Customer Reviews

National Geographic Maps: The Complete Collection

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

One can hardly question the value of these maps. This collection claims to include 535 maps, going all the way back to the 19th century, published by National Geographic magazine. In itself, this is a real treasure.

However, the software realization of this treasure is poor. The software is slow and glitchy, prone to crashes and inexplicable error messages. The main window is a relatively tiny 640x480 pixels, although the maps themselves can be zoomed fullscreen. The working interface is clumsy and reminiscent of old "multimedia" software from a Windows 95 machine. The initial workspace is an image of a compass, a book, a videotape. Want to start searching for maps? Well, take a guess, because there are no text labels, no text tool-tips, and no drop down menus. There is a toolbar with tool-tips, but no text labels. I would have preferred a plain-vanilla menu over faux-elegant images that leave me stymied.

The set comes on 8 CD's. While the program will run with any disc in the CD drive, you can expect a lot of disc swapping. Also, it would have been nice to be able to at least start the search engine with no disc in the drive. There is no option for copying the CD data to your hard drive, which would have been a welcome choice for users with large drives.

Maps appear to be scans of the paper product from National Geographic, complete with fold-creases and dog-ears. These are not digital databases that generate maps on the fly, such as can be found in software like Topo USA or Streets and Trips. No, these are simply pictures of the paper maps. Great maps, but in a digital application, a picture of a piece of paper is of limited value. For example, if a place-name is not entered into the index, searches come up blank -- even if the place appears on one or more maps. Likewise, common tools of map software such as distance measuring, or incremental zooming, are missing.

The software allows you five zoom levels for your map. Since the first two levels are little more than thumbnails, really, you are left with three usable zooms. Even the middle zoom is too small to read place-names. Some kind of fractional or incremental zoom tool would have been much nicer; even basic image software allows you to zoom is by single percentage points.

The scan quality could be better. There is noticable pixelization at high resolution -- blocky fuzziness, especially around text areas. However, since there are over 500 high-resolution maps taking up 8 CD's, clearly some data compression had to be used.

The map tools aren't terribly sophisticated; you can zoom, pan, and select regions for copying to the clipboard (copied sections can be pasted into Paint or other image application).

All that said, this 8 disc set delivers a tremendous map value .... I estimate the cost per map at something like a nickel -- an amazing value. The older maps offer unique historical perspectives into changing geopolitics. The maps are excellent quality, and come with a tremendous amount of "extras" on the map backs (which are also viewable) and sidebars.

Clearly the software implementation could have been better. But for this price, I think the set is a steal.

... I think the software implementation of these maps is terrible. Pathetic is a better description.

In order to use your full computer screen, you'd have to reset your monitor to 480 x 600 pixels. Who has such a low resolution monitor nowdays? This also appears to be the best resolution you can achieve on the maps. If the maps are expanded enough to be readable, they are fuzzy. Pathetic, in my opinion.

... I don't think the 500 "maps" in this package are worth anything--at least not to me. I'd gladly pay 3 times as much for excellent resolution maps. At the current low-resolution implemented on this software release, I wouldn't willingly pay 5 cents. I found no use for the maps at such low resolution. I uninstalled the software.

In short, I feel I got burned. I paid $... for what I consider useless maps and useless software. I did not expect this from National Geographic. [...]

A word of caution: I upgraded my PC to Win XP and now my National Geographic software is useless. Neither the complete 109-year magazine collection on DVD nor my 8 CD collection of maps will run under XP.
Borderbund won't even discuss it; they foist you off on some third-party entity who says "sorry", but there are no plans to provide a patch or anything.
So go ahead and buy it if you're not planning on upgrading to XP.

Do not buy if you do not have Windows 95. National Geographic has not updated its software for newer versions of Windows. There is nothing you can do or even get support from National Geographic to fix this problem.

It's basically an atlas in PDF form spread out over eight CDs. You'll need glasses after scrolling in and out, trying to find anything. A waste of time and money.

I have had this collection since 2002 and never had a problem until today: I was aghast when I inserted the install CD into my spanking new XP setup, only to be informed by the dreaded popup that 'National Geographic Maps Will Only Run Under Windows 95'! Then a furious search turned up the following on the NG website:

"XP has the Program Compatibility Wizard which can help XP run programs developed under previous versions of Windows. To activate this feature:

Click on the Start button.
Go to All Programs then Accessories.
Select the Program Compatibility Wizard.
Select for it to look into the CD drive.
Choose for it to run in Windows 98/ME mode.

Another alternative would be to make a dual-boot partition."

The first solution worked instantly for me, even without setting it to a lower screen resolution when given the option.

I love this collection. Yes, the maps are scanned. Yes, the disk swapping is extremely annoying. Yes, the most recent version of the map of Britain I was looking for turned out to be from 1979! But searching through a couple of disks sure beat the time I spent earlier hunting down a map online, and then rejecting those I found because they were copyright/expensive/not detailed/low resolution etc. At least England hasn't renamed any major cities recently...

This is just a bunch of map scans, with absolutely horrible software access/navigation.

The maps themselves are well-made, and if presented in a printed atlas, or with good navigation software, this would be a worthwhile product.

But the nav. software is awful (as noted in other reviews), and feels like something from 1995. For the $20 or $30 this costs, you can buy a good printed atlas instead.

NG Maps works fine with XP and XP Pro. In both, the user can
select a compatibility mode to emulate any MS OS from
Windows 95 to Windows 2000 and everything in between. The only
con with the program is it runs in low res mode. For people
who enjoy maps, swapping the disks won't be a problem. If you don't
know how to change the compatibility mode, try the "Help". All in all, the maps are great.

Beware!!! You will NOT be able to use this product on XP or XP Pro.

I've tried installing this on two different computers. It "successfully" installed on my old HP laptop, but the software was absolutely terrible--unstable and very difficult to pull up maps when it wasn't crashing. The program just plain won't install on my new desktop (Athlon X2 3800+ dual core CPU, Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo, 2GB RAM, Windows XP Pro). All I get are error messages. If I could give this negative stars, I would. As a geographer, I'm sorely disappointed with NG for putting out this garbage.