AutoRoute is an excellent tool for planning road trips of all kinds and can now give you street-level maps, as well as sets of directions, timings and costings. Its main use has always been to plan routes and print them out for you to follow in your car, van or truck, but this new version is designed to travel with you.

The 2007 version includes a navigation mode and works with a GPS locator, also in the box. The software speaks - rather poorly - as well as displaying directions, so you shouldn't have to take your eyes off the road, though it's not as convenient to use as a PDA-sized device, such as a Tom-Tom.

You'd think Microsoft would have enough experience of writing installation instructions to include a section on the hardware setup, but no. The software comes on a single DVD and a full installation takes over 1GB, so you'll have trouble if your laptop only has a CD drive.

Hardware installation is fairly simple, once you realise the supplied black, memory-drive-sized gadget has plugs on each end. One goes into a USB socket on your notebook, or into the extension lead provided, while the other connects into the Microsoft-badged GPS. Stick the locator on your windscreen, put the laptop on the passenger seat - or on your passenger - and you should be away.

AutoRoute 2007 includes details of places of interest, such as monuments, cinemas, theatres, golf courses, wineries and pubs, as well as essentials like ATMs and petrol stations. It also comes with detailed maps for 15 European countries, as well as the UK, and limited coverage for a further 20, mainly Eastern European ones. Oddly, Jersey and Ireland are in this latter category.

The user interface is much the same as before, so although this makes it familiar to owners of previous versions, it also looks rather dated and in need of an overhaul. The place-name database didn't endear itself to this reviewer, either, as it no longer contains his home village, whereas the AutoRoute 2001 popped it up, no trouble.

The GPS pane shows your direction of travel, speed and position along your route, but there's no attempt at 3D display. Instructions are spoken in a very mechanical way and, should you veer off AutoRoute's course, you're informed of your dalliance but not told how to rejoin your route.

The GPS locator gives a good signal, simply by suckering its cable to the inside of the windscreen, and the USB extension cable is long enough to position your notebook beside you.

This is a logical extension to AutoRoute's extensive set of route-planning functions, but logical doesn't equal practical. The program's still very good at providing detailed maps and includes an excellent roster of places of interest. The idea of taking your eyes off the road to look at your laptop is frankly frightening, though, and the program doesn't have the sophisticated sat-nav guidance that dedicated systems offer for little greater cost.