By Dale Farris, Reviews Coordinator
Golden Triangle PC Club
May 2006

Program Overview

America’s premier mapping, routing and GPS tracking software is now in its latest and greatest 2006 edition. Street Atlas USA 2006 now contains additional roads, thousands of updated, location-verified places of interest, address book imports, Web-based map sharing, broad array of user-defined settings, GPS voice navigation, and more.

Extensive Road Updates
Automatic Routing
GPS Voice
4 million places of interest

Your source for the most up-to-date street, road and along-the-way detail available. Use it to plan the perfect trip on your desktop, then take it on the road with your laptop and GPS for flawless, worry-free navigation. The long-time leader in innovation, now with a wealth of new features.

DeLorme pioneered consumer mapping software with the first release of this product in 1991. Today, Street Atlas USA 2006 remains the gold standard.

"DeLorme put some thought into making Street Atlas USA easy to use in motion. Once you're rolling, Street Atlas USA works better. Microsoft's directions come in the form of too-small text, coupled with maps that will be hard for a co-pilot to read." -Washington Post

Discover the Most Up-To-Date Street and Road Detail

DeLorme cartographers are constantly updating the maps using a variety of trend-setting techniques, including new GPS mapping and aerial imagery methods developed at DeLorme. In Street Atlas USA 2006, you’ll find 268,000 additional roads, with particular emphasis on populous and fast-growing areas across the U.S. Street Atlas USA 2006 provides detailed street maps with address-to-address routing for the entire U.S., from complex urban areas to less traveled rural parts of the country. It also provides highway-level maps of Canada to allow trip planning between the U.S. and Canada.

Find 4 Million Places of Interests

You can find everything imaginable while traveling, from the many expected items to many more not commonly found. Locate POIs by name and/or category, including restaurants, lodgings, and gas stations...as well as Wal-Marts, Starbucks, post offices, fire stations, hospitals—the most complete and useful selection available.

For Street Atlas USA 2006, DeLorme contacted over 90 nationwide chains for GPS-accurate placement of their individual locations. So, they’ll be right where you expect them to be!

East To Read Display Keeps the Focus on the Map

Street Atlas USA 2006 has been designed to keep the focus on the map, avoiding the cluttering created with multiple overlapping windows.

The new top-of-the-screen EZ-Nav Toolbar makes it a snap to create routes quickly and easily. Use it to open and save map files, create address-to-address routes, share maps via the Web, and establish custom keyboard shortcuts, map display, and GPS settings. It couldn’t be easier.

Plan Worry-Free Trips With Fast, Flawless Routing

The software determines the quickest or shortest route and provides easy-to-read text directions showing total mileage and drive times. It can also calculate your end-of-day stops and fuel stops, as well as fuel costs.

Don’t like the route suggested? Simply add Vias to the road segments you prefer and the software automatically recalculates and updates your driving directions. Or, use the draw tools to block out areas you want to avoid…for example, the inside of an urban beltway.

You can even add your own routable local roads in rapid growth areas to keep your maps current.

The Perfect Tool for Laptops and Desktop PCs

Sample the unique power of Street Atlas USA 2006. Feel free to download this brief tutorial that allows you to step through a Flash demonstration showing the many capabilities of the new Street Atlas USA 2006 software.

Laptops:

Load it on your hard drive and always have the maps you need while traveling; plan routes from your hotel to appointments and other stops; create address-to-address routes and find more than 4 million places of interest—it’s like having your own local expert with you in unfamiliar places; expandable user interface tabs make it easier to type routes and find places of interest using large fonts — ideal for high-resolution laptop screens.

Desktops:

Add custom notes and other symbols with powerful Draw tools; measure areas in square feet and acres, great for selling property; create your own perfected maps and post them for family and friends using the new MapShare Publish-to-Web feature. Also submit map revisions; print detailed maps, travel plans, and Turn-Detail mini-maps.

