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Paper maps are great and indeed both products can give you print outs of instructions and even the maps to go with them. Paper maps have one big disadvantage you buy one in 1993 and still expect it to be correct in 2003. Both these packages are marketed at 2004 versions, however the nearest either come to telling the future is Route Planner 2004 which for the second year has the ability to connect to the Internet to download details of traffic jams and roadwork's that are superimposed on your map, a great help in route planning. However although Microsoft offer this service in some areas of the world Europe is not one. The reason I was given was that not all countries support it.

Both packages support GPS and both support the ability to download maps to a Pocket PC - Route Planner also supports certain Palms - both have lots of extras like hotels, garages, places of interest etc. If travelling in Europe then Route Planner offers the ability to plan routes down as far as house numbers, outside these cities details are less precise.

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I very much like Auto Routes ability to give number information on long roads by simply zooming in and then right mouse clicking on the road. This I find vital on my many visits to London and travelling to an area I do not visit often. London has the habit of not always having odd on one side and even on the other as well as other strange numbering formats. A glance at a map (either paper or onscreen) can give as many as three close tube stations however when you zoom in and right click on the screen you can often save a long walk.

oute Planner offers the ability to print out city maps with street index and even grid lines, a useful feature if you are visiting a strange city.

Both packages have two CD's Auto Route can do a full install at 1GB and you can then access all the data without needing the CD. The stated space for Route Planner is close to 2GB (some for calculation). The minimum stated memory specifications for Route Planner are 64MB while Auto Route says 128MB. Both machines I used have more memory than that and therefore I found all calculations quite quick. Auto Route now has a switch that allows it to plan stop off points in a sensible way and not the way you entered them. For instance in Planning a journey from Southampton to Edinburgh with the stops entered as Brighton, Newcastle, Birmingham that's the default for both packages but with the switch set in Auto Route Birmingham will come before Newcastle.

Ferries can be planned into routes but you need to know the schedule for such routes. I found a few years ago that a route from Newcastle to Gothenburg was routed via Dover and all the way up though Europe, Newcastle has a direct ferry but even now with the 2004 version it takes a lot of coaxing to get Auto Route to use it.

Both Packages cover the UK and a good portion of Europe and if you have neither then I would suggest you remedy that - great Christmas present - if you have an earlier version then maybe it's not that essential unless it's several years old. Route Planner is around £35 while Auto Route is close to £50.

Links

AutoRoute : www.microsoft.com/uk/homepc/autoroute/default.mspx
Route Planner : www.mapandguide.co.uk