DeLorme Earthmate Car GPS Receiver

We've had a fascination for maps for decades. We've bought every mapping program that was available for the PC for at least 15 years. Suddenly, there were street-level maps with GPS receivers available. We WANTED ONE! We bought the DeLorme unit because we'd bought so many DeLorme paper maps and software products, and none had ever disappointed us. (If you get to Maine, plan on a trip to their store!)

While the maps were of extreme interest to us, the GPS was really the feature product in the package. We'd bought DeLorme mapping software for years, and watched as it got better every year. We loaded it on our laptops, and wished for the day that it would have the GPS option, and one we could afford.

The time is now! Unless you have the bucks to buy a dedicated unit, this is an effective, economical GPS routing and tracking system with some real smarts in it. It takes just a few minutes to set up your start and end points, add via's and stops, and let DeLorme figure out the Quickest or Shortest route. It'll use parameters you set for average speeds on various types of roads (might need some tweaking for your locale, we found them to be quite conservative). Click on the GPS Enable button, and within seconds the map will center on you location. You get a readout of direction of movement (not the direction the car is pointed!). You also get speed and altitude. Mind you, these are quite accurate! We've checked them against flight topomaps and actual known elevations.

The routing is uncanny. You'll know the distance remaining on the trip, the distance to the next route instruction, and estimated times for each. The route instruction will know about one-way roads, ramps, bridges, and more. The only beef is that the Shortest routes sometimes take you on little-known byways that really add time to the trip, unless you use some common sense. One example is the case where the expressway route across an intersection is actually longer than taking the ramps. DeLorme will have you on those ramps! Solution: Use Quickest, not Shortest.

Now, you know you don't want to be watching the screen while you're driving, right? If you have a navigator, that's simple. But if you're alone, you need no distractions! So let DeLorme SPEAK the instructions to you! Furthermore, you can SPEAK COMMANDS to the software. Hands off! We use a PC headset with mic and earphone.

Finally, our favorite feature. If you go off-course, either intentionally, or you miss a turn, DeLorme will inform you immediately, and provide you with instructions to get back on course! This varies from a very-simple "Turn around" to actually allowing you to go an alternate way towards your direction, and eventually recalculating to take you from wherever you are to your next stop. We used it on one trip thru Missouri. We heard at a fuel stop that there was a terrible tie-up down at Joplin, with miles of backup. We turned south off I44, and DeLorme was giving us revised route instructions to take us through the country to our destination, completely avoiding the tie-up and saving the headaches! It added maybe ten minutes to the total trip time!

GPS has been a great flight aid for over two decades. Now it's a great navaid for driving to new destinations. Once we'd tweaked the average speeds, we found we could call our friends eleven hours away and give them an ETA that was within five minutes of our actual arrival. And it's entertaining! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I went looking for this particular GPS to replace one that had died and was no longer in production. The LT20 is popular and has gotten decent reviews in GPS related websites. I like the fact that this unit is USB, as that makes life easier all around. It's small and easy to throw into the car's console or laptop bag. I don't like that it's yellow. It's too much a target sitting on the dashboard. Maybe I'll paint it black.... Mine is an early production unit, and the cable doesn't seat properly in the unit, have to reseat it a couple of times. Note: This one was a used unit. I had to use some trickery to get it to work with MS Streets and Trips, but it works fine once setup properly. I would recommend this unit to anyone who needs a small, lightweight, yet fully functional GPS.