The Most Complete GPS Functionality Available

Connect to the USB port of a laptop PC using the Earthmate GPS (available separately for under $100) and track your position in real time — it's amazing! Hear turn-by-turn directions and also issue spoken commands and receive replies to common travel questions.

Use the high-contrast map color setting to reduce in-vehicle glare. Locate the nearest gas stations, hotels, restaurants, shopping, hospitals, schools, and much more from your GPS position with GPS radar search. Automatically recalculate your route when you stray off course, now with new controls for setting off-route distances.

Hear samples of Spoken Directions using Street Atlas USA 2005 with an Earthmate GPS Receiver Washington, DC Turns [mp3] Nearest Fast Food [mp3]

Print Updated Maps and Travel Plans

Print detailed maps, directions, and Travel Plans. Don’t want to waste a lot of paper? Then simply print the Turn Details, which show only the upcoming decision points along your way.

What's New in the 2006 Version?

268,000 additional streets and roads

Updated, expanded highway exit services and other places of interest (POIs), with GPS-accurate positional placement supplied by countless national chains

The information available for each POI (via right click) includes:
For most: street addresses, as well as the Yellow Page and SIC headings under which they can be found

For many:
Internet addresses and credit card information

Where available:
information on hours of operation, languages spoken and senior/child discounts

EZ-Nav Toolbar makes routing, GPS navigation, map sharing, and creating custom user settings a breeze

MapShare—post maps and routes online for family, friends, colleagues, and clients

Avoid routing tool—block out areas you’d rather bypass—construction, congestion, etc.

User-defined settings for turn-alert timing when tracking a route with GPS

Auto Zoom on upcoming turns when tracking with GPS for appropriate in-close detail

Address Book— import, locate, and route to your contact manager listings (import up to 200) or assign recognizable names to route stops (e.g., Work, Home) for display on the map GPS

Log Details—see coordinates, road mileage, and more for your saved GPS log files

GPS Log Preview—review an entire journey without playing it back point-by-point

User-defined keyboard shortcuts

Rest area and exit symbols enlarged for improved visibility

Enlarged fonts when the Route tab is expanded– ideal for high-resolution laptop usage

Easier airport searches—simply insert city name and “airport” (e.g., Boston Airport) or use “airport” as a keyword for POI searches; airport map symbols are also larger, easier to see

A Unique Commitment to Accurate Data

DeLorme is unique in that they use, create, research, and manage their own proprietary map database. Other software and internet map sites all use the same couple of data suppliers, while Delorme's approach enables them to receive map edit suggestions from their customers, fact-check them against other sources, aggregate them by location to look for systemic problem areas, and then re-publish this individual location knowledge back to their entire customer database in those cases where they can.

When Delorme set out to update road data, they paid extra special attention to some of the most populous and fast-growing areas of the country. Last year’s two-lane to a favorite campground may now be a four-lane that bypasses your old turn-off. You don’t want to discover that while traveling in the dark with an outdated map.

Places of Interest Located With GPS Accuracy

Points of Interest don’t always stay put. Sometimes they outgrow an old location, or perhaps a re-aligned road forces them to move. So, Delorme took a strong pro-active approach to ensure the most accurate possible POI placement on their maps. They worked with over 90 nationwide businesses to come up with GPS-accurate locations for thousands of individual restaurants, lodgings, fuel stops, supermarkets and specialty retailers.

If you’re tracking with GPS, simply use the GPS Radar feature and you can find the nearest POIs and get easy-to-follow spoken directions to take you there worry free.

Ez-Nav Toolbar Puts Essential Functions in One Handy Location

This handy, top-of-screen is the place to go to create routes, navigate with GPS, and create, open and save map files. It’s also the place to go for a wide range of user-defined settings and controls. Dictate the look of your maps (colors, density of detail, etc.). Set up easy to remember keyboard commands for a wide variety of routing, GPS and other tasks — plus establish all your GPS settings, including voice commands. One click and you’re there.

