Customer Reviews

Delorme Topo USA v5.0 (DVD) [Old Version]

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

 

 

Most of the people that have reviewed this software on Amazon simply bought the program for the wrong purpose or they simply don't know what they're talking about.

Topo USA is designed for hikers, plain and simple. Sure, there are other uses, and I'm not suggesting that fisherman, for example, or hunters wouldn't likewise find it useful. After all, those activities involve hiking, too.

Topo USA is certainly not designed to replace car navigation systems--don't even think that you can hook up your laptop and use this thing in busy traffic, it's not the right product. Get an in-dash system for that.

Topo USA is not for professional engineers designing new roads and bridges.

Topo USA is designed to show you trails that are out there, or to make your own, and it does that very well.

If you want something to map your trip to Washington, you would be better off with something else. If, on the other hand, you want to make maps from your hikes, or even to make maps *before* your hikes, this is a great product.

What Topo USA does better than anything else is to map data from your handheld GPS. The EarthMate isn't the best option for this. I use a Garmin eTrex Summit, myself, and the data I get is good enough to make online maps for my hiking web site, HikePA.com.

If you want something to help you map out your recreational hiking, this is it.

Read the other reviews here, and you'll find that the ones who give this negative remarks all want it to do something it's not designed to do. These are the same people who want to go off-roading with their yuppie SUV when they really need a Jeep :-)

Feel free to drop me a line if you have questions . . .

I bought this product after looking at Topo! and Microsoft Streets which I think it is signifcantly better than. I use it specifically for creating route maps with directions for long distance road cycling as I train people for charity rides. There are some limitations in the data sets, I found a few missing bike paths and such like, but the fact that you can draw these on as routable paths is great. You can't do this with Microsoft. I also love the fact that you get profiles and elevations etc.

Better printing options would be nice, but for road cycling - this is a great product.

This 21st Century is blessed with a lot of good topo software for the average backwoodsy person. I'd call the industry standard the USGS Topos on paper and digitized. If a product's as good as the USGS 7.5 minute topo provided through an all-right source, I'd call it good.

This one doesn't make the grade. I do some consulting work in erosion mitigation. Some of the folks I work for wanted to get an overlay of their streets and lots that could be provided to Delorme so they could get the five year old development onto the next upgrade of Street Atlas USA, which it wasn't on the 2005 version. So they bought this and asked me to perform the dread deed.

The mapping is mediocre, the functions are awkward and the Earthmate receiver is tempermental.

Give this one a miss, do some searches and you'll find a good receiver, good software, and support people who will actually give you a hand if you have problems. Delorme doesn't even provide email addresses so you can contact them outside the website. Makes you awfully easy to ignore.

Incidently, the Earthmate receiver isn't supported by Delorme for 3rd party software, which makes no sense, but there's a darned good reason they don't.

I found the software to be slow and have poor printing capabilities. I wanted digitized USGS 7.5' quads to print and use for offroad trips, but not with this software. Advancing to higher level of detail was slow and I had to go through each incremental increase. The largest map size for printing is 11x17 (I asked Delorme). You can select 2x2 or 3x3 mosiac prints, for manual assembly, but not what I wanted. I used the 30 money back guarantee.

I bought this software to plan bicycle routes and produce grade profiles. It does this well and was easy to learn. I run it on a year old laptop computer and the performance is satisfactory.

I bought this software for producing detail maps and profiles for hiking. In short, I'm very dissapointed and have uninstalled the app. Why?
- the maps are outdated and inaccurate, many (well established) trails are missing or miss-routed.
- the software is unstable resulting in multiple crashes requiring TaskMan kills (try exporting a profile as a jpeg).
- the UI is awful. Simple tasks require you to hunt through multiple screens with poor (if any) results.
- the search functionality is next to useless. Try finding a lake by name in your local area...
- the on screen nav is cumbersome at best, resulting in magnification or pans that confound and frustrate. Where's the undo?

I've written Windows apps since the early 80's (Win v1.03). This one's what we call a dog.

I wanted a program to map trails for my off road trips. This program is so unwieldly it becomes a real labor to use it. I cannot copy map files to a floppy to give to my fellow travelers, the transfered files have no data. It is too cumbersome to use and unreliable. I cannot get any support from Delorme. Many of the advertised features simply do not work.

I am very disappointed in this program. I saw it work on a trip where my fellow traveler was using it. While it looked impressive at first, he was complaining about basically the same things I found when I bought it. I should have listened, but I was anxious for a map program. We'll have to use his on our next trip because I can't get mine to work. Let's hope we have a paper map so we don't get lost.

I'd recommend avoiding this program, too many bugs, too cumbersome to use.

I bought this product to use with my Garmin etrex GPS unit. The website claims it is compatable, but it turns out it is not. I was unable to successfully navigate or use more than about 10% of the features, and I consider myself a moderate to advanced user. Another negitive thing about this program is the fact it comes with NO instruction manual! Tech support is a long distance call, available only during very limited hours. Finally, navigating around any map requires constant reloading which takes forever. I have a $3500 computer,as fast as they currently make them and I found myself waiting for images to load constantly. Do yourself a favor and try another program.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of contrast on the screen. It was very difficult to pick up roads, trails or streams. Next, I began looking for change in elevation along a stream, and was stunned to find water moving uphill. After about 2 hours searching for a reason to keep it, I gave up and sent it back.

I would say I have average computer skills. I cannot make this program work as advertised. It is extreemly hard to find, view or print what you want. It is a waste of my time and my money. Save your self the trouble, do not buy this program.