Well, I picked up Microsoft Streets & Trips 2005 with GPS reciever a few weeks ago. It was on sale for $79 at CompUSA regular retail is $100-$119, included is a Pharos GPS receiver and a USB cable.

I've used Streets & Trips 2002 and 2003 and found that they were reasonably well at producing route maps and it's much better for getting a general overview of an area than Mapquest could hope to be. I've also used earlier versions of Streets & Trips to build route maps for drives, it's cumbersome but it does work.

I had hoped that with the addition of the GPS receiver the program would be significantly more uesfull for route planning. My thought had been to fire up the laptop, connect the GPS receiver, have the software track my route and then convert it into driving directions... Well, it'll track the route, leave a pretty little tail showing where you've driven... trouble is you can't do anything with it. There is absolutely no way for you to do anything other than save the map with the GPS tail on it. I've spoken to Microsoft about this, and they have confirmed it. So strike one...

Navigation: This version, like previous versions of Streets & Trips makes good Triptik style routes, it computes accurate directions and you can print out the directions with turn by turn maps, a overview map of the entire route, or both. However, this version like previous versions is notorious for telling you every so often "Turn Left (or right) onto Local Roads" when it doesn't know the name of a street, a problem that Microsoft has yet to address after multiple versions of the software. In this day of in car navigation systems, both aftermarket and factory installed, you would think that if you purchased Streets & Trips 2005 with GPS Receiver that you would have an instant navigation system... and you would be wrong! There are no voice prompts, no visual prompts. All that Streets & Trips can do with a GPS receiver is tell you your speed, altitude, lat and long, show your position on a map, and draw a useless trail to show where you've been. Strike Two!

No strike three... but a foul ball...
As in previous versions Pocket Streets & Trips is included for the Pocket PC, and it's hobbled by the same faults.

The bundled Pharos GPS receiver has lots of accessories available for it. If you bought the Pharos Navigation Software for Pocket PC, you would get the very same GPS receiver, plus a Compact Flash Adapter, USB Cord (also with Streets & Trips) and some other goodies, but the Pharos Ostia nav software is terrible. The bundled receiver is compatible with all of the other Pharos accessories, so I decided that it was time to upgrade to bluetooth and I picked up the bluetooth adapter for the recever and the cost would work out to the same if I had bought a Bluetooth GPS receiver. I'll use it with my ALK CoPilot Live on my Pocket PC which I already know works well...

If you're looking to upgrade to Streets & Trips anyway, and have other uses for a GPS receiver, and can get the bundle at a decent price... go ahead and get the bundle pack... However, there's better GPS hardware/software bundles out there, I'm sure of it... (There can't be much worse!)

 

Guess this is one I won't be buying any time soon. I'd really like a GPS that can memorize (and replay) routes I drive... is that so much to ask?

 

you might want to try DeLorme for that. ......it has many of the same features as Msoft., but has voice and visual command queues.....although, I have not tried either of those features yet.

 

Yeah, that's actually the software I'm thinking about. I love their maps. Anybody have their software and care to comment?

 

My HP Ipaq 4155 has bluetooth and 802.11b built in.

Figured that a GPS device would be nice to have with the Ipaq since I didn't want to shell out $1700 for the Mini Navigation System and would have been really ticked to have to give up the center speedo - too classic Mini to part with.

So I started doing some net research and came up with the Belkin GPS unit (bluetooth) as one of the best solutions out there. It's 3" deep, 1 1/2" wide and 1 1/4" high. It has a rechargable battery, comes with a power to USB cable, an auto adapter/charger (that the usb connector plugs into) and an AC adapter/charger (that the usb connector also plugs into). It comes with two software CDs with all of the US and Canada maps included. After you install the software, you run the map loader application and choose the maps you want to put on the Pocket Windows system. I have a 512MB SD card in the Ipaq and the maps I've downloaded to it take around 160 MB. I think I loaded DC, VA, MD, DE, PA and WV. You can reconfigure the maps at any time. I'm going to get a 1GB SD card (or two) and put several sets of maps on them.

They also include a version that works on a bluetooth capable laptop or PC. Got a USB to Bluetooth adapter and it works like a charm on my Sony laptop too. The fact that it has PC and Pocket PC fully functional versions is a plus.

The only issue I originally had was the price ($399 list) but I used www.pricegrabber.com and found it for $147 plus $5 shipping. They shipped it ground and it arrived in two days.

So far it has been stellar. It's simple to enter a destination address, the software gives voice directions.

Destinations can be entered using state, street then street number, intersection, points of interest, contacts (from the contact list), favorites or recent destinations can be recalled.

When you deviate from the route, the unit recalculates directions to your destination.

You can set the method for routing (quickest, shortest, major or local), you can enable or disable reducing turns, you can include or exclude toll roads and you can include or exclude car pool lanes. You can also set speed alerts. You can also record GPS routes that you travel.

The unit will display your current speed, remaining time to destination, your ETA and distance to destination.

