930 T, 740 Live, or XL 340

[Skizza]

My old Go just died

My main reason for a TT is for traffic as I drive 60 miles a day total through downtown LA and LAX and the POI's and ability to customize them.

The 930T can get traffic updates through my Motorola Q and has IQ Routes and advanced lane guidance while the 740 Live can get traffic updates built in, without pairing my Q but if I'm not mistaken doesn't have the IQ routes and advanced lane guidance.

My question is how good is the IQ Routes and advanced lane guidance? Is it good enough to sacrifice the built in traffic updates on the 740? What do those two offer that the XL 340 doesn't and does it justify the price difference?

Out of the 930T, 740 Live, and XL 340, which would you recommend?

 

[gatorguy]

If I were going to recommend today, I'd say the 340. Unless you plan European travel, not much benefit to the 930 over the 730. Thus far the 740 traffic has not impressed me.

 

[doctormstein1]

iq routes

if not mistake the 740 has IQ routes and advance lane changing as the 930. The main reason for the 740 would be not having to worry about pareing with any cell phone except for bluetooth. and dialing. but remember the 930 has EP Enhanced posiitioning so it will not conk out in a tunnel or bridge. It also has much more memory. and european maps . If traffic is the most important thing then the 740 live would be my choice with google search that is included. But the choice is yours.

 

[mvl]

All three models have IQroutes and ALG.

XL340 offers RDS-TMC traffic
GO930 offers RDS-TMC or PLUS traffic
GO740 offers LIVE traffic

The traffic vendors are all different, but in general LIVE traffic is better than PLUS/RDS-TMC traffic.

If your commute is a choice of highways, with no usable sideroads, then the traffic solutions should be pretty similar. The Los Angeles highways have sophisticated government road sensors which all vendors use, so highway flow is pretty good regardless of vendor.

If you are looking for sideroad traffic coverage, then the 740 has the best potential, as it uses delivery truck info, and will add speeds of other 740 users. It may not be that much better until more 740's are sold.

EDIT: I just realized that you mentioned POIs. The 740 has the worst POIs of the three, so if that is very important then choose either the 930/340.

It may come down to a choice of cost and non-traffic features that makes your decision.

 

[gatorguy]

You might change your opinion once you get a chance to play with the 740. Much less flow data than what MSN is supplying here in Central Florida. No coverage at all of any secondary roads so far. I don't have a current traffic cable for my 930, so can't compare with the 740 yet. Hope to have one by first of next week.

I'll be shocked if Trafficast is still the trafffic provider this time next year.

 

[Skizza]

All three models have IQroutes and ALG.

XL340 offers RDS-TMC traffic
GO930 offers RDS-TMC or PLUS traffic
GO740 offers LIVE traffic

The traffic vendors are all different, but in general LIVE traffic is better than PLUS/RDS-TMC traffic.

If your commute is a choice of highways, with no usable sideroads, then the traffic solutions should be pretty similar. The Los Angeles highways have sophisticated government road sensors which all vendors use, so highway flow is pretty good regardless of vendor.

If you are looking for sideroad traffic coverage, then the 740 has the best potential, as it uses delivery truck info, and will add speeds of other 740 users. It may not be that much better until more 740's are sold.

EDIT: I just realized that you mentioned POIs. The 740 has the worst POIs of the three, so if that is very important then choose either the 930/340.

It may come down to a choice of cost and non-traffic features that makes your decision.

Do you not have the ability to add your own POI's (like all the ones listed on this forum) on the 740?

 

[gatorguy]

I haven't done so, but no reason that it would be any diffeernt than any of the other TomTom's. Lots of sources for custom poi's. POI-Factory is my favorite

 

[Skizza]

All three models have IQroutes and ALG.

XL340 offers RDS-TMC traffic
GO930 offers RDS-TMC or PLUS traffic
GO740 offers LIVE traffic

The traffic vendors are all different, but in general LIVE traffic is better than PLUS/RDS-TMC traffic.

