Mapopolis vs CoPilot

[Guest tsissar]

Well, I have a Audiovox SMT 5600 and I love the phone, I just got my 512Mb miniSD and bluetooth GPS receiver. Now I am shopping for the software. I understand that there are only two true GPS capable software available - Mapopolis and CoPilot.

I did download Mapopolis trial version, but they are not giving the state freeways skeleton for the free trial, and here in San Francisco Bay Area it is absolutely necessary to have freeway maps to go from one location to another. Hence, I was not able to truly exploit and see the capability of the Mapopolis. Few things I've noted about Mapopolis that I did not like so far:

1. Huge pane block at the bottom of the screen showing you next turn. I am more used to an arrow on the map itself showing and magnifying the next turn with the bold color and simply name of the street that I need to turn to at the top of the screen, that is how it is on Deluo Routis on my PPC and I love it.

2. Second dislike is that the voice of the prompts is very computer like and takes time to get used to the "robot" talk.

3. Because I was not able to load freeway skeleton I don't know how Mapopolis works going from one city to another? I understand that I need to download maps for both regions and the freeway skeleton, but lets say I downloaded whole California region maps and freeway what is my procedure to go from San Francisco to lets say Los Angeles? Do I need to load map for SF then for LA and then freeways? Can I simply load all maps of California and freeways and then just enter the destination address and as origin take the GPS location?

Positive things about Mapopolis:

1. It is priced not too expensive.

2. I can try it a little before I buy it.

3. I can download updated maps throughout the year.

Ok, those are things that I've noted about Mapopolis, but I have no idea how good or bad CoPilot because they don't give trial version and it is more then twice then Mapopolis.

Hence, can anyone comment on both products?

Thanks.

[Guest chucky.egg]

Don't know much/anything about CoPilot, but I have used Mapo for quite a while.

Mapo is good at what it does, but it's freeware and it shows in places where it's not very "polished".

1) The voice prompts stutter badly sometimes, to the extent that you can miss a road because you're waiting for the Dalek to finish his sentence.

2) The maps are updated, but not often. Here in the UK (in my area at least) the updates weren't crucial, but they're not what I'd call "regular" updates - more periodical updates.

3) Your situation may be different, but UK maps are split into Counties (roughly equivalent to US States, except for the sizes!). To get from A to B you need to load the map for County A, the Major Road map and the map for County B. All fine, as long as you know the County that B is in!

I don't know if TomTom cover your area, I expect they do, but I would definately consider it if it's available.

TomTom is expensive, and (over here at least) you HAVE to buy a bundle with a GPS unit, which annoyed the hell out of me. On top of that there is no trial version (presumably because of the bundle limitation).

Having said that, TomTom is simply EXCELLENT. Loads more attention to detail, and little "nice touches" that make it feel much better even though it's doing pretty much the same thing. The voice prompts, although/because simpler are much clearer and don't stutter, the whole of the UK is loaded at once making navigation easier.

If I were you I would at least check if TomTom is available. It's more expensive, no question, but it is worth it IMO

[Guest tsissar]

Yes, I herd good things about TomTom, but I don't think it is available for US. Besides I already have GPS unit so I would not want to buy another one from TomTom.

I heard all good things about CoPilot Live, but was wondering if anyone here used it to coment if it is good or not.

Thanks.