Palm GPS Software

Review by Jonathan Manheim:

The first problem I had was with the Streetfinder software on my PC, it was unable to connect to the Internet so that I could get directions between two points. Customer service has so far been unable to resolve this, there’s nothing wrong with my Internet connection, this is the only application that doesn’t seem to be able to use it.I tried downloading and installing the software update from the Rand McNally web site, but that was worse, then Streetfinder would crash frequently. I had to uninstall the whole thing and reinstall from the CD to get the app to stop crashing.The Streetfinder software is bugy not very well designed and tested. For example, there are screens that say you can push a button to get an address from your address book, you click on the button and get your address book, you select an address and say to use that one and it doesn’t put the address in the edit box, you have to find another button at a lower level that actually does that. Also, It is REALLY annoying that you have to put the INSTALL CD into your disk drive in order to move a map to the Palm queue.I found that there were several operations, like zooming in a map on the Palm, that would crash the Palm OS. Having spent many years doing software QA, I find this problem inexcusable.Finally, I was completely unable to get the GPS receiver to acquire the sattelite signals. I left the unit outside for two hours, plugged in to the car accessory plug, and it didn’t acquire and it didn’t time out. Then, when I stopped the GPS and tried moving to a different area and restarting the receiver, the Palm OS crashed again. I had to delete the Streetfinder app from the Palm and reinstall it to get it to stop crashing the Palm when I started the GPS.Just to make things worse, there is an appalling lack of documentation that ships with this unit. Basically, there is NO printed documentation, no owner’s manual, no software guide, and the online documentation is rarely helpful, especially for the problems I was having. There is no troubleshooting guide at all. The online FAQ was only partially helpful. You can email tech support at Rand McNally, but if you want to call and speak to a real person you have to pay for the call yourself, there is no 800 number.All in all, I was very disappointed to say the least, and I’m returning the Streetfinder GPS to Amazon. I have very rarely seen a company take such a good idea and fail so completely with the implementation.

Review by B. Compton:

I got this for my birthday this year, about one month ago, and I can tell you I am sorely disappointed. I figured a GPS-for-Palm would be a great product; a large screen, an interface I was already familiar with, etc.. made this product sound like a winner. Unfortunately, the product is riddled with problems. Not a single satisfying experience was I able to wrench from this miserable product. To begin with, several of these units, if not all of them, are misprogrammed when they leave the factory to look for Asian satellites instead of US ones. I say several, even though I have experience with only one unit, because there is a FAQ on the website about it, and because many, many people have complained about it on usenet; look for yourself. This misprogramming causes it to take (according to Rand McNally) up to 30 minutes to acquire satellites here in the US the first time. It took much, much longer for my unit: over an hour of continuous operation, sitting on my deck *outside*, running a special program that a customer service agent told me to download, because the program that came with the unit was unsuccessful in acquiring satellites at all. Nice. It didn’t help that the customer service department took almost a week to answer my questions regarding the satellite acquisition.After I had made an acquisition (finally!) I was pretty disappointed with the results. The StreetFinder program for the Palm OS crashed my Palm V repeatedly. Reinstalling the StreetFinder software made no effect. I had read on usenet that other programs conflicted with StreetFinder; I removed everything but the stock Palm programs and StreetFinder (and the things that StreetFinder needs) and still had several crashes. My Palm hardly ever crashed and had to be reset before I got the Rand McNally GPS unit. Subsequent acquisitions are quite slow, usually taking around 15-20 minutes, making it pretty useless for me to use in the car, since I’m already to my destination before the unit can acquire any satellites. This is my first GPS experience, however, so perhaps I have unreasonable expectations of GPS techonlogy in general. The cigarette adapter which powers the GPS does not power the Palm V. This seems silly to me, but perhaps there is a good technical reason for this somewhat obnoxious oversight. I found the very idea of a Palm GPS attachment, for 9, to be a bit overpriced. Other GPS units (on which I cannot comment, for I have not used them) are comparably priced and are seperate units. The StreetFinder maps take up a lot of space on the Palm V, and if you have a Palm V instead of a Vx, you might feel cramped for space. With the very cheap-feeling GPS attached (using a flimsy plastic/metal catch mechanism) the Palm V is bulky and cannot fit in my Palm V Hard Case (of course, this is true for any Palm attachment — I knew that would happen before I asked for it for my birthday). Overall, I just cannot say a single good thing about this product. I was unimpressed by the Rand McNally desktop software, their buggy Palm V client, their crappy misprogrammed GPS attachment, and their slow customer service. I cannot stress to anyone enough that this is a product to avoid. I have noticed, however, that there are several good reviews for this product — this is what lead me to request the product in the first place — so perhaps my experience was merely the low end of the spectrum. Regardless, I was very patient with this product and tried very hard to get it to work. It saddens me, but I have given up on the Rand McNally Palm V GPS unit.

Review by Abra Carroll Nardo:

OK, this seemed like such a great addition to my Palm. I’m in a new city I don’t know very well, and I travel all over, all of the time. First of all, this cost when I bought it, which is way too much. The interface is really bad. It loads slowly, the maps are hard to read. You have to buy an extra SD card to use the maps that you download from their site (and their site really isn’t that intuitive). The extra card cost me another . So I blew to make this work, and it just doesn’t! The maps end at the city limits, so if I have to head just a little into the suburbs, I’m out of luck. But HERE’S the kicker. The maps are wrong! They are routinely off by about 3-4 blocks, and not in one consistent direction! My apartment is about 4 blocks off to the East. My friend’s house is 3 blocks off to the South. If I want to use this to get directions… VERY SLOWLY LOADED directions, I am not even sure I’m going to end up in the correct location, and I see that as a BIG problem! Don’t waste your money. You’re better off searching at home with Streets and Trips or Mapquest and printing these directions out the old fashioned way!

Review by HiFidelity:

What a worthless purchase. I do a lot of travelling and thought this would be great. Sounded wonderful, even sold on the palmone website. Boy was I ever mistaken. Wish I would’ve gotten the reviews before wasting my money. You can’t read the maps, maps are only for a few cities, and the interface is less than user friendly. I finally went with Earthcomber, but when that didn’t have directions (just the map and POI, but its all free) I got Mapopolis, which is wonderful. If you want Directions on the Go, rethink it, I suggest Mapopolis. Same price (also a free trial version of ANY map in the US for 9 days) and also has contiguous maps of the entire US with direction capability and POI’s!!!!