So far, absolutely great. This morning I had to drop my Mini off at 8:00 AM to have the CD changer and alarm system installed at Myer-Emco at their Baileys Cross Roads shop. I had to drop it off early so one of my co-workers could give me a ride to work and drop me back at Myer-Emco on her way home. I live in Herndon. I came down the Dulles Toll Road, onto the beltway and to 50 East. Then the problems started. It took me 25 minutes to get from the Beltway and 50 to Graham Road. At that point it was 8:00 am. Checked the GPS for possible alternate routes, turned onto Graham Road, the GPS unit told me to make a U-turn in 300 feet, I kept going, it recalculated the route and directed me to a side street route to Route 7. Worked like a charm. It was definitely great to have since I had no way to know the back roads routes.

Sweet unit and a lot cheaper than the Mini one. Now I'm only waiting for the suction cup winshield mount holder for the PDA to arrive.

The PDA was $399 when I bought it (had it anyway), the GPS was $152 delivered and the suction mount for the winshield was $20 plus $5 shipping. Not bad for $177.

I also picked up the Microsoft Streets and Maps 2005 software but I think it is junk for GPS. You have to set up routes, export the maps and ship them to the pocket pc. Really lame. Not very good.

Any questions, PM me.

 

I got the Bluetooth sled for the GPS receiver that came with the Streets & Trips 2005, loaded my ALK Co-Pilot Live software onto my Ipaq 4155 and with little difficulty am using that for navigation when not in the MINI, or when I just want to play. I'll still use Street's and Trips for route planning, since you can export the directions into any MS Office program for editing the text very easily.

While I can't take GPS tracks created in Co-Pilot Live and convert them into directions, everything else works well.

I had been using the Co-Pilot Live on a Toshiba e-740 with a Compact Flash GPS receiver. This solution worked well, except for added cables in the car and the fact that the Toshiba never had enough free memory for the text to speech to work combined with a screen that was only slightly better than a monochrome Palm.

Plus Co-Pilot Live has a remote tracking feature if you choose to use it. This was something I couldn't take advantage of with the Toshiba, but works great with the Ipaq and bluetooth phone. If you turn tracking on and configure an internet connection people who you have shared your user ID and the web info with, can log onto a secure website and see where you are, where you're going, modify your route (with your permission) and send you short messages, it even reads the messages to you so you don't have to take your eyes off the road when a message comes in! As for responding to messages, if the message sender wants/needs a response they also supply possible answers which are displayed in big bold selection boxes on the screen. Touch the box to send the answer.

For example, Patricia could send me a message "What do you want for dinner?" with the selections of Chinese, Burgers, Italian, Seafood. I would just hit the selection I wanted to respond.

 

might be worth a try

 

I've got the Pharos and Ostia. I've found the Ostia to work extremely well with one glaring exception. It tracks well, voice prompts, re calcs routes on the fly... BUT

Even if I load all the maps for a state or several states into my SD card, Ostia can't and won't access info on a map unless I manually load it. The maps are named for counties or cities they are around. So I have to know what county some town is in in order to search for a address or set it as a destination.

I.E. if I have the DC, MD-Baltimore, and No Virgina maps loaded and look for a address in Mount Airy it'll just tell me it doesn't exist until I guess which map that's on and load it into RAM manually. This is even though that map is in the same directory as all the others and 'installed'.

Likewise if I drive off the current map it only continues onto the next one if I load it by hand even though it's installed.

Is Co Pilot any better in this regard?

Thanks!

 

Michael is the person who can best answer, but as far as not fiddling with it to make it work well -- I say Co-Pilot does that. I'm opposed to having to play with it much at all -- and I find once I get it set-up, I'm good to go.

Now, how it works like that --- don't ask me. My "tech advisor" would have to answer.

Hope that helps,
PB

 

Picked up a Garmin c330 on Monday. A few of my friends have them, and I really like the feature set. Just my two cents...

 

Picked up a Thomas Guide. $14.99. I will usually throw the wife in the car for voice navigation. She also let's me know when I am doing something wrong.

 

Goaljnky: If your wife is like my wife, it's a very bad nav system. I want one that doesn't scream at me all the time.

The two best pda nav softwares appear to be On Course Navigator and Iguidance. I bought Iguidance because it would also work on my windows laptop, was a bit cheaper, and didn't have the copy protection of OCN. I had some hardware problems with my pda at first, but after I figured them out, it now works great. Gets me everywhere and is easy to use.

Only thing I need is a better mount for my mini. I have a window mount, but it's badly designed to have the dc electrical adaptor at the bottom of the mount, so it won't sit flush on the dash. Thinking about a better mounting solution. Would love to hear recommendations.

 

This thread was quiet for so long I deleted my subscription to it a few weeks ago...

Mark,

I've never had an issue with it opening maps automagically. However, I've never tried to open a map on my PDA in an area I'm not currently in. For tasks like that I typically use my desktop (or laptop) as the interface is much easier to use.

However, I have downloaded my route and then a map of the surrounding area around my destination and after leaving my route Co-Pilot used the other map on it's own. With Co-Pilot you have several options to download a map. The first is routing, this will download the route you travel and a corrider that by default is 10 miles wide along your route, with the route it will also download the maps in a 10 mile radius of your start point and 20 mile radius of your endpoint. The size of the route corridor and the maps at the beginning and end of your route are customizeable.

