Maps for purchase
Of the many "for purchase" mapping suites on the market, Delorme, Microsoft, and Route 66 were kind enough to submit review products for this article. Delorme's Street Atlas 2008 and Microsoft's Streets & Trips 2008 both retail for $40. Delorme offers another version of Street Atlas for $50 that contains all phone book listings for the US and Canada; the software is otherwise identical though.

Where Delorme in Figure E, includes applications for the Palm OS and Windows Mobile, as well as PC, in one package, Microsoft does not.

FIGURE E

Delorme offers a lot of features for $40. Click picture for a larger image.

Although Streets & Trips, in Figure F, will export maps for use with Pocket Streets, Pocket Streets itself is a separate $25 purchase.

FIGURE F

Microsoft Streets & Trips, a quality mapping application. Click picture for a larger image.

Figure G shows an exported Streets & Trips map captured from Microsoft's Pocket Streets on a Windows Mobile device.

FIGURE G

A Streets & Trips map exported to Pocket Streets. Click picture for a larger image.

Navigator 7 from Route 66 is a Pocket PC application, and at $150, the most expensive of all products tested. The Freedom mini did "technically" work with Navigator 7. It was recognized by the software. But the software itself didn't work properly. It had a whole host of problems from the very beginning, and I wouldn't recommend it.

Delorme's suite offers an awful lot of features for $40, too many to go into here. But the displayed locations of it POIs (points of interest) were wrong. An inquiry as to why did not get a response.

Of the retail packages I tested, I liked Microsoft's Streets & Trips, coupled with Pocket Streets, best. It was the easiest to set up and use with the Freedom mini-GPS, and the most accurate.

Final thoughts
I was very impressed with Proporta's Freedom mini-GPS keychain. Not only was it the easiest to use, most accurate GPS device I've used to-date, being the size of a key-fob, it's also the easiest to take along. It's capable of acquiring a signal in your pocket, in your vehicle, even indoors. And with a battery life of upwards of nine hours, the Freedom mini-GPS is an excellent value. I could honestly find nothing wrong with it, nor any way to improve upon it. I wasn't even put off by its $130 price tag.

It worked with every device and software application I tested, both mobile and PC. And because it doesn't have its own proprietary software, you're free to use it on any device and in any manner as you choose; not just mapping and navigation, but with electronic seacharts, exercise and fitness training, and much more.

Proporta's Freedom mini-GPS keychain is one of the few products good enough to earn a perfect score of 5 out of 5.

OUR RATING: 5 of 5

Dan Wolfson is a Project Manager for a southern California comunications technology company as well as a freelance writer and photographer in San Diego. His work has been published in Time, Life, USA Today and the South China Morning Post.