Microsoft Autoroute 2003 vs Map & Travel Route Planner 2003

You'll never get lost with these two route planners, but which is best?

Price: £34.99

Manufacturer: Microsoft / Mediagold

Ratings

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Verdict

MAP & TRAVEL ROUTE PLANNER
Pros:
More extensive European coverage.

Cons:
Difficult search tools.

Overall:
A poor interface spoils an otherwise excellent product.

MICROSOFT AUTOROUTE 2003
Pros:
Looks great; simple interface.

Cons:
Poor overview support for many countries.

Overall:
The more refined product by far, but in comparison to Route Planner it feels like you're only getting half of it.

Nik Rawlinson, Personal Computer World 07 Mar 2003

Portsmouth to Perpignan. Hmm ... plane, train or car? While the first two might be quicker, the latter can be more fun, provided you don't get lost.

That's where route planning software comes in - in this case, Microsoft Autoroute 2003 and Map & Travel Route Planner.

Both claim to be European route planners, yet Autoroute's overview maps of Norway, much of Finland, Austria and even Italy are very poorly detailed.

While you can plan a route through these areas you don't see any roads apart from the one you're using.

Route Planner, on the other hand, details every road and junction as far east as Russia. This is surprising as both packages are merely front ends for the Navtech database.

Of the two, Autoroute has the more competent search tools, eager to find the meaning of an incomplete address and then bringing up a dialogue box to help you refine your terms.

Route Planner, on the other hand, works best with an address in a specific format, and unless you're careful it's easy to get your start-out and destination points in the wrong boxes.

Autoroute works in a logical way: double-clicking a line on the route directions skips to the appropriate place on the map, while doing the same in Route Planner merely highlights the word you've clicked.

Autoroute has a number of printing options, including the route, the map and turn-by-turn maplets.

In Route Planner, it's the map or nothing. You can export the route and load it into a word processor, of course, but it's poorly formatted when compared to Autoroute's full-colour, table-bound presentation.

Both allow maps and routes to be exported to a Personal Digital Assistant, though Microsoft's Autoroute will only talk to Pocket Streets on Windows CE or Pocket PC.

Route Planner will happily export to a Palm device, which may be enough to influence some buyers. Both take GPS units in their stride.

In terms of performance, though, Autoroute is certainly king. Even on a modest PC it will produce long routes in around half the time it takes Route Planner. The results are also more useable.

When driving you don't want to spend your time keeping track of where you are on your directions, so Autoroute collapses potentially confusing, superfluous entries in expandable chunks.

A dozen toll booths on a long stretch of road can be hidden from view and summarised as 'stay on this road for 50 miles', and everything is in plain English. Route Planner uses some obscure language.

Planning a trip from the office of vnunet.com's sister title Personal Computer World, it gave 32 lines of driving and turns all in the direction of 'motorway exit, Brentwood South (28)' without telling us either that the exit referred to is on the M25 (a road we never used) or that it was 21 miles away.

Also, roundabout exits are referred to as 'possibilities', as in 'at 2nd possibility leave roundabout'.

We were pleased to see that in our test route of Portsmouth to Perpignan both suites chose the Channel Tunnel rather than the more logical, but slower, ferry route from Portsmouth to Le Havre: this cut the journey time considerably.

Both suggested similar routes, as you might expect.

Route Planner was first to the party after a drive of 844 miles. Autoroute took in some scenery along the way, adding an extra 25 miles.

In all, Autoroute looks great, is easier to work with and has the more logical search tools. Its paper-based output is also more useful.

Route Planner supports the Palm platform as well as Pocket PC, though, and has better overview maps of areas neglected by Autoroute.

If you'll never go east of Austria, don't have a Palm and don't care about Finland and Norway then Autoroute is the best choice.

Otherwise, you're going to have to fight Route Planner's search interface and content yourself with a better set of overview maps and wider mobile platform support.

DETAILS

MAP & TRAVEL ROUTE PLANNER

Price: £34.99 (£29.78 ex VAT)
Contact: Mediagold 020 7221 4600
www.mediagold.co.uk

System requirements: