Surface 4 turn by turn and topo

[andrewh]

Hey Folks,

Outfitting the surface 4 for nav in the cruiser. I need opinions, read through some of the threads here and some were old but i think ive settled on Copilot V8 for turn by turn and Topo North America 10 for Topo. Ive read some reviews on each. Is anyone running these 2 apps or have switched away from them in favor of others?

Im on the fence about Overland Explorer. I dont know how long support will continue and the price is steep if i cant get 4-5 years out of it.

I continue to use Streets and Trips 2013 but been looking for a replacement as its maps are already out of date locally. Turn by turn is a requirement.

 

[RangeRunner17]

I'm interested in this too. Would love to be able to use my Surface as a GPS to track my trips.

 

[thethePete]

Honestly, I find Google Maps with traffic turned on is a fantastic turn-by-turn, and they now offer downloading of large areas of map, so if you know where you're going and it's off grid, you can pre-load your device with the maps you'll need. They have pretty impressive coverage of back roads and trails too, walking trails, etc. At least in every area of Canada I've ever lived in.

 

[RangeRunner17]

I was doing some research last night and came across Maps Pro. It's available in the Windows Store for about 5 bucks. It suits all of my needs and hopefully will suit everyone else. I downloaded the free trial to fool around with and so far I like it. However I don't have a way to put the app through it's paces for a few months.

You can import .kml .kmz and .gpx files directly into the app. It overlays that info onto the base map and seems to be pretty accurate.
There's a ton of different styles of maps that pull data from online (how Google Maps does) and they all can be downloaded for offline use. Some of the options are Google maps, Forest Service TOPO, 1:50k TOPO of Canada, shaded relief and aerial imagery. There's one called Vector Maps that looks a lot like Google Maps available for purchase. $10 per country for the US and CAN, you download by state/province from there.
There's an option to only download map data 'X' km from an imported track as well. Also, there's turn-by-turn and from what I can tell, with the vector maps downloaded it will world offline. It has a myriad of POI's to select from, and I assume they will work offline too. Google street view is available, but I don't know if that will work offline.
With a GPS receiver it appears to be able to track and record your location, and track coordinates, speed, heading and altitude.
The app is being updated every month or so, and from what I read on their website, the Vector maps are updated at the same pace.

For $5 it seems like it's worth a shot to me.

Here's some screen shots of the app. I imported a track and waypoints from Google Earth and overlaid them on a USGS topo map. (the map doesn't seem to scale properly, but I think that's a problem with my internet connection). Some of the waypoints do not import correctly, instead showing a box with an x, but that doesn't bother me much.


Offline view


Zoomed in offline. It's possible to zoom in further