Just got back from a trip in Spain where we used Autoroute 2010 to find our way around (Madrid, Cordoba, Seville, Granada and Barcelona). Unlike another reviewer, we didn't encounter missing streets, but some critical pieces of information were missing that resulted in several hours of extra driving. For example, trying to get from the Madrid airport to our hotel in the downtown area, Autoroute tried to send us across a plaza that was blocked to auto traffic (permanently). In several cities (Granada in particular) it planned for us to drive on a road that was restricted to Buses and Taxis. In Cordoba it sent us the wrong way down a one way street! All of these errors combined to make it a nightmare to drive in an old downtown area with many one way streets. When there is no parking and no place to pull over to study the map, you get into trouble, fast. On top of that, add road construction and closed streets when Spain beats Germany in the world cup semi-final and you have a real headache. Then, since the recalculated routes often return you to the problem spots, you're left driving in circles or way out of your way to find a place to pull over and then have to route on your own, dragging the path to a usable street (at least you can do that). Glad I used the 60-day evaluation copy and didn't spend money on it. Unless they improve the quality of the map data, I will be looking for another solution the next time I'm in Europe.
Other gripes:
The Navigation view pane splits into three horizontal strips: list of directions, map, and next turn/trip info. On a widescreen laptop, this makes the map way too small (the benefit of a laptop over a standalone navigation unit should be the extra map real-estate). It would be much better to have the list of directions show in the vertical "pane" on the left and leave room for a larger map. It's possible that this can be configured some how, but I couldn't figure a way to do so.
It seems that pushpins (saved locations) can only be entered by clicking on the map at a particular location with the pushpin tool. I wanted to enter them by address (as I had the addresses of our 5 hotels and wanted to save them so I wouldn't have to search each time I started the software. Also, it would be nice if custom pushpins could be selected from a drop-down as an origin or destination for routing. Instead, I had to right-click, choose "Route" and then "Add as start" or "Add as end". That's tedious when you want to route to a pushpin that is outside of the current map's zoom level (zoom-out, pan to pushpin, possibly zoom in to differentiate, right-click, select).
Finally the pronunciation of the Spanish road names was atrocious ("Plaza de Espana" => "Plaza dee ess pot yawn". While this may be expected, I was particularly annoyed with the way it pronounced "onto ramp" (as in "merge onto ramp"). It sounded like "on tramp". For an English phrase that got used regularly, the pronunciation should be fixed.
The integration with the USB GPS antenna was nice and the software ran fine in a Windows XP virtual machine on a Mac laptop.
In conclusion: the application itself shows promise, with a few annoyances that should be fixed, but the map data absolutely needs some sanity checking. Microsoft AutoRoute 2010
We travel frequently to Europe on vacations. For years my wife hated being the "navigator" with paper maps. Like many couples with a wife as navigator that resulted in some arguments and upsets while on the road. Then, we started bringing a laptop on our trips, loaded with AuotoRoute. We both loved it, not only for use in the car, but as an excellent trip planning tool. We have an OEM car NAV system on one of our vehicles at home, but there is no comparison with AutoRoute on our laptop. That OEM GPS system with its little screen and limited capability is OK for general use around the US, but AutoRoute in Europe and Streets and Trips in the US puts that GPS to shame in all respects.
When it appeared that Microsoft had stopped producing AutoRoute and was no longer supplying updated data, we were both disappointed. We resolved to continue using our 2008 version of AutoRoute as long as possible. Now, we have a new 2010 version. My wife is very happy, and pleased with the changes that have been incorporated. So am I. It's a great product for supporting trips to Europe; especially, for people like us who prefer to travel around in rental cars!
I used it to plot our trip to Germany. It can help you organize the trip to minimize your driving. If you have a GPS that you can plug into a USB port on your computer (you can get on Amazon for about $20), you can use your laptop as a GPS with driving directions in Europe. Very handy.
I have not yet used Autoroute in Europe, but I have been planning some routes and expect it to serve me well. I have used MS St & Trips for several years, and have been more than pleased. It is very similar to S&T and anticipate good congruence between software and reality. Being 2010, it should not be too out of date.
Anyone traveling to Europe should have this program loaded on their computer to help plan routes, find places of interest and popular tourist spots, as well as places off the beater path.
With all the same great features of Microsoft Streets and Trips software for the U.S., it is easy to navigate through the menus and options, which makes it very user friendly. I have used my GPS receiver from Streets and Trips with it, to track my train path as I traveled. I wouldn't want to leave home without it.
I wish there were similar software available for every country in the World, but it is just nice to have the same level of quality mapping that I am used to here, avaiable throughout Europe.
Maps are, as usual, great. The addition of Bing Maps is terrific.
Media, however, was corrupted and 'blue screened' my computer. Fortunately the media cover contained the website to download the application. Takes a VERY long time, of course.
For a vendor like Micosoft this is inexcusable. - Navigation - Driving Directions - Mapping Software - Streets And Trips'
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