Mapping Software: DeLorme vs. Microsoft

I like to take road trips, and especially roads I haven't traveled, to places I haven't been. So, I consider mapping software an essential feature of my laptop computer.

I know, many newer cars (including one of mine) have GPS-based satellite navigation systems. And the pocket-sized sat-nav systems are affordable and wonderful. Web sites with maps are helpful. And good old paper maps are still as useful as ever. But none of these provide all the capabilities I get from mapping software on my laptop.

There are two major mapping software products, Microsoft Streets and Trips, and DeLorme Street Atlas USA, and I think one strongly out-classes the other.

DeLorme vs. Microsoft

My laptop has both DeLorme Street Atlas USA 2006 and Microsoft Street and Trips 2008. After using both, many times on many trips, I think DeLorme, while far from perfect, does more, and does it better. In comparison, the Microsoft product is weak on features and a pain to use.

You might wonder, with free maps on web sites, and more availability of portable or built-in sat-nav GPS-based systems in cars, why buy and use mapping software? If you just need directions to an address across town, almost any map tool will help you.

But if you need to plan a trip beyond a local point A to point B drive, mapping software gives you much more. When I'm head out of town in my car or my RV (a motor home that is my office on wheels), I rely on mapping software on a laptop computer to help me plan a complex trip, then guide me along it. Using mapping software on a laptop doesn't require an Internet connection, unlike map web sites. Plus, a laptop screen is many times larger and more detailed than a portable or built-in sat-nav device, so I can see more of the route, and more details, all at once. Plus, typing in addresses and exploring the route is much easier on a laptop's keyboard than on the touch screen of a sat-nav system.

I especially value how mapping software makes it easy to explore alternative routes. Instead of just accepting what the computer tells me is the way to go, I can look at the area I'm heading into, at any level of detail from cross-country to street-by-street, all on a large laptop screen. I can discover points of interest along the way. Then, I can override the route the computer suggests, specify way-points to precisely control the route, then see the distances and times of each segment.

Then, I use the laptop with mapping software while driving, hooked to a little GPS receiver on the dash. giving me real-time information on my location and route, and live directions on upcoming roads and turns.

Planning a trip

First and foremost is the ability is to determine how to get from point A to point B. I enter my starting and ending address and get the software's opinion of the route to take. This is sometimes exactly what I want, but often, I need additional control over the route, to take different roads than the software choses (maybe I know about traffic jams or interesting sites), and to make interim stops. DeLorme makes it easy to tweak the route by adding any number of waypoints as Stops, and – wonderful feature – Via points that let me override the software's decision about my route to go "my way".

When creating a route, both products give priority to certain types of roads, such as choosing Interstate highways instead of US or state highways. But this not always the right choice. For instance, leaving my area of San Diego County to get to eastbound Interstate 8, experience dictates that I take some city streets and lesser state highways, a route that is much shorter in distance and time. But both programs want me to go to I-15, then to I-8 since they are freeways. This is easy to adjust with DeLorme -- I just add one or more Via locations and the software then shifts the route to MY way, then gives me turn-by-turn guidance, helpful in a couple of confusing areas.

Both products calculate estimated driving time, based on both distance and type of road. But DeLorme lets me control this in three ways. Street Atlas USA organizes roads into 10 types, from Limited Access Roads (freeways) to Unimproved Local Roads (dirt) and many types in-between. I can choose types of roads I prefer, roads that are OK when preferred road types aren't nearby, and roads to avoid, such as (in my case driving an RV) Toll Roads, Ferries, Forest Roads, and dirt roads. For each type of road, I can specify my average speed, in cities, and separately, on the open road. Then, when the route is calculated, the route is much more to my liking, and the estimated time of each segment is much more accurate. This is especially helpful when driving a motor home towing a Jeep, where my speed on various road types is different than if I was driving a car.

Driving with satellite navigation

In my RV I put the laptop on the huge dash so I can see the screen while driving, just like a built-in navigation system but with a larger screen and better fotware. I put my DeLorme LT-20 GPS receiver in the windshield, and the mapping software shows me exactly where I am as I drive. It shows me the next turn I must make, and how far I am from it. As I drive, the GPS constantly updates my position and next-turn distance. (The DeLorme LT-20 seems to work fine on my dash, though I wish it wasn't bright yellow.)

