Delorme Mapping Street Atlas 2005 for Handhelds

Other products by Delorme Mapping

Product Features

• Full coverage of the U.S. and point-to-point address routing on the device
• Voice prompts guide you and get you there(Pocket PC version only)
• Millions of points of interest - Find any hotel, restaurant, bank, school on the map
• Database of over 100 million residential and business phone listings - easily imported into contact management and spreadsheets
• Load up topographic maps of any area you'll be visiting or exploring - and follow along on the map, as you travel

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002JP00Y
• Item model number: ao-7351-101
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 2, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 1.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #10,423 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Now experience the added security of always having exactly the maps you need, conveniently accessible on your handheld computer. The included desktop/laptop software provides detailed maps of the entire U.S. conveniently on CD-ROM, which you use to create exactly the maps and routes you want to synchronize to your PDA.

By using the latest technologies available, DeLorme is able to provide a Pocket PC and Palm OS solution in one convenient software program. This gives you the flexibility to try different devices and platforms using this one software program.

Much more than simply maps, this powerful software brings many capabilities previously only possible on desktop PCs to the world of handheld computer mapping.

• Includes street-level maps for the entire U.S., from rural roads to detailed city streets
• Includes Canadian primary and secondary roads
• Create address-to-address routes directly on your handheld computer
• Quickly locate on detailed maps your address book contacts, plus 4 million updated points of interest. Includes restaurants, hotels, attractions, banks, schools, and more
• Connect to the new DeLorme Blue Logger GPS receiver (available separately) and track yourself in real time on street-level maps anywhere in the U.S.
• Store your maps on removable-media devices
• Now includes high-contrast map colors for improved in-vehicle visibility
• Now includes reverse-route option
• Beam maps to family and friends!
• Bring topographic maps with you using Topo USA 5.0 software (available separately)
• Now supports raster maps so you can use Topo USA 5.0 to bring Aerial Data Packets on your PDA
• Voice prompts for Pocket PC and Palm OS 5.2 or later.
• High-density screen support for Palm OS 5.0 and later devices
  Coverage
  The United States

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Outdated software, November 29, 2004

By	Alexander Komarov - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Delorme Handheld 2005 is claimed to be a full-featured navigational package. Instead, it does the following:

1) Creates routes onboard the handheld.
This is good, but it takes a ridiculously long time. I would be surprised if it can calculate a long route at all, since attempting to plot a 10 mile route on Molokai, HI (an island 38 miles long with 3 highways total) took almost a minute.

2) Cannot re-route automatically
(probably because it would freeze it up for a long time) Instead it announces: "off-route" and waits for you to press a button. If you're off route, most likely you're busy driving in an unfamiliar territory and probably shouldn't be trying to click an on-screen circle.

3) Cannot announce turns descriptively.
Instead it says "bear right", and leaves it at that. You can read the street on screen, and you'd better do that, because it seems to announce the turn a mile in advance, but sometimes there is less than a mile to go, so you really have no idea which "right" it's talking about.

4) Maps are COMPLETELY inaccurate.
OK, I'll admit, I haven't used the maps it came with. I used Delorme TOPO 5, and exported vector maps from that. Technically it should have the same street data.

I tested it in an area I know well. Sometimes, the street you should be on is nearby (you're between streets), other times - it's not. Sometimes I really have no idea what it's showing me - it shows me in a forest, or in some small neighborhood while I'm actually on a highway. As a result, it's constantly announcing "off route". I click the "re-route" button and it plots a route from a "forest area" :)

(Note: all other software I've used accurately displayed my on-map position in this area)

5) Map paging.
This is pretty bad (or maybe I'm spoiled by other software). The map is stationary while you're moving, and pages over once you reach the edge of the map. Not before. Basically, you don't know where you are going until the little arrow reaches the edge of the map, and it recenters.