Send Maps and Directions With New Web-Based Mapshare

MapShare is a giant step forward in the ability to send meaningful maps and directions to others. From the EZ Nav Toolbar, simply follow the MapShare Wizard and you can place a large, highly readable map in a unique online URL, for secure access by family, friends, colleagues, or clients. MapShare emails the link to whatever recipients you designate.

The maps you send are at their true magnification level—they are not reduced to fit into a graphic file. If you want to show a zoom-in close-up, your recipients will see a zoom-in close-up.

Address Book Puts Your Frequent Stops Right at Your Fingertips

Download, locate and label, and route to and from up to 200 contact manager listings. You can also add new listings by address or latitude/longitude, or simply right click on any map location and add it as and Address Book listing.

Address book entries can be saved with readily recognizable names (Dad’s House, My Office, Civic Arena) for fast retrieval and display on the map. Individual entries can be accessed via the Address Book icon in the Find tab, or from the EZ Nav Toolbar.

New Avoid Feature Gives Your More Routing Control

The new Avoid Route capability tells the routing engine to steer clear of places you’d rather not go…anything from individual roads to large regions (e.g., everything inside an urban beltway).

Simply use the Draw tools to add a circle or polygon to the map and designate it as a “route avoid.” The program then provides the best route outside the area you want to sidestep.

Indispensable New GPS Features

When navigating with Street Atlas USA 2006 and GPS, the program now automatically zooms in as turns approach, for a tight look at the road configuration. You also get large, highly visible Next-Turn and Turn-After-That arrows, plus meaningful voice instructions—such as bear right—to help you navigate easily through complex turn scenarios.

After completing a trip with GPS tracking, you can now review the pertinent travel details, including coordinates and road mileage. Another new feature is the ability to preview your log files without having to play them back point by point.

Save Time and Effort With Customized Keyboard Shortcuts

You can create customized keyboard shortcuts for countless program functions such as panning, zooming, expanding and reducing tabs, saving and opening files, creating new files, show next turn, show stop, toggle voice navigation, stop/start automatic back-on-track, and many others.

These custom keyboard shortcuts are invaluable when using Street Atlas USA 2006 on the road, because the navigator can quickly activate the desired program behavior, without having to rely on the laptop’s keyboard mouse.

The Keyboard Shortcuts tab is found in the Options dialog box, which is accessed via the EZ-Nav Toolbar.

Recommendations

“Anyone with a PC-based laptop or desktop should consider this year’s Street Atlas USA 2006 software a “must have.” The Street Atlas USA 2006 is an improvement over the 2005 edition not only because it has added thousands of roads and streets, including the exploding neighborhoods in our coverage area, but because the software is faster and provides more accurate turn-by-turn instructions.

If you have a laptop and are also considering investing in a Global Positioning System for your vehicle – STOP! You already have the basis for a superior GPS system with your laptop. All you need is about $99 to purchase the DeLorme Earthmate GPS LT-20, a small receiver that attaches to your laptop via a USB cable and includes Street Atlas USA 2006 software.
-The Washington D.C. Examiner

Not only can this program give you driving directions but also includes over 4 million Points of Interest (POI) so you know where to go and what to do when you get there.

This product also offers more customization options and safety features than any other software reviewed, not to mention some of the best help support around. We truly found DeLorme's Street Atlas to be the perfect travel companion—no back seat driver required.

Ease of use: Thanks to pop-up tutorials and a well-conceived structure, Street Atlas USA takes little time to master. This tutorial includes animated visuals alongside text, which makes learning about Street Atlas's features quick and easy. The only setback is that with so many features available, you may get anxious to hit the road to try them all right away.

Feature set: Right from the start, DeLorme scores high with a brief, interactive tutorial that teaches you how to use the basic navigation tools.

The program is not GPS compatible but with a serial port connection to your laptop, you can get real-time tracking. Real-time tracking will display on your laptop screen your current location on the map as you travel. Therefore, with your laptop and a GPS unit you can have real-time tracking, detailed maps of the entire United States, driving instructions, and contact information for local attractions for less than fifty dollars.

