Free for Life Garmin Traffic Data has a Price

I confess when I heard about the deal on new devices that include “free for life” traffic information, I didn’t get too excited. Apparently, it was for good reason: the traffic comes with ads. A PC Mag review explains:

One gripe: The nüvi 755T comes with advertisements. My evaluation unit arrived with three preloaded vendors (BP, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo). When you access the traffic menu, one of these advertiser’s names always appears at the bottom of the screen. Also, from time to time, one of these ads will pop up on the map view screen (they won’t appear when you are in motion). A single tap of the advertisers’ name will perform a POI search for nearby retail locations. Unfortunately, you can’t disable these ads, but it’s likely that they help Garmin offset the cost of the live traffic information that it offers free.

It’ll be interesting to see if a backlash causes any changes in the plan.