquest or Yahoo! or Google, draw a loose border around to give me leeway, and export the whole mess to my Pocket PC. That way I can have my route over long distances, and have enough wiggle room to navigate away from serious trouble.<br /><br />While browsing through my local Target discount store, I found Delorme's Street Atlas USA 2008 DVD set. It was affordable, and it seemed to offer what I wanted. I grabbed a copy and was impressed enough that I wanted to share my experiences with the readers here and elsewhere. Now I'm not prefacing this review by saying that this software is the best thing since sliced bread, but I will say that for the price, you really can't complain. <br /><br /><span><b>The Desktop Component</b></span><br />Most of the mapping takes place on the desktop side. Upon loading up the software, you're presented with a fairly average map & splash screen, however you'll notice that the right side, top, and bottom are littered with options.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-fullscreen.png" /><br /><i>Figure 1: No awards for color schemes here! Brown backgrounds? Yuck!.</i><br /><br />So it looks a little utilitarian, and it won't win a design award for prettiest GUI for sure, but it's fairly powerful and somewhat intuitive. For example, when you want to zoom in, you simply click and drag your mouse around an area<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-zooming.png" /><br /><i>Figure 2: Drawing a zoom box.</i><br /><br />However zooming out is a bit more strange. You actually click and hold your mouse and drag to the upper left. A little series of black steps appears and the farther you drag up, the higher the step you climb, the more of the map you zoom out to. Not exactly what I would have designed (personally I'd rather have the map slowly zoom out while I drag, and stay put wherever I release!).<br /><br />Delorme includes the ability to draw directly on the map, which can be useful if you want to create a printout with certain spots highlighted. You can also display multiple routes on one map and toggle them as you'd like (good for planning out a vacation around a unfamiliar city - map everything before hand and bring up one day's routes at the same time, to see if you can re-order your schedule so you're travelling unnecessarily). You can also get a simple measurement of any two points, something I've been yearning for in the popular online map tools. Sometimes I just need to know how far it is from here to there, as the bird flies (or the Jon walks).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-measuretool.png" /><br /><i>Figure 3: How far is it from the freeway to the mall?</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-route.png" /><br /><i>Figure 4: 8 Miles by car! Hmm, perhaps it would be faster to just take the surface streets.</i><br /><br />Delorme obviously didn't think too much about UI design, so thankfully they included a pop-up tip help system. Normally I despise these sorts of things, but in this case, it's actually pretty helpful. Especially when clicking on a tool that the icon doesn't give any real indication what to do with.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-helptips.png" /><br /><i>Figure 5: A popup tip.</i><br /><br />Finally, Delorme includes one feature I haven't seen in other packages. Normally GPS mapping software can talk to you and tell you where you're at, but Delorme can actually be spoken to! Voice command lets you keep your eyes on the road and speak what you'd like to your laptop, and then you can quickly glance and safely go on your way or just listen to the response. For those who don't do all of their driving GPS use with a handheld (e.g. those who have laptop mounts and do a SERIOUS amount of driving), this ability would make for a nice lean setup - GPS receiver, laptop with built-in mic, and away you go.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-voicecommand.png" /><br /><i>Figure 6: Voice Command options.</i><br /><br />The desktop software included is functional, and will do many things you can't get from mapping online. However, it isn't the easiest on the eyes, but that's a fairly minor complaint. Now let's move into using your Pocket PC!<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Pocket PC Package</b></span><br />Delorme isn't like a traditional Pocket PC based GPS and mapping program in that you don't have specific map files to copy to your device (e.g. a map for a certain state or territory). Within the desktop application, you actually select and create a map for a specific circumstance.<br /><br />For example, if you're taking a long cross country trip, you can select only the areas that are adjacent to your planned route, or perhaps entire cities that you may want to explore on the way. By simply clicking on a grid superimposed on the map, you're able to select what parts of the map you want. From there, it's a simple matter of creating the map (which takes around a minute on average) and copying it to your device. By default, Delorme will copy it to your "My Documents" folder for the device and Activesync will transfer it over. There is no method within the software to specify the Pocket PC's storage card, which can be a problem. Thankfully, you can move the map files to a storage card later using Windows Mobile's built-in file manager. However, I believe the actual route files, which are smaller, still must be in main memory for the program to correctly see them. A bit of a pain - hopefully Delorme will improve this in subsequent releases to allow direct copying to the storage card.<br /><br />Upon opening up the application on the Pocket PC, you're prompted to select the map you wish to view and are then presented with a very zoomed-in view of the center of the map. After you figure out how to zoom out (thankfully the help file is easy to navigate; you have to use the up and down keys on the D-Pad for zooming, by the way), you can pan around the map by tapping and dragging.<br /><br /><img src=http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-ppcmain.png><br /><i>Figure 7: The main PPC interface.</i><br /><br />It's evident that Delorme designed the PPC interface to be useful while both driving and walking. You can route either by road or by direct route, and can even use the GPS to log your route for playback later. Routing is pretty interesting in the Delorme world. For a direct or road route you turn routing on, tap on your start point, and then tap on your end point. Yes, you can choose to find things if you don't know where they are on the map (e.g. house numbers, etc..), but for quick routing from here to there (i.e. "Get me out of this deity-forsaken town"), it's much easier to tap!<br /><br /><img src=http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-ppcloging.png><br /><i>Figure 8: Setting up GPS Logging.</i><br /><br /><img src=http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-ppcdistance.png><br /><i>Figure 9: Finding Distances on the Pocket PC Side</i><br /><PAGEBREAK><br />In addition to the normal routing functions, you can also search for Points of Interest (POIs) as you would on any other GPS software package. The interface here, like the rest of the PPC version of Street Atlas, is primitive, but it gets the job done. Throughout the entire time I've used the software I've agonized about the interface - torn between wanting something fancy and realizing that what I have does the job and is inexpensive!<br /><br /><img src=http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-ppcsearch.png><br /><i>Figure 10: Specifying a search.</i><br /><br /><img src=http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-ppcsearchresults.png><br /><i>Figure 11: Search Results.</i><br /><br />Of course, the software does include options for how to view your data and utilize the software. One option I particularly liked was the ability to specify how far I could be off course without the software yelling at me. In the past Ostia has complained if I take a newly built ramp (because it's too far from the old ramp) or if I decide that I need to take a parallel road to my route for some reason (e.g. traffic jam). It's nice to have the option to tell the device to have patience!<br /><br /><img src=http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/westfall/westfall-delormereview-ppcoptions.png><br /><i>Figure 12: PPC Options.</i><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>More To Review!</b></span><br />While I highlighted the Desktop and Pocket PC software in the Delorme package, it's worth noting that Palm users are not out of luck - the software comes with a Palm version as well. Heck, it even has the ability to create iPod maps that you can load up and use to navigate around with your musical buddy. Obviously the iPod lacks some functionality (it's read only), but still, you can't complain about having this functionality included in the base price.<br /><br /><span><b>Conclusions</b></span><br />Overall I've been very happy with the Delorme Street Atlas USA 2008 DVD package. For the price you pay, you receive more than the usual map & Pocket PC application, albeit a slightly less polished version of what the competition offers. But if you're a heavy traveller who needs to keep detailed records, plan multiple stops, or use a laptop in the car, this package should keep you happy!<br /><br /><i>Jon Westfall is a psychologist computer guru who lives and works in northern Ohio with his wife & cat. In his spare time he attempts to find a dissertation idea and update his website, <a href="http://jonwestfall.com">JonWestfall.Com</a>.</i>