While both mapping products can use a GPS receiver for live tracking, I find DeLorme's approach is more helpful while driving. Street Atlas USA shows me three map panels at once, zoomed to different levels. The large panel is a "neighborhood" map of where I am, so I can see street names and upcoming roads and sights, very helpful as I look out the windshield at the real world. The mid-size panel shows a larger region so I can see upcoming towns and major shifts in my route. The smallest panel shows where I am in a larger regional context. It's quite a lot of helpful information, and I can see it all without touching the keyboard -– just what I want while driving. In contrast, being parked with hands-on-keyboard is usually necessary to use Microsoft Streets and Trips, because the interface uses tiny buttons, all crammed together.

When using a GPS, both programs track my current location, and can therefore display information on upcoming turns. Unfortunately, DeLorme Street Atlas USA uses long words such as "southbound" at the beginning of some turn instructions, and this often pushes the key information -– the name of the street or exit -– right off the screen. However, when it fits on the screen, DeLorme's displayed directions are much larger and easier to read than Microsoft's.

Both programs try to provide detailed guidance through major turns, intersections and freeway interchanges. They do this by automatically zooming in to a close-up of the roads and turns. To me, DeLorme does this much better, thanks to its more sophisticated and useful on-screen design. As I compared the two programs in a wide variety of situations, I kept wondering, has anyone at Microsoft actually used Streets and Trips while driving?

The main use of a GPS is to determine current location. But the radio signals received from Global Position System (GPS) satellites are so precise, the mapping software can also compute direction of travel, speed, and elevation/altitude. Both programs have a GPS screen that displays this information, but unfortunately, neither program lets me control which information I really care about. Both have a large display of my current speed, but that's unnecessary -– my vehicle has a speedometer. Both also show direction of travel, and DeLorme also has a large display of my heading in degrees (0 to 359 degrees) -– a high-tech compass. That's somewhat interesting. But what I'd really like to see is elevation, information that isn't usually provided by other vehicle instruments. In my part of the country -– southern California -- roads vary from thousands of feet above to more than two hundred feet below sea level. The current elevation is on the screen, but much too tiny to read while driving. I'd love the option to swap the speed number for the elevation number.

I should mention that I haven't had a technical problem with DeLorme software, but Microsoft Streets and Trips GPS tracking died. I was driving from Gila Bend, Arizona, north on state route 85, to get to I-10 and on to Phoenix. The map froze and stopped showing my current location, then eventually popped up a message, too tiny to read while driving. Once I pulled over, I could read that there was a GPS device problem. Really? I closed Microsoft's software, started DeLorme's software, and the LT-20 GPS worked fine. I could guess that because this route is mostly north for more than a half-hour, the GPS receiver in the windshield could not reliably "see" the satellites in the southern sky. But all along the route Microsoft's software showed my current speed, including when I slowed way down in a construction zone, and that also requires seeing the satellites. Maybe there was a problem using a DeLorme GPS receiver with Microsoft software, but since this combination worked for hours before and after, I don't suspect this.

Whatever the cause, my biggest complaint is how Microsoft Streets and Trips handled the GPS signal problem. If there sometimes is insufficient satellite signal, I don't want a "fine-print" error box that requires that I pull over, read the message, then close the box. Instead I just want the system to resume working once it can. If a notification is necessary, it should be much larger, and the message should go away once the GPS resumes working. The size of information on the screen is where DeLorme "gets it" about providing readable guidance while driving.

Voice guidance

Both programs can "speak" driving instructions, which is desirable when it's smarter to watch the road than watch the map screen. However, in both programs I ended up turning it off -– the voice drove me crazy. A small problem was digital voice quality; some words were pronounced oddly or confusingly, and Microsoft's voice was difficult to understand. DeLorme especially liked to speak directions in reference to compass headings, but staring at a compass, common when I'm flying an airplane, is not the right place to look when driving. And DeLorme sometimes speaks in uncommon language, putting the word "hundred" into highway numbers such as "Interstate highway four-hundred-and-five" -- not wrong, just odd.

But the worst voice-guidance problem, by far, arises from map inaccuracies. Sometimes -– far too often, actually -– the voice starts hollering at me to get back on the road, return to the route, or similar. Yet my view through the windshield put me squarely on track. The software's digital brain thinks I'm plowing through the woods (or off a cliff) because the GPS and the map don't always agree on the location of the road. A glance at the map shows this -– GPS tracking dots near but not on the displayed road. I assume satellite navigation doesn't make continuous mistake of this type, which means the map is wrong. It can be comical -– I'm on the only road around, it's been there for decades, yet the mapping software has it in the wrong place. I don't know the cause, but the only cure is to turn off the voice nagging to retain my sanity. Too bad, it could be a valuable feature.

