Windows Phone Thoughts: Delorme Street Atlas USA 2008 Reviewed

Pocket PC Package
Delorme isn't like a traditional Pocket PC based GPS and mapping program in that you don't have specific map files to copy to your device (e.g. a map for a certain state or territory). Within the desktop application, you actually select and create a map for a specific circumstance.

For example, if you're taking a long cross country trip, you can select only the areas that are adjacent to your planned route, or perhaps entire cities that you may want to explore on the way. By simply clicking on a grid superimposed on the map, you're able to select what parts of the map you want. From there, it's a simple matter of creating the map (which takes around a minute on average) and copying it to your device. By default, Delorme will copy it to your "My Documents" folder for the device and Activesync will transfer it over. There is no method within the software to specify the Pocket PC's storage card, which can be a problem. Thankfully, you can move the map files to a storage card later using Windows Mobile's built-in file manager. However, I believe the actual route files, which are smaller, still must be in main memory for the program to correctly see them. A bit of a pain - hopefully Delorme will improve this in subsequent releases to allow direct copying to the storage card.

Upon opening up the application on the Pocket PC, you're prompted to select the map you wish to view and are then presented with a very zoomed-in view of the center of the map. After you figure out how to zoom out (thankfully the help file is easy to navigate; you have to use the up and down keys on the D-Pad for zooming, by the way), you can pan around the map by tapping and dragging.


Figure 7: The main PPC interface.

It's evident that Delorme designed the PPC interface to be useful while both driving and walking. You can route either by road or by direct route, and can even use the GPS to log your route for playback later. Routing is pretty interesting in the Delorme world. For a direct or road route you turn routing on, tap on your start point, and then tap on your end point. Yes, you can choose to find things if you don't know where they are on the map (e.g. house numbers, etc..), but for quick routing from here to there (i.e. "Get me out of this deity-forsaken town"), it's much easier to tap!


Figure 8: Setting up GPS Logging.


Figure 9: Finding Distances on the Pocket PC Side