6) Voice prompting on routes has to be turned on manually.
(Maybe if I read the manual I would have known that sooner)

7) The good:
-Street maps are displayed with good contrast.
-There is a collapsible status line which tells you what's happening and is good as a running log for figuring out what the program is up to (or what's wrong with it)
-Moving and zooming map is relatively quick.
-It has track logging which is hopefully compatible with desktop Delorme products

----------------
Notes:
Hardware: Mitac Mio168 (Navman PIN 100) - Pocket PC2003, 300mhz
Other comparable products I've used:
-Mapopolis
-IGuidance
-Navman SmartST

All of these are better hands down. There are no features I can think of that Delorme offers that these do not, and everything Delorme can do these do better.

In fact, the only reason I even bought this was to display TOPO maps from TOPO 5.0 while I'm on vacation in Hawaii. It remains to be seen how well it can handle that.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Most horrible mapping software - total waste of money for me, December 6, 2004

By	tech_gadget_lover "bluefalcon2004" (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

I got this software because MS Streets and Trips for PocketPC did not deliver on its promise, and Mapopolis is excellent, but very expensive software.

I cannot believe that Delorme has released a software of this poor quality. Its amature at best, an alpha release if at all.

What bothered me:
1) Map creation on the PC took too long - almost 15 min for an area about half the size of NJ. Maps created are huge too, but that's ok.

2) This software fails to even load the PC generated map - I tried to coax it to load a map of entire NJ and NY states and it choked.

3) Once you get to load the map, good luck finding landmarks. I tried to find World Trade Center, Empire State Bldg etc. which are obvious landmarks recognized by other software and this one has no clue where they are. Not only this, it cannot even find the building I work in when I give it the exact US mail address!

4) GPS functionality is good. Map resolution is good. But if you want to move (pan) the map around its awefully slow. Mapopolis is blazing fast at this. I had to figure out how to zoom in and out as well - not intuitive and not very good at all.

5) Tracking - this one beats me. The thing does not keep track of your vehicle on the map while tracking. It knows where u r since its telling u about the distance to the next turn etc., but I cannot see the red dot on the screen moving (at a very appropriately zoomed in level). There might be a way around this, but if I have to spend time to figure out such basic features, this is not worth my money.

6) Voice prompts are weak, I have to strain to hear and understand what its saying. Directions are mostly way off as well.

7) Does not recalculate the route, and when u press the recalculate button, it takes for ever. You can get lost more while its recalculating and ofcourse the generated directions are no good now since you are several miles from the place when u hit the recalculate button!

8) Map generation in general is extremely slow. Took about 5 minutes to generate a route of about 10 miles. Mapopolis takes about 30 sec to do this in the demo version.

For the money wasted, I do not regret my purchase, if only for the learning experience!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst handheld application ever!, February 6, 2005

By	Ken "thesuperstitions" (Columbia, MD-) - See all my reviews

I've been developing software for over 30 years and have never seen (and spent money on!) a worse piece of commercial software!! It's not even good enough to be called an Alpha version! If the developers ever used this software on a road-trip, I'm sure they're all dead by now since it's so badly designed that it's actually a danger to anyone that uses it!

Here are just a few things to hate about this program:
1) Selecting map rectangles in the desktop app is slow and anti-intuitive.

2) The handheld software draws maps very slowely, if at all!

3) None of the controls on the display are intuitive. I tried for hours to figure out how to make the icon that represents the car, stay in the middle and have the map move. Still haven't figured it out!!

4) Trying to route to an address is impossible!

5) The map display doesn't even have the names of many of the smaller side-streeets.


There are many more, but you get the idea. I've used Garmin's excellent "City Select" software and found it to be excellent. My Garmin GPS got broken so I bought an NMEA-standard BlueTooth GPS and wanted to get a mapping/routing program that would be similar to City Select. This definately ISN'T it!! My next purchase is i.Guidance from iNav.

I used Street Atlas USA many years ago and loved it. Maybe the laptop version of 2005 is better, I don't know. The handheld version totally sucks though. Shame on Delorme for ripping loyal customers off like this!!!!!