GPS Reviews : Is Real Time Traffic Something You Need?
Good GPS reviews need to cover the whole product and price range. To that end, I try to write articles discussing the big features, such as Bluetooth or real-time traffic, and whether you need them or not. My take on Bluetooth is that it’s not for me, but I can surely see how someone else would want it. Real-time traffic, on the other hand, is something that I would definitely want on any system that I buy. Let me explain why.
I do a lot of city driving on the expressway. As with all expressway systems for major cities, ours is always under construction. In other words, traffic jams (major ones!) are a big headache. What I love about real-time traffic is that it can alert me to these big pile ups.
What real-time traffic does is it routes you around the pile up, instead of just telling you there’s traffic up ahead. I love that because I’m often in parts of town that I know nothing about—they’re just what I go through on the expressway.
Of course, with real-time traffic you get weather, which I like, too! It’s nice at certain times of the year when we get lots of small, but powerful thunderstorms moving through town to know where they are. Ditto for tornadoes. But frankly, since I can look out the window and see where storms are (but I can’t see the traffic jam up ahead until it’s too late), for my purposes the real-time traffic is the part of this package that I’m most interested in.
Now, you can’t write GPS reviews without telling readers which devices have real-time traffic. So, let’s take a look at a few of the more popular GPS receivers that offer this.
Anything Garmin makes above the nuvi 350 is going to have traffic on it. This means from Garmin you can get this capability for just under $200. Of course, you can spend more and get more features. But that’s your base-line.
Tom Tom has made all of their receivers traffic compatible. As far as Magellan, several of their models have traffic capability, specifically the Maestros 3250, 4050, 4250, and 5310.
What you need to do now is to get on a good online retailer’s website and get more information. GPS reviews can only do so much. Here’s the link for Amazon, my favorite online retailer!
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