One extra annoyance with DeLorme is that, while I can disable the voice guidance, the darn program still beeps periodically. It's probably trying to tell me something, but with the voice disabled, I don't know what. I'm just being bothered by beeps. (I don't shut off all audio from the computer, because I also using it to store and playback my music library as I drive down the road, a super-duper MP3 player that I'll tell you more about in a separate article). So I need to totally control DeLorme's audio output within the program, and I can't.

Route accuracy

I've used many versions of mapping software over the years, and my biggest complaint is always route accuracy. Having a somewhat off-track map is annoying with satellite navigation voice guidance. But when the map is showing me exactly where to drive, and its just plain wrong, I really get mad. When I'm driving my 40-feet of motor home, it's difficult to make tight turns, so there are certain roads I don't want to enter. And when I'm towing my Jeep behind, I can't back-up, not one foot, so avoiding wrong roads is mandatory.

There can be missing roads, probably due to a time-gap between when roads are built or changed, and when maps are updated. Then there are phantom roads and connections that don't really exist. When I lived in La Jolla, many maps recommended a road to my address that actually went right through a lovely old house -- so I'd have to tell visitors how to NOT go.

DeLorme Street Atlas USA is very good, not always. SR-56 in San Diego County opened in mid-2004, but it doesn't exist in Street Atlas USA 2006. I don't understand how the opening of a new 6 lane freeway was overlooked after many years of construction.

Microsoft Streets and Trips has similar accuracy problems, though not always the same specific mistakes.

When a route I'm considering is of critical concern (especially driving the RV), I also check printed maps, which (surprisingly) are often more accurate. Printed maps from AAA rarely disappoint me (though their guide books are weak).

On-screen design

The screens displayed by the two programs couldn't be more different. Even the maps are different in style and appearance. Microsoft Streets and Trips provides several map styles, including one that tries to show terrain, but I don't find it helpful. The satellite navigation in my 2008 Jeep Liberty can tilt the map to represent the region in front of me, and it's my favorite map mode. But the attempt by Microsoft's 2008 mapping software was not acceptable to me. For instance, it usually showed me much more of the route I'd already driven than the route ahead, wasting lots of screen space on useless information. I believe DeLorme has added this feature to Street Atlas USA 2009, but I haven't seen it in action.

In general, the information displayed in Streets and Trips, ranging from the lines representing roads, to the names of streets, to the text describing other things, to the program's buttons and controls, are so thin and/or small and/or cramped that I can barely read it even with the laptop on my lap -– never mind, sitting on my RV's dash. The program let me increase the size of some fonts and items, but doesn't provide enough control to overcome this problem. In contrast, the display of DeLorme Street Atlas USA is mostly wonderful. Roads and text are easy to see, and I never have to shove my nose up to the screen to read anything important.

However, DeLorme has some confusing aspects, such as key menus and controls in illogical or inconsistent places. I still spend too much time clicking around trying to find where to do something I've done before. I also get confused by how DeLorme saves my maps and trips, asking me to agree to things that aren't explained. I keep thinking there are other ways to use it that I haven't yet located.

What really drives me crazy is a DeLorme map-movement decision that is counter-intuitive to me. I keep wanting to use PageUp/PageDown keys to move the map, and the mouse to drag around the visible portion of the map. But instead, these actions zoom the map in/out. I'm sure it's difficult to come up with a navigation scheme to control the three-dimensions via a keyboard, but I don't think DeLorme's is quite right. The way Microsoft Streets and Trips lets me move around the map, and separately zoom in/out, is more to my liking.

But even with some confusing areas , the power of Street Atlas USA shines through. I could say that Microsoft software is easier to use simply because there's less of it to use, but the bland interface makes even simple things frustrating.

Recommendation: DeLorme Street Atlas USA

Even if you have web maps, other satellite navigation systems, and a mountain of printed maps, I think mapping software is a big help for both trip planning and en-route guidance.

While software satisfaction is a matter of personal opinion, I think Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008 isn't very good for on-the-road use. It has fewer features than DeLorme, and is hard to read and use while driving. (If software was returnable, I'd get a refund.) DeLorme Street Atlas USA 2006, even though two years older, has a superior screen design, and is mostly easy to work with.

I strongly recommend DeLorme Street Atlas USA on a laptop, used with a DeLorme GPS receiver. Head-to-head, DeLorme does more, does it better, and is fun to use.