Customer Reviews

DeLorme Earthmate GPS LT-40 2010

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I received the new Earthmate 2010 LT-40 as a gift and installed it on a ASUS 1000HE netbook computer. Was concerned after hearing of others having problems, but am very pleased that I can report it worked for me out of the box, did not need to read manual or instructions, although I have no experience. I set up address book of places that I wanted to visit (zip codes work best for finding addresses), from and to addresses, reviewed the map routes, program generated directions and looked over the surrounding area, then installed the USB GPS which had no problems in 2D or 3D consistently receiving 7 to 10 channels of data, and drove the routes that I had planned. Voice directions worked fine, path history, automatic recalculation when I missed turns all worked well. Great product, easy to install and use at a very low cost. Nice gift to go with a netbook computer.
Update 10/21/2009: Used the Earthmate 2010 on the ASUS 1000HE recently on a 5 day trip to the Chicago area. Also carried a large foldout map as backup. Visited several dozen places during the day and some at night from north of O'Hare airport, to south of Midway airport and east to the shores of Lake Michigan. Never had to use the fold out map at all, which would have been very difficult at night, and even worse if lost. Earthmate worked very well to get around the maze of freeway connections, ramps, construction, and even some very poorly marked roads on the outskirts. With Earthmate always knew where I was, the GPS receiver consistently maintained lock even among the dense buildings in the city, and position lock acquired in seconds after the ASUS 1000HE was powered up.

This is a fabulous system. I've used Microsoft's Streets and Trips for years including trips from Vancouver, BC to St. John's Nfld. and Boston, Ma and back. Then I just finished a trip to the Florida Keys using DeLorme. No comparison.

With DeLorme the GPS is integrated right into the system. Thus it can tell you when you are off your chosen route and adjusts the route to get you back on course.

Also it has voice! When you're travelling alone it's not a good idea to be continuously looking at the laptop on the passenger's seat to see when your next turn is coming up. The voice warns you well ahead, and then just ahead so you have time to get into the appropriate lane and then can make the turn at precisely the right spot - not a block ahead or late.

The voice is accompanied by a very large billboard showing the distance to the next turn and it's direction (left or right). Thus, if you don't clearly hear the voice prompt, a quick glance tells you what you need to know. It's an "active" system, tracking your position vis-a-vis your plan and making sure you stay on track - not a passive one simply showing you where you are and letting you go right by your turns without a peep.

And I love the "find" feature. While driving down to the Keys I needed a Post Office. So I just asked the system to watch out for one. If you ask it, it will only look ahead so it will never suggest you turn around and go back; a great feature. As I drove along, its "radar" scanned ahead every three minutes, found the Post Office in Long Key, and guided me directly to it - with voice prompts. Easy as pie.

As I said, a great system and I think I'll be using it from now on.

Being in the mortgage and real estate profession, over many, many years, have found DeLorme's map software to be the best around... This is the first time i've decided to use their GPS, and it works great... It's more of a backup to my Tom-Tom GPS, but when i travel out of town, i always have my laptop, so i can use DeLorme... BUT... The best feature of DeLorme, is the street/block numbers: all you have to do is drag your cursor over any particular block, and it will tell you the block numbers... Really nice if you have a really long street, and your looking for a particular address... BTW... This has nothing to do with putting an address in for the GPS... This is just part of the software.... Try that on Google/Mapquest/etc. maps!!!

I upgraded my laptop to Windows 7 64bit and the GPS is not recognized when I plug it into the USB port. After not finding a Windows 7 driver on the Delorme site, I emailed them asking about the availability of a Windows 7 driver, and got the following response:

"As of right now there is no release date. Unless there is a change in schedule, one will not be available in the future for Windows 7."

It appears that Delorme is not a good choice if you ever plan to upgrade your OS.

Obviously I can't comment on how well the unit works.

