Review by Patrick O

This has two items in it that deserve separate mention. The first is the GPS receiver. I have previously used a Garman GPS 60cs for hiking and such, but even as it’s great for tracking in the wilderness it doesn’t have near the detail that newer, larger, more street driving, oriented GPS’s have. But, it has a good signal and is pretty rugged. That’s the comparison. The USB GPS provided took a bit bit longer than my Garmin to find the location, but when it did it was pretty surprisingly accurate. It was very easy to install on my XP laptop, and really worked well in tracking movement and location. The first time I plugged it in I was in the living room of a 1st floor apartment. The signal didn’t seem to go through the walls very well, and it couldn’t pick anything up. That’s to be expected. Outside that location, everything worked perfect. Easily linked up with the Streets & Trips.

A lot of details have already been given about Streets and Trips itself. I have used Garmin’s software–both their North America Streets version and their Western National Parks/Forests version. I’ve also become quite a fan of google maps, with occasional use of the other versions. The major benefit, of course, to Streets and Trips is that unlike Google or the others it doesn’t depend on an internet connection. The major benefit, of course, of another Garmin or other type of GPS is that even this version packaged with the GPS is significantly cheaper–if you have a laptop already.

The software is easy to use and intuitive. I need to poke around more but I’ve been pretty satisfied so far. The list of interesting places is very good, as is the overall maps and associated tools. I’ve not used previous versions of Streets and Trips, so I can’t compare this particular version to previous ones.

The one big issue I have with it, that has me using Google a lot in short, one-stop trips is that there doesn’t seem to be a way of rerouting the directions. With Google, a little cursor click and move can shift the route to something that might be preferred for whatever reason. Living in the LA area, as I do, there are a lot of ways to get from here to there, and a lot of reasons why what might seem on paper to be the best isn’t at all the best. The only other downside isn’t to do with the software, but instead having to bring my laptop with me places. Meaning this really is something that I’d use a lot for longer trips, but not as much for the shorter ones.

I’m quite pleased, especially given the price.