I field tested DeLorme's Earthmate/Solus Pro Kit for Palm Computing in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts and was totally impressed at the "navigational detail" of even the most obscure streets in random cities and towns. Street Atlas USA (the accompanying desktop program) can help you find an address no matter where it is.

There are multiple ways to configure a personal navigation system. I will provide an example of three ways I found useful and directions on how to generally apply those techniques. You may come up with your own approaches, and I encourage you to do so and post your experiences on the PalmPower PowerBoards.

Option 1: Use your Palm device, GPS receiver, and DeLorme Solus software to navigate
From my experience, I found that using the combination of my Palm computer, a GPS receiver, and the DeLorme Solus software was the most practical in the real world. This solution is especially useful if you don't have a laptop with a CD-ROM and a car adapter, take short trips, or find it more practical to travel with only pocket sized tools.

However, with this option there are also tradeoffs. If you use the Street Atlas product on a laptop, it'll speak directions out loud and color-code instructions. When I moved the solution to my Palm device, I found it hard to have to look at the gray scale Palm device screen. I also missed the voice telling me when to turn and how far I had to go.

That said, I completely appreciated the extremely advanced functionality of the Solus Palm software. If you don't have a CD-ROM enabled laptop (or don't want to lug one around) yet would like the navigational assistance of a GPS unit in conjunction with your Palm device, then this is the most practical.

Working with Solus
First you need to install the SolusPalm device software. I used a pre-release of Solus, but was able to easily hook up the EarthMate and Palm device and then navigate. I was also able to use the Palm device to determine speed, exact location, altitude and direction. This was pretty amazing.

Solus works by taking maps from the desktop version of Street Atlas, shown in Figure A, and then using the Palm device to actually give directions, location and navigational instruction. I loaded a few trips onto the Palm device very easily and then used my Palm organizer as my ever-present trip navigator.

FIGURE A

Street Atlas contains maps for the entire United States. Click picture for a larger image.

Being the dedicated reviewer I am, one night after dinner with some friends I even let myself get lost on purpose, while not using Solus. I then used Solus to save me from what would have been hours of looking for my hotel in the middle of Ohio.

The way Solus works is, essentially, you create trips on your computer and then HotSync them to your Palm unit where the Solus software uses the downloaded trip databases to navigate based on your actual position.

Solus worked very well by presenting the directions I needed when I needed them, telling me when I needed to turn by beeping and highlighting the line in the text where I was as at any time during the trip, as shown in Figure B.