Best European Map Software? TT? CP6? Other?

Valid8r · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 23, 2004 Posts: 26

I am searching for the best Western European mapping software. Several years back I enjoyed using Copilot (version 4) in Europe and the US. While the maps were great, the software itself (GUI) was a challenge and I stopped using it.

I'm now ready to jump back in. I will be using my IPAQ and a Holux GPSlim236 for hardware. I would have assumed that TT has the largest userbase and therefore the best software, however I've always been worried about TT's inability (is this really true) to load all cities and roads for Europe for use at any time like Copilot is able to do. Any of you TT users that travel through Europe regularly can you tell me what happens if you are going from say Paris to Brussels and suddenly decide you want to make a 'small' detour to Milan? Are you able to have the city street maps of Italy available as well as Paris and Brussels and everything in-between?

Many thanks.

Jon

kartracer · Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:41 am Post subject:

With TT you can't have all streets loaded for all of Europe at once. What you can do however, is to have a "Plus" map loaded. This is for a country/region plus major roads of Europe. I tend to use France Plus, so to use your example: load France Plus, head for Milan, when you cross the border into Italy pull up and switch to Italy map. When you want to continue to Brussels load up the France Plus map again until you get into Belgium, then switch to the Belgium map (I think TT calls it the Benelux Region).
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Kam

kartracer · Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:50 am Post subject:

Further to my previous post. I used CoPilot 5 for a long trip around Europe earlier this year but the experience convinced me to switch to TT5 as soon as I got home and could order it. CoPilot insists upon not showing a map display above 20mph and also frequently gave no verbal directions at motorway forks. This lead to a lot of panicky guesswork and long motorway diversions!
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Kam

Valid8r · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 23, 2004 Posts: 26

Kartracer - you are helping me a lot. The scenario you gave of switching or 'loading' a map sounds to me like it is easier than I thought it was. So does this mean you can have all of the country maps on a single memory card (assuming it's large enough) and then simply switch to the appropriate one when you cross a country border? If so, how 'easy' is this to do?

Thanks alot. I was confident that it had to be easier than I imagined or everyone wouldn't be so 'up' on the overall product.

Jon

kartracer · Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:46 pm Post subject:

Yes, you can have maps for all of the countries you think that you may want to visit installed on the same SD card. It's very easy to switch between maps, but it does take 5 screen taps. A 2 Gbyte card should hold just about the whole of the TT maps for Europe. I can't quite fit it all onto mine as I also have some other stuff on the card, so I have omitted parts of Eastern Europe and Northern Scandinavia as I am unlikely to be driving in those areas.
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Kam

BigH · Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 12:35 am Post subject:

Re CP5 and map display above 20mph, very strange, I have used CP5 from it's release especially in Europe and the ability to navigate across multiple countries from street to street is great, something that TT5 cannot do without reloading maps. I drove for 1000's of miles with CP5 with the map permanently displayed. I got slight lags on displays from time to time however I was pushing 160MPH at the time - before you say anything it was in Germany on unrestricted autobahns!!

CP5 in Europe for cross country navigation is the best solution IMHO, I had UK, France, Benelux and Germany on a 512MB SD card.
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Regards BigH

kartracer · Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:25 am Post subject:

BigH · Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 11:15 am Post subject:

Unfortunately not, although it's no great drama to change once you have planned a new route - only 3 taps required. Once done it stays that way for the entire route.

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