Customer Reviews

Microsoft AutoRoute 2010 [Old Version]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Just got back from a trip in Spain where we used Autoroute 2010 to find our way around (Madrid, Cordoba, Seville, Granada and Barcelona). Unlike another reviewer, we didn't encounter missing streets, but some critical pieces of information were missing that resulted in several hours of extra driving. For example, trying to get from the Madrid airport to our hotel in the downtown area, Autoroute tried to send us across a plaza that was blocked to auto traffic (permanently). In several cities (Granada in particular) it planned for us to drive on a road that was restricted to Buses and Taxis. In Cordoba it sent us the wrong way down a one way street! All of these errors combined to make it a nightmare to drive in an old downtown area with many one way streets. When there is no parking and no place to pull over to study the map, you get into trouble, fast. On top of that, add road construction and closed streets when Spain beats Germany in the world cup semi-final and you have a real headache. Then, since the recalculated routes often return you to the problem spots, you're left driving in circles or way out of your way to find a place to pull over and then have to route on your own, dragging the path to a usable street (at least you can do that). Glad I used the 60-day evaluation copy and didn't spend money on it. Unless they improve the quality of the map data, I will be looking for another solution the next time I'm in Europe.

Other gripes:

The Navigation view pane splits into three horizontal strips: list of directions, map, and next turn/trip info. On a widescreen laptop, this makes the map way too small (the benefit of a laptop over a standalone navigation unit should be the extra map real-estate). It would be much better to have the list of directions show in the vertical "pane" on the left and leave room for a larger map. It's possible that this can be configured some how, but I couldn't figure a way to do so.

It seems that pushpins (saved locations) can only be entered by clicking on the map at a particular location with the pushpin tool. I wanted to enter them by address (as I had the addresses of our 5 hotels and wanted to save them so I wouldn't have to search each time I started the software. Also, it would be nice if custom pushpins could be selected from a drop-down as an origin or destination for routing. Instead, I had to right-click, choose "Route" and then "Add as start" or "Add as end". That's tedious when you want to route to a pushpin that is outside of the current map's zoom level (zoom-out, pan to pushpin, possibly zoom in to differentiate, right-click, select).

Finally the pronunciation of the Spanish road names was atrocious ("Plaza de Espana" => "Plaza dee ess pot yawn". While this may be expected, I was particularly annoyed with the way it pronounced "onto ramp" (as in "merge onto ramp"). It sounded like "on tramp". For an English phrase that got used regularly, the pronunciation should be fixed.


The integration with the USB GPS antenna was nice and the software ran fine in a Windows XP virtual machine on a Mac laptop.

In conclusion: the application itself shows promise, with a few annoyances that should be fixed, but the map data absolutely needs some sanity checking.

Generally, AutoRoute is a lot like Streets and Trips. The USB GPS receiver is not as sensitive as others I have tried or a common car GPS. It often lost reception on wooded roads or in city streets. Cable supplied is stiff and too short. Illuminated "Microsoft" starts flashing when GPS reception is established. This is quite bright and can be distracting at night in a vehicle. There is no way to hold the receiver in place on a window or dash. Some maps such as cities in Estonia did not always have enough resolution to tell where the GPS icon indicated the location was. Map of Iceland has no streets or roads or other features, only dots for towns.
Major countries and city maps such as Copenhagen worked fine when clear reception possible.

Just returned from four weeks in Europe which included two weeks driving from Nice to Paris via Tuscany. We used AutoRoute with a Dell Mini computer and a bluetooth GPS. It worked as well as any full featured GPS but with a 10" screen. We used AutoRoute beforehand to plan where we were going to go and locate our hotel, rental car return, and various sights. When we got to Europe we used the routing with the GPS and never got lost (a first). We only had hotel reservations for the first few nights in Nice, so we used AutoRoute to find most of the hotels we stayed at, including a wonderful hotel in the hills of Tuscany near Florence. The routing function worked great and guided us right to a parking garage in the middle of Florence just blocks away from the main sights. I didn't use the turn-by-turn directions much; instead I just stayed on the blue line. I did use the turn-by-turn coming into Paris and it was impeccable. I would highly recommend using AutoRoute with a mini computer as an alternative to buying an expensive GPS. However, unless you are fairly knowledgeable in configuring bluetooth, I would recommend getting a wired GPS receiver instead.