The second option is to download a map out to a distance you specify from a city or address. This results in a map with a circular coverage area.

The third option allows you to download a map of an area you select using box centered on a city or address. You adjust the size of the box, and everything within it will be downloaded to your PDA.

If you had asked me this question a few weeks ago I could have loaned you my Co-Pilot software to try out... You can install and run it in "demo mode" for 4 days without purchasing it. All the features are active in demo mode, the software just times out after 4 days. Check with Paul! as he also uses Co-Pilot.

Lots of people like to brag about the fact that they can use a paper map and/or a human co-pilot and save a chunk of change over an electronic nav system. Except that they miss several benefits:

• Map and Human co-pilots usually aren't very good at locating and directing you to local points of interest like gas stations, ATMs and the like.
• Maps and Human co-pilots can rarely give you an accurate measurement of your progress... i.e. how much farther and how much longer.
• An electronic system is safer, especially when you don't have a human co-pilot. The electronic system will provide you with voice prompts, warning tones, and large easy to read text to give you guidance instructions reducing the need for you to take your eyes off the road. By yourself with a map or mapquest directions? You're constantly looking at your papers to track your position and figure out when to make your turns... Your more distracted.
• It's pretty much impossible to get an electronic system lost... It's not real hard to get a person lost... Which leads to the last benefit...
• Family harmony. Driver isn't yelling at co-pilot because they're lost...

 

I hear you on all of those, but.... we ride around in Minis and getting lost is sometimes more fun than getting there.

 

Update: I just checked and they offer competitive upgrade pricing! Woohoo! Only on certain recent products but I can get for $99 instead of $249!
-------------------------------

It sure sounds like Co Pilot handles the maps much better. I appreciate the info.

I'm a old Street & Maps fan, I used that on a full size laptop in my van. Too bad they STILL don't have routing, just follow the highlighted line. Never liked that in traffic. I do REALLY like Streets & Maps for pre planning, and wish they had a PDA part with routing to go with it.

Thanks again for all the info!

I'll check their site to see if a demo is downloadable, else I'll check with Paul! He did mention once that he had another demo I could try but I didn't recall which one it was,

Fair winds!
Mark

 

BTW... Co-Pilot also makes a full laptop version as well as a PocketPC version...

 

If anyone has questions about CoPilot, let me know.

Also, if you have the Pocket PC version of CoPilot, PM me and I have a Mini theme for it.

[size=2]Robert Raia
Technical Support Supervisor
CoPilot Division
ALK Technologies, Inc.[/size]

 

Added voice prompts (on laptop) and ability to output a map to PDA, and track on PDA if you have GPS on that... It doens't do voice nav on the pda I think, just the laptop.

Got it for $14.99 after rebate at Costco.

I'm thinking it'll be good for club drives with convoluted routes. Normal GPS routing software is a pain to input a run into. I'm hoping to hightlight a run route on the PC and otput the highlighted map to the PDA, with GPS racking on that.

I'll let all know how it works.

 

Paul uses Co-Pilot for the runs, he actually sticks the waypoints into Co-Pilot, so you could just get him to e-mail his route to you!

 

Yup, I do! I have about a half dozen routes saved that I followed (or lead!) along with. I'll throw them onto a CD and pass them over.

-Paul!

 

I'm curious to see how you like the new streets and trips. I have streets and trips '05 and don't really need to upgrade, but I just bought a bluetooth gps. I would like to use it with my tablet, and/or pocket pc.

I know you said there's no voice guidance on the ppc version, but does it give you any guidance?

-Andy

 

I JUST exported a map to the PPC. As it turns out it only exports the map and push pins. No route or highlighting, much less guidance. It's a map only with your pushpins and current location highlighted. I'm going out in a bit and will test the tracking. I've always been a big fan of S & T for planning.

I really like the way routing works on the desktop / laptop now. Once you've reated a route you can just click and drag the route over to use another path and it'll adjust instantly. Before you had to click and create points then add to the route planner, then recalc the route. Now it's just click and drag.

I'll load it up on a laptop tonight and take the full version for a road test tonight or tomorrow.

I'm seriously looking at going the 'carputer' route. 7" touch screen video for PC is really reasonable $ compared to those in dash DVD thingies. I've seen one very clever MINI install already.

Looks like a 7" touch screen is about $250 - $400. This give up to 1600 x 1200 resolution. The carputer home brew craze is pretty amusing. You have potential of higher res than a PPC, more apps, doing multi media, etc.

I'd like to do GPS, and music primarily, with WiFi to access the carputer when in the home garage to update music etc. I was day dreaming about WiFi transfer of MP3's to a car stereo a few years ago, now there are decks that do it. Mucho $$$ though.

Some folks go pretty far including ODC-II support for virtual instruments and the like.

I've more research to do...

 

I didn't get the Nav.... I have something called "photographic memory"
I can look at a map or directions a few minutes and it'll stick in my head like glue.

I have looked into getting a receiver and software for my PDA though. I got to get the car first though. Just a few more weeks!!