One feature that sets this new version of DeLorme Street Atlas apart from the rest is the large font display. DeLorme recognizes the safety advantage of having fonts that are easy to read while on the road, and the large fonts and screen are not cluttered. Another key feature we enjoyed was voice navigation. The program gives and responds to between 30 and 40 voice prompts, allowing us to keep eyes on the road, not on the laptop.

Points of Interest: DeLorme went out of their way to put together a massive database of POI that totals over four million locations. We don't doubt the authenticity of this claim, but were disappointed that several gas stations in our travel area didn't appear on the map. And no matter which method we tried, we never found a grocery store. (To DeLorme's credit, none of the other programs reviewed showed these ordinary but vital locations either.)

One of the best parts of Street Atlas USA is the ability to customize POI. You can narrow or expand your search area with keywords, and you can choose which types of POI you want on the map, while leaving others off.

Map Customization: Multiple waypoint tracking allows for you to insert as many stops as you want or simply plot a point on the map that you just want to drive through on the way. Using Street Atlas USA, you can customize your map with personalized notes, map notes, freehand drawings, symbols, and you have the option to add local roads to the map. You can print your customized maps or bring your laptop with you to make changes as you travel. We only wish this program offered the ability to plot multiple routes simultaneously.

Safety Features: Street Atlas USA offers a comprehensive list of telephone numbers to access local road construction updates, weather updates and hotel information. Street Atlas goes above and beyond to make sure you don't get lost. The compass, voice prompts, alerts and automatic back-on-track settings make DeLorme Street Atlas USA deliver security and peace of mind that you can't travel without.

Help/Support: Street Atlas USA sports an in-depth, easy-to-locate help section. No matter where you are in the program, a help box is always located in the upper-right-hand corner. Click this when you have a question or want to access the safety features. The FAQ section can also be found there; we used this and found useful answers with little effort.

DeLorme also offers online forums, phone support and email support; the manufacturer responded promptly to our emails. The user manual, a PDF file in the help section, requires an Acrobat Reader download (a free download).

Street Atlas USA by DeLorme not only beats out the competition, this mapping software dominates the field. Because this program offers so many useful options and features, DeLorme Street Atlas USA is the most sophisticated mapping software available.

Delorme's Street Atlas USA 2006 is also essential for public libraries to include among their collection of handy programs that will be greatly appreciated by their customers.

Two Testimonials

The following 2 statements come from Delorme customers and were posted at the Delorme web site. Since I live on the Texas Gulf coast and I had to deal with the September 2005 massive evacuation from Hurricane Rita, I think these samples provide for readers an excellent description of the value of this program.

"Almost three million people from the Houston area converged on the major roadways simultaneously to escape Hurricane Rita causing one the largest statewide traffic grid locks in our state and probably the nation’s history. We were able to use Street Atlas USA and our GPS to navigate through back roads that were not major evacuation routes. While it took some people 24 hours to evacuate the area, it took us only 4 hours for what is normally a 3-hour drive. When trying to return home, US 59 was closed because an emergency release of water from Lake Livingston had resulted in a barge coming loose thereby compromising the bridge on 59. Using the GPS and Street Atlas USA I was able to find a less traveled route to get around the normal detours. It’s the best value program I’ve ever purchased."

"I am writing to thank you for your GPS and Street Atlas USA 2006 software program. It paid for itself many times over yesterday as I successfully escaped from Hurricane Rita. I live near Galveston, Texas and as we headed "north" to safer ground, the highway evacuation routes were bumper to bumper and we were traveling about three miles an hour. I told my husband to take over the driving and I would navigate - I pulled out my laptop, loaded the DeLorme software, put the GPS receiver in the window and got off the highway. We made it to Lufkin, Texas and a friend’s home. I would not have made it here this quickly had we stayed on the highway. Your program had every single tiny back road in Texas, many of them were literally dirt roads. We were gratefully amazed at how well it all worked. We encountered NO traffic on the back roads. Thank you so much for the program; my husband is still shaking his head at how I navigated our way here and the roads we traveled on."

