Microsoft MapPoint North American Maps 2004 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)If you used Mappoint 2002, you will be very comfortable with 2004 as the interface is identical. The biggest upgrade is the updates to the street maps themselves - although it is still not perfect. I live in a fast-growing suburb of Cincinnati, and Microsoft still missed a major huge street that was actually built in 2002!?! Oh well, it IS Microsoft after all, perfection should not be expected. At least you can't get a virus through this program! I think...
THE GOOD: Other upgrades/changes include 2002 Census update data, and a whole bunch of new data fields that can be mapped thematically. These are consumer-oriented demographics, like households with internet access, computers, etc. There are a lot of statistics on avg. household expenditures (movies, clothing, furniture, food, etc.) Another nice upgrade is the ability to print maps almost edge-to-edge, getting rid of that stupid huge amount of white space at the bottom that took up 25% of your page real estate. There are more pushpins, and it is supposedly easier to import new pushpins (I have not tried that.)
THE BAD: Mappoint 2002 had census data projections for 2005; this version has no projections for anything, 2002 is as current as you are going to get. No upgrades that I have been able to see with respect to territory mapping, they still have the same small (and ugly) selection of colors to shade your territories. Data is still mapped at the census tract level or higher - if you need block group level fuggedaboudit. Data import options seem to be unchanged as well.
THE BOTTOM LINE: If Mappoint 2002 floated your boat, this is a required upgrade just to get updated roads. If the older version didn't have the flexibility or features, you probably should be looking at coughing up the dough for Arcview by ESRI. For a real comprehensive list of all the updates and changes, go to the Mappoint home page on Microsoft's web site.

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MapPoint 2004 is the best way to prepare yourself for any road trip!Point-to-point routing gives you address to address directions, anywhere in the US or Canada GPS support keeps you from getting lost, while the built-in developer tools help you automate common mapping tasks

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