After six months of testing I have come to the following conclusions regarding the Earthmate® GPS receiver and Street Atlas USA 2006 software:

1. Compatibility with my laptop / PC / and PDA
   Installation of the program on both my laptop and PC was fairly easy (please see my initial report for details). I've not had any software glitches while using the program on my PC. My ancient laptop is a different story. Sometimes the program initialized perfectly without any problems, other times, not. Twice the program told me that it could not locate the GPS unit. I was required to shut down the laptop and restart it again each time. Once, after starting the laptop but before opening the program, Windows decided that the GPS unit was new hardware and tried to find a driver for it. It did, but when I tried to use the GPS unit in the program, it wasn't tracking while I was driving. Again, I had to shut everything down and reboot. I have a feeling these problems have more to do with the antiquity of my laptop than with the GPS unit and software.
   
   
2. Map Accuracy, Resolution, and Details
   I found, for the most part, the accuracy of the maps in the Street Atlas USA 2006 software to be good. Nearly everything was where it should be (always a good thing!) and most of the problems I had were due to formatting: ie, the program had the address input as 1234 West R8 Avenue and couldn't find 1234 W. R-8 Ave. The major problem I had was in growing communities such as Palmdale, California. Located on the north side of the San Gabriel Mountains and San Andreas fault, Palmdale is a city that has several new communities being built each year. It is difficult for software companies such as DeLorme who deal with digital maps to keep up with all of the new data. Thus, it is not unreasonable for streets that were just constructed a year or two ago to not be in the database.
   
   However, most of Palmdale has been around for decades. I take my Geology 150 students on a field trip through the San Gabriel Mountains to Palmdale to study the geology of the area and to see the San Andreas Fault Zone (see screen shot below). I wanted to find a park that we could stop and each lunch at in the Palmdale area. I used the "find" feature and searched for "parks" in the POI database. The program found many parks - Park and Ride lots, parking lots, mobile home parks, but no recreational parks. Frustrated, I went online to the City of Palmdale's website to look up the city's parks. I found a nice little map showing where all of the parks were located, and a page with the address of each park. I tried to look up the parks using the "advanced find" feature. The first park I tried to locate, Pelona Vista Park (445 W. Ave. R-8, Palmdale, CA), could not be found. I tried searching for it using the park's address instead of the name and still did not find it. I then tried just scrolling around on the map looking for Avenue R-8 and discovered the problem: the program does not have that street - or any others around it - in the database. I then tried looking for Manzanita Heights Park (431 Mesa Verde Street, Palmdale, CA) the same way I did for Pelona Vista Park. Success! The program took me straight to Manzanita Heights Park.
   
   

   Screen shot of the route taken for my Geology 150 fieldtrip through the San Gabriel Mountains. Waypoints (Stops) collected with my Magellan SporTrak Pro GPS receiver and imported into the Street Atlas USA 2006 program. © 2005 Thales Navigation, Inc (www.magellangps.com/en/ <http://www.magellangps.com/en/>) SporTrak Pro GPS receiver® © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®

   
   One aspect of the program that I find annoying is the quality of the maps themselves. Unlike a USGS topographic map, or other "street maps" such as those produced by Thomas Brothers®, DeLorme uses simple lines to denote roads, street, highways, etc. While I do not mind this method per se, I do dislike the quality of how the roads are represented. An example is shown below. Many of the roads in the Street Atlas USA 2006 software are denoted by straight lines; understandable as most roads are fairly straight. However, many roads - such as Angeles Crest Highway (State Route 2) - are quite curvy. Instead of showing the curves in the road, the program shows more or less straight lines that kind of follow the curve of the road. This doesn't necessarily mean the data is inaccurate. It reflects upon the perception of the quality of the product. To me it makes the program appear to be less sophisticated than it really is. I mean, if the program can't show the curve of the road accurately, does that mean the rest of the data is not as accurate, too?
   
