Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very useful despite annoyances, January 20, 2004
I've been using DirectRoute for about 3 weeks with a Magellan SporTrak Pro GPS Unit.I currently use a map that covers from Sacramento County to San Francisco city to Modesto in my SporTrak. I have not used it outside this area. I generally use it to give me directions from one address to another (i.e. home to out-of-town restaurant to concert hall, etc). Overall, this product does exactly what it advertises and does a fair job at it. It consistently gets me to my destination with minimal problems. On occasion, it has sent me on routes slower routes with lots of stop signs/lights. Annoying but still correct. As far as copy protection, I've not had any problems reading the CD in my DVD drive. I've not tried using copies of the CD or moving to a different computer. I use the software on one computer with one GPS unit. The desktop and GPS software has a number of rough edges that I find irritating, but not enough to diminish the usefulness of this product. Pros:
* Directions are no worse than online mapping services (MapQuest, Yahoo, etc).
* Point of interest database includes address and phone numbers.
* Uses NavTech maps (nearly every company who makes navigation software buys maps from NavTech).
* Performs calculations fairly quickly (5-10 seconds) for a handheld device.
* Gives you plenty to notice before a turn approaches (once at about 1/8 of a mile, and again at a couple hundred feet).
* Turn reminder turns on backlight automatically (great for night use).
* Decent sized map fits into my SporTrak Pro w/32MB memory.
* Highlights the route you're supposed to take on the GPS map.
* Lets you list turn-by-turn directions in text form instead of map on the handheld.
* Desktop software lets you perform route-calculation (handy if you are at a hotel, etc).
* Allows you to browse maps, street names, and even search for addresses on the handheld device. Cons:
* Uses NavTech maps. NavTech is the best, but their maps still have a lot of inaccuracies, wrong street names, etc and are always somewhat outdated (but this is a problem with all navigation systems I've used).
* It has difficulty keeping on track in some urban areas and neighborhoods if you don't have a strong GPS signal.
* Turn reminder is *very* annoying. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...
* Can't turn off auto-backlight with turn reminder. (Wastes batteries during the day)
* Changes with my map settings, zoom level, etc whenever I start a new route.
* It stops providing reminders if I manage to go off route (or if it things I went off route).
* I have to manually request a route recalculation whenever this happens. (To reroute, just press GOTO twice).
* Desktop software is quirky and isn't very obvious to use.
* I can't get it to print a map on my printer that highlights the routes or shows points of interest. I found the options to turn that on/off, but it seems to ignore my settings.
* I can only download maps in large square blocks--that means I pick up a lot extra streets and cities that I don't care about.
* When I save an address as a Waypoint, it loses the address and name.
* desktop software refuses to print maps with routes.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Direct Route, September 2, 2004
I have not had the problems others have noted getting the CD to work on my PC. I do suggest that you take the time to make region maps of the entire US and then save them to your hard drive. From there you can copy these to any other memory storage or hard drive. The software will let you rename your regions as long as you leave .IMG on the end (example Idaho.IMG)
With a 512 SD card I was able to have 8 regions on my Magellan Gold GPS (I can only load one 64 mb region at a time but the Gold GPS will show all 8 regions in the menu).
By saving these regions to my hard drive and using a SD card reader I could drop and drag my regions to the SD card.
In closing I suggest you take some time while your CD is new and
create all the map regions you will ever need and save them to your hard drive (and make a backup).
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, accurate maps from Magellan!, December 24, 2003
These maps are an amazing upgrade over the old MapSend maps. You get the accuracy of NavTech maps (the same kind used by websites like mapquest and yahoo maps), along with turn-by-turn directions, a mileage countdown to each turn, and you can even set the unit to beep when you get close to a turn. Besides conventional directions, there are some extra features, like the ability to get a list of the ten closest Indian restaurants by bearing and range. You can also list other types of restaurants, as well as gas stations, hotels, parks, train stations, airports, bus stations, hospitals, marinas, museums, vineyards, amusement parks, auto mechanics, community centers, schools, banks, golf courses, and more.There are a few drawbacks. I find the user interface a bit inconvenient (on my Sportrak Pro, getting a list of the ten closest Indian restaurants requires 41 keystrokes). I haven't figured out how to get turn-by-turn street directions that avoid highways, but that might be possible. The software automatically turns on the screen light right before each turn, even during the daytime, which runs down the battery much faster than necessary. You also need to have the mapping CD in your CD-drive in order to load more maps, but I don't think that's a big deal; I loaded the maps for San Diego to Santa Barbara on my GPS unit before a trip to LA, and I usually have the entire state of Massachusetts in my unit's memory.
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