MapMagic Thailand 2005

Bangkok Riders Club

MapMagic Thailand 2005

	Opening screen Si Sawat back road (1: 100,000) Mae Aw (Ban Rak Thai) (1: 100,000) Phu Chee Fah (1: 100,000) Aranya Prathet (1: 100,000) Phuket (1: 50,000)

This is a new lineup of the "Folded Map and CD Series." This CD map, in essense, is the successor to MapMagic Thailand 2003.

Whereas MapMagic Thailand 2003 was less than satisfactory in terms of road details and accuracy, MapMagic Thailand 2005 sees drastic improvements. Reportedly and seemingly, this map is based on actual GPS survey. Its viewer interface is common to other Folded Map and CD Series. It provides lattitude/longitude data of specific points on the map and, conversely, you can specify a lattitude/longitude data and locate it on the map. But it has no GPS connectivity.

The paper map that accompanies the CD is of scale 1: 1,200,000. Its details are comparable to the Thailand Highway Map by the Roads Association of Thailand. The CD carries even more details, and is practically the digital version of their printed product "Deluxe Atlas of Thailand," although, somehow, some features (eg. minor rivers) have been dropped in this CD.

Comparison with the SmartMap Thailand 2002
For ordinary road users, MapMagic Thailand 2005 better fits their purposes than SmartMap Thailand 2002. MapMagic Thailand 2005 has more updated road data, detailed landmarks and annotations, and superior viewer interface. It's cheaper (299B vs 950B) and easy to find (SmartMap Thailand 2002 is mostly out of stock and hard to find). Some drawbacks are:
1. It runs slow on old (slow) computers.
2. It has no GPS connectivity.
3. Maximum zoom-in is 1: 50,000. This is not large enough to distinguish cluttered landmarks (See the sample capture of Phuket). Other Folded Map and CD Series can zoom in to 1:2,000.

For more-than-ordinary explorers, however, SmartMap Thailand 2002 still offers amazing details of minor roads which MapMagic Thailand 2005 cannot compete.

System Requirements

OS	Microsoft Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP
Minimum Requirement	CPU: ? RAM: ? HD free space: 200MB
Recommended	Pentium III, RAM 256MB

Like other Folded Map and CD Series, this software requires a high-performance computer. In the reviewer's environment (CPU: Athlon 1.3GHz, RAM: 256MB), each panning or zooming takes a few seconds. There is no registration procedure and, after installing the software (including copying the map data in your hard-drive), you don't need the original CD to run the software.

Tweak
In the menu bar,

allows you to choose 1 - 10 (default 5) steps in graphic processing. "1" composes all layers on the video memory first, then transfers the graphic data to the display, whereas "10" adds layers separately on the display. The resulting image is the same whichever number you choose.

The difference in processing speed has something to do with the CPU and the video memory. In the reviewer's environment, "1" is 2-3 times faster than "10"!