Review by Harold G. Meeks Jr.

I installed Streets and Trips 2009 on a Lenovo S10e netbook for testing. It is running Windows XP with 1.5 GB of ram. Here are a few brief observations:nn-Performance is satisfactory. Routing in real time worked well, there were no complaints.n-As should be expected, the GPS worked best outdoors or in a car. It takes a while to lock, but that is the case with many handheld gps units.n-Screen real estate is at a premium. Microsoft’s interface does not lend itself well to the lower resolution of a netbook, but it is still useable enough. To maximize screen space for the maps and other windows, Right-Click on the task bar at the top, and turn off large buttons - and to claim even more space - turn off standard view. The task bar will disappear, but you can still access all features from the drop down menus.

The combination of Microsoft’s software, the gps and a netbook makes for an interesting alternative to a dedicated gps unit. There was the moment where I realized that Microsoft’s GPS unit would not automatically be configured with Streets and Maps, so I had to do it, which was not difficult, but was also unnecessary. That is the nature of the beast; it is a computer application - not a gps appliance. It benefits from a richer interface due to the presence of a keyboard and mouse, but for some the focused simplicity of a dedicated gps will be enough.