   

   Screen shot of the route taken for my Geology 150 fieldtrip through the San Gabriel Mountains. The green line denotes the route I drove as recorded by the DeLorme Earthmate® GPS LT-20 receiver. Note how Angeles Crest Highway (as mapped in the Street Atlas USA 2006 software, shown in orange) does not match up with the actual path driven. © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®

   
   
   
3. Data Acquisition
   I have had very few problems with the DeLorme Earthmate® GPS LT-20 receiver's data acquisition capabilities. The problems that I have encountered included my house (see my initial report for details), long tunnels, and deep, narrow canyons. So far the unit seems to be able to match my true geographic position on the map fairly accurately. It also has been able to match waypoint locations established with my Magellan SporTrak Pro GPS receiver to within a few feet/meters. I can't really comment on how inclement weather affects the unit's ability to receive data as we haven't had too much of it in the last few months. While on the Geology 150 field trip we did encounter high winds in Palmdale. The little arrow representing my Jeep did tend to drift a bit while tracking, but that was it.
   
   
4. Ease of Use
   With seventeen years of computing experience I feel fairly confident to put myself in the "advanced computer user" category. During the course of this test I tried to approach using the software as a novice Many of the program's functions were quite easy to use (searching for addresses, for example), while others required a bit of trial and error to get right (importing my address book and waypoints). If the user is good about reading the directions first (unlike me) a lot of frustration will be avoided.
   
   I like the Routing feature of the software. It is relatively easy to use and had made my life much easier on several occasions. Case in point: My husband has relatives that live in Anaheim Hills, California - roughly 45 miles (72 km) away and takes approximately 1 1/2 hours to drive there in good traffic conditions. For years they've been suggesting to us to take Imperial Highway instead of the freeway. We resisted, thinking that surface streets surely would take longer than the freeway. Thanksgiving was to be held at their house so I decided to use the Street Atlas USA 2006 software to determine the best route to take. The first route the program calculated (using the "quickest" setting, see screenshot below) required us to take Interstate 5 - not a good option most of the time and especially not on a holiday! Next I set the route to calculate via the "shortest" option. I was surprised to see that the route the program calculated used Imperial Highway - just as our cousins had suggested. We did not use the exact route the program suggested - it still called for us to use Interstate 5 - but we found that the program's shortest route was indeed worthwhile. Not only did it reduce the mileage of the trip by about 7 miles (11 km) but it also saved us time - about 45 minutes worth! We had a very happy Thanksgiving!

   The "quickest" route to our cousin's house as calculated by the program using the via points I specified. The orange line is the route created by the program. (click here to enlarge) © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®		The "shortest" route to our cousin's house as calculated by the program using the via points I specified. The orange line is the route created by the program. (click here to enlarge) © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®

Overall, I like the Earthmate® GPS receiver and Street Atlas USA 2006 software. I have found the Route function and the auto-location of the addresses in the address book to be quite helpful. I also like the fact that I can export data to my PDA. The fact that the program is powerful and versatile limits it's use to a PC (not very portable) or laptop. This is great for planning trips, etc. It is not so great when the user is driving by themselves and is trying to use the program via the laptop while driving. This is not recommended by DeLorme (obviously) or by common sense. However, unless the user has a partner in the passenger seat willing to play navigator with the laptop, using the program and laptop while driving is the only answer (save for not using them altogether). What might be a more viable option would be to have a portable display unit similar to some already on the market (ie, TomTom, Magellan and Garmin) where the user could download the data to the unit and attach the unit to the dashboard or other location more accessible to the driver. This would limit the unit's ability to manipulate data, but the user wouldn't be able to do that while driving anyway. Keep the program for the PC/laptop, but include a portable unit as opposed to using the laptop.

Pros

1. Program is relatively easy to use, powerful, and very helpful.
2. Ability to import addresses and waypoints
3. Ability to add in new addresses and waypoints
4. Point of Interest database helpful
5. GPS receiver accurate
6. Real time tracking reasonably accurate
7. Import/export to PDA

Cons

1. Some aspects of the program are not as user friendly as they could be
2. Quality of graphics could be much better
3. Use in a vehicle limited to a laptop, which is not always a good option when driving solo.