Price

$49.95 (Super Bargain!)

$99.95 Street Atlas USA 2006 Plus DVD
(Get everything in the regular $49.95 CD ROM version, plus 147 million updated business and residential phone listings linked to the map. Import and locate database entries. Link documents, photos, and URLs to the maps. DVD-ROM only)

Note: Delorme sells GPS receivers that can be used with Street Atlas USA 2006. These include the $99.95 Earthmate GPS LT-20 receiver and the $149.95 Earthmate GPS Blue Logger Bluetooth GPS for PDAs or Laptops.

These receivers are also specially priced when purchased along with Delorme software.

Minimum System Configuration Requirements

P-300MHz or faster processor (600MHz recommended)
Windows 2000 (SP 3 and higher)
64MB RAM (256MB RAM recommended)
Windows XP - 128MB RAM (256 MB RAM recommended)
700MB free hard disk space
IE 5.01 or later
32x CD Drive

Windows 98/ME is not supported with this release

Also note that during installation, the program will ask if you wish to also install all the data files on the second CD that comes with the program. This will add about 750-800MB of data on your hard disk. If you choose not to install these data files, then when you use the program that has been installed on your hard drive, you will be required to always have inserted in your CD drive the second CD disc that contains the data files. If you have the space on your hard drive, I recommend installing all the data files, because accessing these files from the hard drive will be much faster than from your CD drive.

About DeLorme

DeLorme is a leading provider of mapping products and technical solutions for the consumer and professional markets. Located in Yarmouth, Maine, DeLorme headquarters is home to corporate offices, a state-of-the-art research and development facility, the DeLorme Map Store, and Eartha, the world’s largest rotating globe.

Since its incorporation in 1976, DeLorme has developed an unprecedented reputation as a leader in the mapping industry. From humble beginnings as a paper atlas publisher, the company quickly emerged as a pioneering technological innovator. DeLorme not only embraced emerging technologies, it developed them.

After over a quarter century, DeLorme’s paper Atlas and Gazetteer series is still without peer. Covering all 50 states, they provide a unique topographic perspective and a level of detail unmatched in similar publications.

DeLorme’s research into alternative media and advanced technologies in the 1980’s helped define digital mapping as we know it today. Street Atlas USA was the first software product to put street-level detail for the entire country on a single CD. Over a dozen versions later, Street Atlas USA is undisputedly regarded as the consumer mapping software title against which all others are judged.

Street Atlas USA was the solid foundation upon which increasingly advanced software titles were built. Topo USA, 3-D TopoQuads, and ultimately the XMap suite of products were all released to high acclaim.

DeLorme’s attention has increasingly turned toward the professional market. Building on its reputation for providing easy-to-use, affordable mapping solutions, it quickly found a loyal following with professionals who recognized the value in a quality product.

XMap provides a versatile and powerful mapping tool with which to use DeLorme’s map data offerings such as high-resolution USGS quads, 10-meter color satellite imagery, and up-to-date street-level vector data. The modular structure of XMap offers a level of flexibility not found in more expensive alternatives. This allows for quick and easy adaptation when the need dictates.

In 2003, DeLorme announced a new state-of-the-art digital aerial imagery platform called TopoBird. The TopoBird aerial imagery data collection platform delivers high-quality color imagery for considerably less money than film-based systems. Because the data is captured digitally, time-consuming film processing is no longer needed, which means delivery times are much faster.

DeLorme has also been a leading provider of GPS solutions at a very affordable price. In tandem with the developing GPS infrastructure, DeLorme first released Tripmate and later Earthmate as a perfect companion for its software. For the ultimate in mobility, XMap Handheld Street Atlas USA Edition is a powerful tool for any Palm OS or Pocket PC user.

Contact Information

Caleb Mason
Marketing Director
DeLorme
Two DeLorme Drive
P.O. Box 298
Yarmouth, Maine 04096
800-561-5105
FAX 207-846-7051
caleb.mason@delorme.com
www.delorme.com

You can also order from other retailers or online vendors.