Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 With GPS Locator

Average customer rating: 4.0

Police use
great product, except for a long wire
Jake
Don't leave home without it
Very pleasantly surprised

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Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 With GPS Locator

Manufacturer: Microsoft
Product Group: Software
Binding: CD-ROM
ASIN: B000AOGDM0
2005-10-03

Related Categories:

Mapping

| Education & Reference | Categories | Software

GPS

Handheld Utilities

| Microsoft | Brands | Software

All Microsoft

| Microsoft | Brands | Software

Microsoft Windows

Travel

| Compatible Software | Windows Mobile | Brands | Cell Phones & Service

Windows Mobile Software from Microsoft

| Windows Mobile | Brands | Cell Phones & Service

Product Description

Streets And Trips 2006 is a great trip-planning tool that offers accurate directions for any trip. Explore new areas, and find the services you need along the road. Always know where you make your next turn, and find your way back if you make a wrong turn. With the included GPS receiver, you'll benefit from advanced GPS routing features, including a new distance-based voice prompting GPS trail, rerouting, intelligent zooming, and much more. The receiver is USB-ready -- just plug it in and go! More than 5.4 million miles of newly updated, routable roads and highways throughout the United States and Canada Pocket Streets for the Pocket PC and Smartphone is also included

Amazon.com Product Description

Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 with GPS Locator combines the latest version of Microsoft's enhanced customizable trip planning software, Streets and Trips, with a sleek and stylish Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. Just plug the receiver into the USB port on your laptop, start your car, and you'll always know exactly where you are, where your next turn is, and how far it is to the next gas station or point of interest. <table align=right width=200 cellpadding=10> <tr> <td> <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/software/detail-page/sandt-nav-sm.jpg" border=1 align=top>

The navigation screen with GPS pane. A blue progress bar counts down to the next maneuver. View larger.</td></tr> <tr> <td> <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/software/detail-page/sandt-radiushot-sm.jpg" border=1 align=top>

Find all points of interest within a given radius. View larger.</td></tr> <tr> <td> <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/software/detail-page/sandt-wifi-sm.jpg" border=1 align=top>

Acquire your location with the Wi-Fi Location Finder. View larger.</td></tr> </table> Trip Planning with Door-to-Door Convenience
Streets and Trips 2006 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 2006 offers customizable maps and information on more than 1.8 million points of interest (POIs), such as restaurants, ATMs, museums, campgrounds and more. Online or off, Streets and Trips 2006 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. With a customizable viewing pane, you can display turn-by-turn directions, including street names, in large type for easy viewing, and large, easy-to-see arrows that indicate the direction of your next turn. The pane displays the distance to your destination in miles or yards, and for a quick "at-a-glance" view, a thermometer-style bar shows the relative distance you've travelled. 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 2006 will do the rest, giving you your optimal itinerary, down to the precise gas station. Overall you'll have access to over 1.8 million local POIs such as hotels, restaurants, gas stations and ATMs, and by planning ahead, Streets and Trips 2006 will help you avoid delays with construction updates and other recent changes to your route. With the GPS receiver plugged into your laptop, you'll always know exactly where you are. The GPS panel shows your current latitude/longitude, direction of travel, current speed, and GPS signal strength. This is also the control panel for arranging and customizing the map display, and you can even create a "bread crumb" GPS trail, making your return trip a breeze. Voice-prompted directions announce upcoming turns with precise instructions, such as, "In one point two miles, turn left on Andover Street." If you drive past your planned exit, the software will tell you immediately that you're off track. 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 restaurants or gas stations, 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. MSN Virtual Earth and Other Extras
To enhance to your travel experience, Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 offers a link to MSN Virtual Earth, Microsoft's online repository of satellite maps. Let's say you're viewing a map of the theater district in Manhattan. If you want to see a bird's-eye view of it, just click the Virtual Earth icon and a satellite image of the area will load into your browser. Another convenient feature is the "Night Map Style" which makes reading your routes at night or in other low-light conditions a breeze. The map's background is black, and roads and street names are shown in shades of green for easy viewing. Also included with Streets and Trips 2006 is Pocket Streets for your Pocket PC or Smartphone, which you can load onto your compatible Windows-based Pocket PC or Windows-powered Smartphone for greater travel convenience. 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 2006. So no matter where you're 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.

Customer Reviews:

Police use.......2007-06-13

I use this GPS in my patrol car. My only complaint is that it doesn't accept cross streets to locate an intersection. You can only locate the cross streets by using numbers, or "hundred blocks" ex: 12000 block of A st. Can't use "A St & Smith St". Then, you also have to put in the city, state, zip code too. Too bad it doesn't default to a city.

great product, except for a long wire.......2007-06-12

I was thinking about buying a GPS for my car for a few months before I bought this. The problem I had with all the regular ones was the small display and the price tag (a decent one cost $500+). I was also worried about the ability to update the maps. That is when I came across Microsoft Street and Trips. With my 14" laptop, I figured I can make it a GPS with a display larger than any $1000 GPS will give me. I bought it at Amazon for $80. This was year and a half back.

Now after using it on numerous trips since, I am glad I chose it. It works great. It gives you real-time positioning information and voice guidance (just like any other GPS). It allows you to plan your trips completely (stops, cost, speed, type of roads and what not). It also has list of attractions, restaurants, etc. If your computer has internet connection (which one doesnt, these days?), it can update highway construction information and such.

The biggest flip side of the product, if you want to call it one, is that you need a laptop. There are two problems - the cost of laptop (if you dont have one) and power for a long trip. If you dont own a laptop already (which is unlikely, if you are reading this review), I would recommend buying a cheap one now (they come as low as $300 these days). Combined, it will only cost you under $500 (still less than any average GPS - and you will have a laptop of your own!!). For the second problem, I bought a $25 power inverter in my car (from amazon). So I can now keep it on as long as I want.

The other nuisance is the wire. The GPS device that comes with this version of Streets and Trips connects to the laptop using a USB cable. That wire make it a little clumsy. The sticky that came with it doesnt stick to the windshield well (you can still leave it on the floor, it will still catch satellite signals). The newer version (2007) comes with a wireless adapter.

Overall, I would recommend it over any other GPS in the market.

Jake.......2007-05-23

I used this item on my last trip and found it to be lacking in a few things, I ask it to locate camping areas and it did not show any even though I saw them along the route. I am going to try and use a download the next time out.

Don't leave home without it.......2007-03-31

This has been an outstanding purchase. I have never had an integrated navigation package in any vehicle that I have owned, so I can't really compare it to one of those, but this has been a great, cheaper alternative and a huge help on many road trips over the past year. It is so good and dependable, that I think I've almost become too dependent on it. It is easy to plan out your route at home or on the go, and it has an included phone directory so that when you get to where you are going you aren't dependent on the internet, or finding a phone book to call for take-out or find your favorite restaurant. The only down side is that its almost impossible to use by yourself. You really need someone else in the car with you to run the laptop.

Very pleasantly surprised.......2007-03-26

Installation was quick. I was very pleasantly surprised at how well the system works with my old Dell Inspiron 4000 (Windows XP Pro).

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