The Earthmate GPS LT-40 by DeLorme is NOT a new product, in fact it's been around since at least 2007 when I bought mine. It came bundled with DeLorme's Street Atlas 2008. Also, users of Vista or Windows 7 should be aware that the LT-40 is software specific to DeLorme applications only, it will not work with any other software. Also, there are considerable problems with running the software and using the device under 64 bit versions of these OS's. Do not, under any circumstances, download the DeLorme Serial Emulator onto any machine with a later OS than Windows XP 32 bit SP2, as it will simply generate repeated errors until you uninstall it.

Word from DeLorme on the emulator, application, and hardware issues is that they have no intention of addressing these issues, per their tech support and web site. In keeping with their trend to intentionally fall behind the rest of the industry in these areas, I've discovered their maps are at least a decade out of date, and again I'm told there are no updates or corrections to deal with these errors.

I recently purchased this to use with my Asus Netbook. I read one of the reviews in which someone had purchased for same reason and application. I only paid about $50.00 on amazon, and figured I had nothing to lose at that price. It was easy to configure with the netbook. Run the disk with your external driver, plug in unit and you're up and running. I have not worked much with the GPS's but do have technical/electrical backgroung. The biggest fault I found with this unit is the slow receiver. It takes too long to link up with the satelites. Delorme says to expect 10 start up at times. It has taken longer than that many times. Unless you go out, start vehicle and gps, go back inside and have coffee for 20 minutes, you're GPS more than likely won't be ready to start working when you are.. When it DOES work, it seems to be relatively accurate. The other thing I did not like is it does not show the cross roads when traveling rural (which is most of my driving). In cities it is pretty good, but out in the country, it only shows the picture of roadways with limited labeling. I have the 2010 software, so this is really disappointing for new software. I have a Chevy Tahoe, which has adequete windshield slope to get a clear signal with unit. I have been reading reviews of other GPS's, and it seems some of the other expensive GPS's do not show cross roads either, so I felt a little better by that. I think with todays technology, all that info should be in view on your screen. I just noticed that this GPS went way up in price after I bought it. I would not recommend it for that price. Go for another one that links faster. I wish I knew which one to recommend, as that would be the one I buy. I still gave it 3 stars because of amazon's good service and the unit does do a decent job, when it links up. By the way, if you take off while the unit is trying to acquire satelites, you can plan on 30 minutes to an hour for it to completely be full 3D linked. If you are dependent on GPS, skip this one and keep shopping. If you can get it cheap and just want something to play with, it might be ok.

I purchased this product as a gift for my techno-challenged brother-in-law. We installed it on his HP notebook that is running Windows 7 and plugged in the gps antenna. It took approximately 15 minutes for the initial acquisition of the gps signal inside the house. Acquisition in his truck with the antenna on the dashboard is even quicker. Once satellite aquisition was obtained, I moved the antenna 3 feet away from it's original position and the map showed the blip moved, even only 3 feet of movement showed up on the map! He took the notebook and gps with him on a trip and he reports that everything works fine. He is able to obtain the current diesel fuel prices as he travels simply by stopping in range of a WiFi hotspot and letting the Earthmate access the internet. Most truckstops have WiFi now and this product works as advertised! I would recommend this product to anyone who travels with a laptop.

This program has helped me navigate all over 1000's of square miles and never fails or drops the signal. It is very accurate and i could not be happier. Great for setting up perimeters too. Buy it you will Love it

At time of this writing I have been working with the product for around 8 hours.
I find that it has a nice GPS interface that seems to work well.
The maps seem a little hard to navigate because when you have GPS information displayed at bottom of screen it hides the area where the "hand" is for navigating the vertical position of map. I have found no fix for this so far.
The route planning seems not so user friendly as I would like. It invoves filling out a data file before anything happens about a route. I am using Windows 7 and there are no conflicts as far as I can tell.
Richard

I work in the Land Mobile Radio industry, and one thing we have to do on radio systems to test the coverage over the area that a county-wide radio system covers.

I used the Delorme Earthmate and Delorme software to set up drive routes effectively to cover multiple different counties that need tested. The Earthmates when in use have been proven to me and the company I work very reliable and also the easiest to use. I've also used the Earthmate on other software such as Microsoft Streets and Trails and the Earthmate GPS seems to be right on the money.

Recommended.