Microsoft Streets and Trips 2007 [OLD VERSION]

Other products by Microsoft

Product Features

• Store plans for use on the road, print them out, or share online or via e-mail
• Customizable trip-planning software for anywhere in the U.S. and Canada
• Accurate door-to-door driving directions; reroute any time; avoid delays
• Plan breaks, scenic detours, and fuel stops; over 1.2 million points of interest
• Optimize trip by calculating mileage, time, and expenses in advance

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.5 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000HCTYRG
• Item model number: B17-00333
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 7, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,041 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  Software > Education & Reference > Mapping

Product Description

Amazon.com
Plan it, customize it, drive it. Every trip is a good one with Microsoft Streets and Trips 2007. This comprehensive trip planning software makes route planning a snap, around town or anywhere across the U.S. and Canada. As the number one best-selling travel and map software, it gets you where you're going quickly, easily, and without all the guesswork.

The new full-screen navigation window makes it easy to follow your route to any of your selected points of interest. It gets even easier when you let Streets and Trips 2007 give you spoken directions as you go!

With more personalized trip planning features than online mapping sites, and complete map coverage of both the USA and Canada, Streets and Trips 2007 will quickly prove to be an indispensable companion for all of your trips.

What's New for 2007
Streets and Trips is now better than ever! New features in Streets and Trips 2007 make your planning more productive and your trip more enjoyable. The new Live Search feature lets you find current business listings when you're online, then take them with you. Meanwhile, a new keyword search helps you quickly find listings near your location by entering words such as "coffee" or "restaurants." Search results automatically refresh as you move around the map, so you have the most relevant information.

The new full screen navigation mode makes it easier than ever to know where you are. Directions are now easier to see and read--even on smaller screens. Plus, an estimated drive time calculator helps ensure you always know how far you are from your destination. Meanwhile, a new easy reverse route option means that one click is all it takes to plan your way back or retrace your steps. And last but not least, Streets and Trips 2007 contains all the latest maps for the U.S. and Canada.

Find local business listings when you are online, then take them with you.

Trip Planning with Door-to-Door Convenience
Streets and Trips 2007 is an easy-to-use, hands-free trip planning and guidance solution. Whether you're running errands or planning a cross-country road trip, Streets and Trips 2007 offers customizable maps and information on more than 1.2 million points of interest (POIs), such as restaurants, ATMs, museums, campgrounds and more. Online or off, Streets and Trips 2007 provides updated maps that give you accurate, detailed door to door directions and puts 5.9 million miles of routable roads and highways throughout the US and Canada at your fingertips. While you're driving, verbal turn-by-turn directions let you concentrate on the road while the software guides you. Customizable trip planning features allow you to plan multiple stops, find nearby places to visit, calculate drive time, and more.

Taking advantage of the enhanced trip planning software is easy. To create a route and generate directions, you simply type in the starting and ending locations and click on "Get Directions." It's that simple. Your trips can include multiple segments, and you can instruct the software to customize your route by telling it what types of roads you want to travel, how much gas your car has, and the general area where you want to stop to gas up. Streets and Trips 2007 will do the rest, giving you your optimal itinerary, down to the precise gas station. Overall you'll have access to over 1.2 million local POIs such as hotels, restaurants, gas stations and ATMs, and by planning ahead, Streets and Trips 2007 will help you avoid delays with construction updates and other recent changes to your route.

Streets and Trips 2007 will change the way you travel. It helps you plan for things, such as fuel and expense calculations. You'll be more prepared before you go and more informed along the way.

Microsoft's "Locate Me" technology uses Wi-Fi hotspots to pinpoint your location, so you'll know precisely where you are as you're traveling. If you drive past your planned exit, a single click will get you back on track. The "Re-route from Here" feature quickly recalculates directions if you miss a turn.

To find a certain POI, such as a restaurant or gas station, you simply select from 35 POI types to display on the map. You have the option of searching within a certain radius of an address that you choose, your current location, a specific direction within a planned route, or all of the POIs along the entire route. Your results are displayed in a directory-tree listing. When you click on a POI, a balloon box pops up on the map with detailed information, including an address and phone number, and if you right-click on the POI icon, you can add it to your route list. Personalize your maps with drawings, notes, and pushpins to mark important information. You can also import your contacts directly from Microsoft Office Outlook and Microsoft Office Excel.

Support You Can Count on
And best of all, once you register your software, you can access a full year of email and toll-free customer support, and you'll also have access to an online knowledge base dedicated to Streets and Trips 2007. So no matter where your travels are taking you, you can drive with the confidence that you'll have Microsoft's extensive support and software behind you every click of your odometer.

Product Description
Microsoft Streets & Trips 2007 is the customizable trip planning software that lets you easily explore new areas and find the services you need along the road. You get more trip planning features than any online mapping site, so you can plan a trip based on your preferences.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still an excellent product!, October 22, 2006

By	JanSobieski (United States of America) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This remains an outstanding trip planning and GPS program. Unfortunately, some of the map details are still not as good as were found in the 2004 version of this program. I can't understand why MS would dumb down their product. Also, the street names seem to have been dumbed down as well. For example, Golden Eagle Ferry Road has been reduced to Ferry Road. There are innumerable examples of this dumbing down and simplifying which only serves to confuse.

Despite the dumbing down of the actual map data the program remains a superb mapping program with many updates since the 2004 and 2005 versions. New streets, restaurants and other points of interest are now incorporated. This program offers a truly affordable GPS guidance system for nearly all consumers without having to go to the expensive Garmin or Magellan systems. If you find yourself traveling to points unknown I cannot imagine a better more affordable solution for getting around than this product in conjunction with your notebook computer. Even if you have an "all in one" solution such as the Garmin Nuvi Streets and Trips can help you plan your trip and routs. I have both and they compliment one another very well.

