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(More customer reviews)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.
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Microsoft AutoRoute makes it easy to plan the perfect trip. When planning your holiday or business travels, Microsoft AutoRoute allows you to focus on your destination and enjoy the ride. AutoRoute is the customisable travel planning software that provides accurate directions, helps you to easily explore new areas and find the services you want and need along the way.
Plan your complete trip including multiple destinations, rest stops, scenic detours, petrol stops and more. On or offline, AutoRoute gives you detailed door-to-door directions and more than 5 million miles of navigable roads and motorways throughout Europe right at your fingertips. Personalize and save your maps, adding drawings, notes and drawing pins with important information or import your contacts directly from Microsoft Office Outlook and Excel.
AutoRoute 2010 Features
New--Updated maps for Eastern and Western Europe: 37 countries covered
New--New, intuitive user interface
New--Maps seamlessly update as you cross country borders
New--Identify one-way streets at a glance
New--Easily delete or hide groups of drawing pins
New--Save time by setting your map to always start at a particular location
Improved--Includes over a million points of interest including post offices, chemists, restaurants, petrol stations, cash machines and more
Improved--Now comes with more than 300 unique drawing pin images to choose from
Improved--Choose the roads to use on your trip or make fast changes to your route by simply dragging and dropping the route
Improved--Includes over 5 million miles of navigable roads and motorways throughout Europe
New--Use Bing Maps to find more places
Country Coverage AutoRoute makes it easy to plan your trip in 37 Western and Eastern European countries, with more than 5 million miles of navigable roads and motorways.
AutoRoute Makes Planning Trips Easy
Route Planner Use the route planner to help you to plan your trip. You can create multiple stops--and even add stops or change your route along the way. For trips with multiple stops, let AutoRoute optimize the route to get you there even faster. Use drawing pins to mark a single place or to represent data that you've imported to the map.
Customizable Driving Preferences and Maps AutoRoute provides you with the flexibility to choose how you would like to travel. Change your preferred road types, petrol costs, driving speeds and the frequency of stops. Then customise your maps with imported symbols, icons, pictures, graphics or logos.
Find Nearby Places See what there is to do along the way. With more than a million points of interest, including hotels, historical sites, post offices, chemists, restaurants, cash machines, nightclubs, golf courses, railway stations and much more. No matter what you or your family wants to do, you can make the most of your trip.
All of your travel notes in one place Personalized notes can be added to your maps. With addresses, phone numbers and other notes beside your planned stops, you'll have all the information you need in one handy place.
Which Version of AutoRoute is Right for You?
Turn your laptop into a navigation device For spoken directions and turn-by-turn navigation, consider AutoRoute with GPS Locator. It has all the same features, but adds a sleek GPS receiver making your laptop or netbook a navigation device.
Note: GPS functionality requires a GPS device that supports NMEA 2.0 or later. The GPS device is sold separately/not included with AutoRoute Standard.
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