We bought the software for a trip to Spain, used it with a USB - GPS that I bought on Amazon. The program works great with USB - GPS, the main problem we found was that many of the roads we were driving on did not exist in the mapping program. This included some major highways, such as the A-50 from Salamanca towards Madrid. Another major road was an interchange near San Sebastian that is not very well signed by Spain and does not exist on the MS Autoroute, so we totally screwed that one up. We could use the program, it was just annoying that we missed these and many other roads. The roads have been in place for a while, they show up on Google maps, too bad they don't have an offline program that would work with a GPS. We also had to disable the turn by turn directions, since the program would constantly take us off the highways and on to side roads and then back onto the highway, of course, we didn't follow those directions.

We used a netbook and the program to do the mapping. All in all, it worked, but it was kind of hard to use. I think if you have a GPS device for your car, you are better off spending the $150 per country that Garmin charges, even if you already have the computer you are going to use. The dedicated GPS systems are still better and I don't think Microsoft really cares about their customers enough to keep their programs updated. I did a little bit of searching just today (I should have done this sooner) and found others complaining of the same problems. Now that I have the setup and program, I will use it, but I wish I had just spent the money on the Garmin software.

We travel frequently to Europe on vacations. For years my wife hated being the "navigator" with paper maps. Like many couples with a wife as navigator that resulted in some arguments and upsets while on the road. Then, we started bringing a laptop on our trips, loaded with AuotoRoute. We both loved it, not only for use in the car, but as an excellent trip planning tool. We have an OEM car NAV system on one of our vehicles at home, but there is no comparison with AutoRoute on our laptop. That OEM GPS system with its little screen and limited capability is OK for general use around the US, but AutoRoute in Europe and Streets and Trips in the US puts that GPS to shame in all respects.

When it appeared that Microsoft had stopped producing AutoRoute and was no longer supplying updated data, we were both disappointed. We resolved to continue using our 2008 version of AutoRoute as long as possible. Now, we have a new 2010 version. My wife is very happy, and pleased with the changes that have been incorporated. So am I. It's a great product for supporting trips to Europe; especially, for people like us who prefer to travel around in rental cars!

I was afraid (from reports I had read) that Microsoft would not be making this product available in the USA after the 2007 release of MS Autoroute. I was pleased to see that changed. I like the product.

Tom

I bought this program in July for use on a tour of Uk and Ireland which I've now completed and later a tour of France. I have used the DeLorme product previously on a tour of the USA and expected the Microsoft one to be at least half as good. No way.
It is not user friendly, crashes often and sometimes loses the GPS signal requiring boxes to be ticked and input from the keyboard to get it working again. Not possible if driving without a passenger to help.
The maps and services seemed outdated. Many times I drove on roads not present on the map that must have been at least five years old. And if searching for a street, address or town in Ireland, forget it. Ireland is not an option on the search menu.
I finally had to use it in conjunction with a printed map book.
If I can find a DeLorme product that covers France, Autoroute will be going in the bin.

When the program is opened, the user clicks on to roadless maps. In order to funtion, the program has to be linked to Microsoft "Bing" on line. From there the interface is difficult to use with poor controls. It seemed to be less useful than Google Maps.

I used it to plot our trip to Germany. It can help you organize the trip to minimize your driving. If you have a GPS that you can plug into a USB port on your computer (you can get on Amazon for about $20), you can use your laptop as a GPS with driving directions in Europe. Very handy.

This program is easy to use and provides enough detail to plan either a day trip or a multiple days trip.