Palm Pocket Map Drag Race

Simple selection of a road to identify it. Mapopolis and Rand Mc Nally Give an approximate address;
Delorme gives an address range.Delorme still uses the invisible square they used in Street Atlas 2004.
Mapopolis and Delorme give georaphical info; and Delorme adds the local postcode.
Incidentally, The Delorme map is focused on a Delorme Mapo-There hasn't been a cloverleaf at J 124 on NY 17 for decades.
Rand Mc Nally has the same mistake.

Menu selection: Mapopolis has "The Page"; which is invoked by the triple line button on the map menu, as well as the Palm's FIND(maginfying glass) and MENU buttons(second and third buttons in the system tray).
Delorme and Rand Mc Nally have the standard drop-down menus.

Finding stuff. Maopolis has direct postcode search on the Palm. Simple as it looks(compared to Delorme),
It's powerful and useful, not to mention fast. Mapopolis likes to segment roads, a mild annoyance.
Delorme has the most comprehensive search, you have options out the wazoo. Not bad if you're having a guess at something.
I don't see it as being that much more effective as Mapopolis, though. Postcode selection is not direct, it's done via dropdown, which is not so great if a city has multiple postcodes. "All" is the default and usually best.
Rand McNally's search is simple. You get addresses and cities. Considering that you're limited to the map you choose, and by neccesity, that map is small, you don't need a lot of options.
A major annoyance is that you get a marker appended to the map file that won't go away..

And the Results are in!
Mapopolis highlights the road you're looking for(The yellow bit).
Delorme gives you the tiniest blue flag evar-That doesn't increase in size when you zoom the map, either.
Rand Mc Nally gives you a Pushpin that doesn't go away, ever. Oak Road is a Mapo, by the way. It doesn't exist.

Routing: Mapopolis gives you a gob of settings. The GPS ones don't apply since I have the ch33p map pack. Mapopolis has an optional route save. With Delorme and Rand Mc Nally, route save is the default; and with Rand McNally, yr stuck with the route forevar. Mapopolis gives you directions panes(with a voice to read them). You can do some decent size routes in a fairly short amount of time. The route is well-marked and can be viewed at a number of zoom levels.
With Delorme, I used the route that came with the program. Why? Because it takes an age to generate a 50 mile route. You're limited to what maps you have on your device, and they'd better be in RAM, cos routing off SD card takes that much longer. Delorme's route is hardly visible, and includes every bump in the road as a waypoint. You can add intermediate points(Mapopolis doesn't do that), but that would probably slow the program down even more.
Rand Mc Nally gives you simple routing-but..Maps HAVE to be in RAM. It won't route off SD card at all.
You are limited to the map you have selected, which isn't terribly large, so the function is basically useless.

Unique stuff: Mapopolis gives you a 3-D view of your route. This could be useful with a GPS. It automatically rotates the screen in the direction of travel. You still get voice prompting; and you can pan the map. It looks weird, but it's kinda cool.
Delorme has a straight-line distance measuring tool. Useful for measuring short distances.
Rand Mc Nally starts with a splash screen; from which you can choose yor maps. A folded paper icon means a map is on a card.
The Boys at Rand also give you a DIRE WARNIN'! when you first start the program No Liability Lotto for YOU.
There's also one for the GPS part of the program.
And lastly, a RmcN bug. If you go to a map after closing the program, the blue toolbar gets defenestrated.
To fix it, you have to return to the map selection screen.

Coverage(as purchased):
US(AK, HI), Puerto Rico and Canada
All maps available, can do cross state
or cross country routing.
No GPS support with Platinum Map Packs
Navigator Map Packs($99) support GPS.
GPS bundle available.
CD's can be purchased;
SD cards are also available
with maps and program.
Allows updating at nominal cost.

Mapopolis.com

Coverage(as purchased):
US(AK, HI), Canadian main routes only.
Routing limited to maps
available on device.
GPS supported, bundles are available.
Can be used with full Street Atlas
program maps
(with purchase of full Street Atlas program).

Delorme.com

Coverage(as purchased):
Continental US
AK(sort of), HI, Canada,
Northern Mexico main roads.
Routing limited to maps loaded in
Main RAM;
further limited to map being viewed. .
NOTE: This software is NOT
available on the Rand McNally Website

Handmark(StreetFinder site)

Mapopolis maps are available as individual county files, and downladable by county or state.
Contiguous maps are joined by default.
Delorme and Rand Mc Nally maps are 'cut' by selecting an area in the PC program and exporting that data to the PDA.
Delorme maps are contiguous. Rand Mc Nally Maps are not.