If your commute is a choice of highways, with no usable sideroads, then the traffic solutions should be pretty similar. The Los Angeles highways have sophisticated government road sensors which all vendors use, so highway flow is pretty good regardless of vendor.

If you are looking for sideroad traffic coverage, then the 740 has the best potential, as it uses delivery truck info, and will add speeds of other 740 users. It may not be that much better until more 740's are sold.

EDIT: I just realized that you mentioned POIs. The 740 has the worst POIs of the three, so if that is very important then choose either the 930/340.

It may come down to a choice of cost and non-traffic features that makes your decision.

Ok, so I've narrowed it down to the 930 or 740 because I'm leery of RDS-TMC antenna. On my route, there are many "street" options. There is so much traffic on my commute that about 90% of the time I get off of the freeway to take side streets. That being the case, would the 740 be my best option? In my experience, my old TT (520) using PLUS only indicated traffic when there was an incident. Many times there was traffic just due to the volume of cars on the highway and my TT didn't re-route me. That being said, does the 740 use the highway sensors AND incident reports AND data from other 740 users to route?

 

[mvl]

You have the ability to add POIs to the 740, just like any tomtom.

The difference is the starting point. The large POI file on the 930/340 has (in my experience) every single business that shows up on google (except the "unverified" ones). The only missing POIs I've ever come across were new stores.

The 740 has the smaller POI file from the tomtom 720/730 series. It has limited categories to fit on the 2GB internal memory. It has most restaurants, but few shops. However, if you purchase the "LIVE" traffic service, then you also get Google LIVE POI included, which means the device will search Google.com for POIs via the GPRS modem so maybe the built-in POI limitations won't mean that much.

In, your old 520, did you have the latest map 825, which supported IQroutes? IQroutes has excellent historical sidestreet traffic coverage, and will basically cover the 80% of sidestreet traffic that is predictible every rush hour (it has a bug with roads that are predictably <10 mph, but I hope tomtom will fix it soon). You'll want a map subscription at least this year, as the quality is improving dramatically each map release.

The 740 is supposed to provide additional traffic data, and has larger street "coverage" (although it's too early to tell it's level of accuracy). gatorguy is doing a side-by-side traffic trial of pretty much every GPS out there, so you should consider his opinions. Just realize that Los Angeles has one of the best highway traffic managements systems out there, so I don't think the highway vendor differences that gatorguy finds in Floida will be indicative of your highway experience. And to answer your question, yes - the 740 gets reports from all the sources you mentioned. See here for some info on the 740's traffic technology, and go to Yahoo maps traffic to get a sense of the quality of its data.

 

[Skizza]

You might change your opinion once you get a chance to play with the 740. Much less flow data than what MSN is supplying here in Central Florida. No coverage at all of any secondary roads so far. I don't have a current traffic cable for my 930, so can't compare with the 740 yet. Hope to have one by first of next week.

I'll be shocked if Trafficast is still the trafffic provider this time next year.

That being said, I'd hate to get the 740 for the live traffic feature and TT ditches the system altogether in a year, leaving me with a TT Dash!

 

[gatorguy]

I don't see any danger of them ditching a traffic service. But TrafficCast is not the service that TomTom envisioned for the North American "live" devices. IMO, they're simply filling in till TomTom is able to offer something they think is better.

 

[Skizza]

Thanks for all your help guys, leaning heavily towards the 740! Does it not have an MP3 player?

 

[mvl]

Thanks for all your help guys, leaning heavily towards the 740! Does it not have an MP3 player?

It doesn't have an MP3 player - you could buy a 3rd party add in from www.mobilnova.com.

 

[gatorguy]

It does offer iPod control. Now what to use to connect it might be problematic. I don't think TT offers a cable anymore.

 

[doctormstein1]

930 vs 740

if you can wait like i will do, more then likely in the 4th quarter the 940 or 950 whichever model will more then likely come out which will have all the bells and whissels.