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I'm looking at a budget gps unit that has all the features I need except for the live traffic feature. How necessary or helpful is that? I'm brand new to gps so don't know if not having that is a deal breaker or not..
Of course it is useful. Here in SoCal there are umpteen ways to get from A to B. If theres a crash on one portion, you or the gps unit can navigate around it.
There are different technologies, FM, cell, crowd sourcing, speed sensors.
Many units come with free traffic. Some have free with advertisements.
Well like mentioned the unit I want has everything except lifetime traffic. It's a 3.5" tomtom at a good price. There's also a magellen that I have my eyes on that has everthing I want with lifetime traffic but it's 4.3". I rather have the 3.5" but tomtom doesn't have a 3.5" with lifetime traffic so I'm trying to decide whether to get it or not since I don't know how important of a feature lifetime traffic is
Please keep the replies coming on how well the traffic feature works on dedicated GPS units.
Magellan brands suck. Tomtom is better. Garmin is best. Unfortunately anything lifetime is useless since GPS units tend to break down after a while as do all electronics. I use to sell these at an electronics store so I have some experience with them. Of course everything I said above is purely opinion based.
I think the quality and usefulness of traffic data depends a lot on where you live and where you drive. Might help if you stated where you were going to use the GPS.
Using in New Jersey on the major highways and in NYC five boroughs too doing courier work..
You'd be nuts not to have one of the best units available. See if you can get one with google maps (I Phone?)because GM uses crowd sourcing to provide traffic information on all roads not just highways. Google retrieves cell users' cell phone GPS coordinates and provides estimates of traffic speeds. There are some draw backs though. If a lot of pedestrians on cells are on the sidewalk it may appear that traffic is moving at "walking speed".
In particular I really like Tomtom's 3.5" 140s which has a lot of great features except for traffic and is a consumer reports best buy. I looked at reviews and it looks solid BUT like mentioned I don't know how important that traffic feature might be and tomtom doesn't make an affordabe 3.5" with traffic feature.
I believe it depends on your location. If you're in the middle of nowhere you probably won't get traffic updates to tell you to go around a road recently closed due to an accident. In a metro area you will. Ours has saved us a lot of grief a few times.
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