A few comments about the Streets and Trips mapping software. I am familiar with the Delorme product and the Garmin product and Streets and Trips blows them both away - no contest. Instantaneous panning, zooming in and zooming out, outstanding routing software, and a plethora of other features makes Streets and Trips, by far, my favorite mapping software.

I heartily recommend this product! The updated mapping details and new points of interest are also useful.

45 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still the Fastest Interface, Still the Same Problems, November 29, 2006

By	Patrick S. Pope "Scott Pope" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Microsoft provides users with the fastest, sleekest consumer map software with Streets and Trips. As such, I have been a fan of Streets and Trips since the 2002 version. Unfortunately, Streets and Trips is merely a slight improvement over its predecessor, Streets and Trips 2006, and still has most of the key problems.

There is no question there are several benefits to Streets and Trips over online "free" applications with their invasive advertising, sluggishness and reliance on an Internet connection. Resident map data addresses all of these annoyances and gives the user more control. Putting that particular debate aside, Streets and Trips 2007 does suffer from a lack of connectivity in its inability to update core grid data and point-of-interest data over the Internet.

As I mentioned in my review of S&T 2006, Google Earth is setting the stage in the consumer map world. While Satellite photos do little for trip planning, Google does a nice job of locally caching large amounts of data from a remote server. The Streets and Trips development team must do the inverse of this. Most of the data should be resident on the local computer with dynamic integration from a variety of remote sources.

Dynamic updates can serve many purposes. The most straightforward is correcting inaccurate road information and updating core data as new roads are constructed. Secondly, there is a great deal of POI (point of interest) data that could be updated continuously. Lastly, if Microsoft promoted a comprehensive ecosystem, various government and private entities could provide plug-ins for Streets and Trips. At the current time, this ecosystem does not exist.

The lack of real-time connectivity leads to other shortcomings. In essence, Streets and Trips creates static maps. This precludes the implementation of real-time traffic or weather. Sadly, Microsoft has lost out on so many other value-added features that are provided by Google Earth, Yahoo Maps, and the Weather Channel online.

Oddly, key problems in its management of basic street data persist. For example, it can't properly interpret hyphenated street addresses in the boroughs of New York. Of course, it is impossible for a single user to error check the entire database, so I am curious what other errors exist.

Like most map programs, Streets and Trips is automobile-centric. This means that it interprets one-way streets literally. While great for drivers, it doesn't help for walking. Moreover, there is no interpretation of public transit systems where users would walk to a subway or train stop, board, and walk to a destination.

Shortcomings aside, Streets and Trips 2007 is still a very useful consumer mapping tool. After you become accustom to the application, you will find yourself using it for the most mundane trips. It is very fast and easy to use - perfect last-minute errand planning. In the larger context, however, Microsoft does need to update its Streets and Trips business model to provide users with the same features they have grown accustom to with web-based applications. Only then with Microsoft have a killer app.

Pros
Fast
Ease of use
Exceptional clarity in maps and interface
No advertisements
First connectivity steps with Windows Live

Cons
Can't properly interpret hyphenated addresses
No export of point-of-interest data
No integration with 3rd party data
No real-time traffic
Won't print to larger formats (can't print to legal or tabloid)
Not enough control during printing (fonts and streets)
Not fully integrated with Office applications

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Product, some flaws, October 25, 2006

By	J. Harrison "Driver/Navigator" (Oregon) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First of all, I like the product. It works reliably - and that's more than you can say about some other MS products.

Picky points:
1. To use the GPS navigator, you must click one more time - to agree that you will not sue MS if you screw up your driving. Yeah, yeah. Well, once would have been quite sufficient.
2. Construction updates: Huh? Completely useless. Example - in California, heading on Hwy 89 from Lassen to Mt. Shasta, the road has been under serious construction (new bridges, etc) for years. Yet, nothing is noted when the latest construction info is downloaded.
3. Distances to turns are usually correct. However, on I-15 in Utah, the exit numbers are 3 or 4 miles too far north. I can understand this on smaller roads, but on I-15?
4. Off-route: the program should be a little more reasonable. I'm on the road around the rim of Crater Lake, and for whatever reason (probably a bad fix from the GPS), my track appears to veer off into space, and a voice warns me, "Off route". Huh? Hey, I'm on the only road....
5. Once in a while the program directs you to roads that existed, but no longer are correct. You must carry an up-to-date atlas and check your planned route.
6. No indication is given for road surfaces. Sometimes the program will direct you to roads that are gravel. That might be okay for you, but I'm pulling a trailer, and I don't go well on gravel.
7. The program shows you your elevation, but in tiny type. No provision is made for increasing the size. Another point - it would be really handy to have the program show you an elevation profile of your planned route.

Some terrific things:
1. Your actual speed is shown in big numbers. Very good - my truck has extra-large tires, and my speedometer reads 12% BELOW the real speed. Good way to get a ticket.
2. Map orientation is selectable. Wonderful.
3. Painless integration with the GPS unit. Plug it in, away you go.
4. It's surprisingly quick to note that you're off route. It's strange when you pull into a rest stop, and the program advises you that you're off route, but it's REALLY useful when you make a wrong turn in the city - got 50 feet and you'll get warned. This is very useful so that you can make a quick correction at the next block.

One funny thing: the program is prone to give you completely useless intructions: "in 14.3 miles, continue straight" Ha ha. But then when you come to a confusing intersection, no comment. Oh, well.

Summary: for about $100 including the GPS unit, this product is very, very, good. I've used it to plan my routes and find places for 10,000 miles, and it's been a faithful companion - not perfect, but a pretty good navigator.