Review by Patrick O

If you work with geographic data this is an astounding, helpful product that allows you to use that data in interesting ways.

The map program itself, which is Microsofts Streets and Trips, is not nearly as good. After using it for a little while I find myself going back to Google or my garmin software. I have the USB gps to go with this, but even still the tracking is haphazard, and it takes a surprisingly long time for my laptop to recognize the gps. I’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that this side of this program needs a major overhaul, and would have been really competitive in 2002, but not so much now.

But, if you’re buying Mappoint instead of Streets and Trips, this isn’t the biggest issue. As a mapping program that works with data this is really unique and useful, able to provide a very helpful tool that not only can assist in necessary tasks but, at least for me, has caused me to think more and more about how I can best use the data at hand in new, creative ways to better understand various projects and research.