Garmin iQue 3600 PDA/GPS Handheld System with Americas Detailed Street Mapping

Rating:
Summary: Data loss problem
Review: I've experienced the data loss problem also as a result of having to perform hard resets. Since, I can't avoid this problem I've purchased a program called BackupBuddy. This program has helped me several times when I was nowhere near my computer for a hotsync. I run this program daily, in many cases it's more up to date than what's on my computer. So whenever my iQue crashes all I have to do is run this program on my PDA and everything is restored from the SD card. It's the best insurance you can buy for this pesky reset problem. Of course, not having the problem would be the best option.

Rating:
Summary: Poor user interface!
Review: I can't believe so many people love this product. I love electronic gismos and rarely need to use instructions to figure how to work things. It took me for ever to figure out and too load maps. Once I got it working, it worked ok, but not great. Besides being hard to set up, it had three major problems.
1) Poor user interface. Hard to figure out how to use. Can't use while driving.
2) Short battery life. I many times lost important data because battery ran out too quickly.
3)SD card slot doesn't hold card well. I loaded east and west coast maps into device. Went on vacation. When I came home, I used it as GPS and wondered why no detailed maps where there. My card fell out without my knowledge.

Rating:
Summary: customer service
Review: This is a great product. However, make sure you do not lose any of your installation software or registration/unlock/customer codes. The customer service personnel will be very pleasant and replace these things if you do lose them, but you'll have to endure being put on hold for 20-30 minutes (and can only call in Central time 8am-5pm) to get those things--a royal pain in the butt.

Rating:
Summary: Very Pleased with Product
Review: Having read the recent, unfavorable comments I have had a different reaction:

I bought my Garmin 3600 from Amazon, late last September. Initially I found it pretty complicated and with so many "bells and whistles" it was difficult to remember how to access it's functions. After using it for a couple weeks in the local area I began to feel competent with it. In November I took it to an unfamiliar city (Portland, OR) and used it to get around with a rental car - it was great. Finding our hotel, nightclubs and other locations late at night was a snap, I always knew where I was and got to where I was going without a hitch. Over the past 3 months, I have pretty well mastered most features and they work well. It has a lot of power that is not readily recognized.

The unit has locked up a couple of times on me, but a reset, using the tool inside the stylus, quickly restored it. The only real downside I experienced for this item is the "learning curve". It took a lot of familiarization to become proficient with it but in retrospect it was well worth the time. Earlier comments about the battery power and using the car charger apply, but have not been a real problem.

Should you buy this product, I would strongly recommend that you get the "low profile" antenna to go with it. It speeds up acquisition and it let's you move the handheld around to different locations in the vehicle.

All things said, I am delighted with the product and it goes everywhere with me.


Rating:
Summary: FUBR on the second day?????
Review: Well it has been a few months since I got my original IQUE 3600 replaced. I can use only one word to describe the unit,

IMPRESSIVE.

Aside from the battery life which everyone has already mentioned, and the fact that it does lock up occasionally, nothing a soft reset won't fix, it works great.

The GPS component works very nicely, the find feature is nice. I wish they had an easy mechanism to specifiy an address or intersection to get direction. The find function for addresses does not seem to work very well and so I have to create an address entry in the address book before I can route to the address.

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I am giving it 1 star based on a total of about 2 hours of experience which I consider is Extremely generous based on the current condition of the product.

1- Graet product. I got it monday eve. Charged it for 3.5 hrs and sync'd with my laptop. Sweet. Everything is great. Locked up once but a soft reboot was all it needed.
2- Day 2, used in the AM to track for about 3 minutes. Works great, recalculates extremely fast. i am impressed.
3- Still day 2, Since I was travelling the entire day, did not have the opportunity to play with it. Now that it is the evening, i can play with it. About 30 minutes later, the unit locked up. I cannot do a hard reset no soft reset. Garmin is closed Will try in the AM.
4- Day three, called Garmin, Got a support rep in about 8 minutes (pretty good so far). He was polite and asked me that even though I had purchased it two days ago, the only way to get it fixed was to send it to them and let them "repair" it.

Well I want a new unit as this one may have some major problems (maybe software???).

Also, I wish they had some sort of an advanced replacement program. i mean if I pay that kinda money for a device, i should get at least the option to put up my CC and get an advanced replacement.

I am trying to get this resolved through the vendor I bought it from. I will update if things change.

Rating:
Summary: They have design problems
Review: I am going on my third pda in the last 3 months. Can't keep the gps operational. They know they have hardware problems in this area. On the up side, the palm side seems to be fine and they have good customer service.

Rating:
Summary: Do Not Buy This Until They Fix the Kinks
Review: I had problems twice with this item, and Amazon tried to replace it without success. First, the cradle did not fit the item properly. Then, the second unit I received had problems with the touch screen. When I wrote to Amazon about this, they said the problems with this product were "widespread." The product, if it works, would be great. I hope they fix whatever is wrong with it, but until then, buy at your own risk.

Rating:
Summary: intelligent end user
Review: The software for the Maps and the battery life are the real serious drawbacks on this unit. The updates needed are not really well specified/or documented on the garmin site. I was finally able to install the software patch for the 1 gd SD card afte visiting the CNET site.

and guess what - the card wiped out after 3/4 weeks of install because of low battery!! Watch your batteries

Rating:
Summary: Great GPS and PDA
Review: I got one and I can say, I am totally amazed with it. It can guide me to a destination without any problems. I tested it with some local sample routing, and it even found my favorite short cuts.

As noted already, the map install software is the worse. I have an MS in Comp Eng, and over 20 years of experience with PC's, and it took every trick I knew to get the map install program to run from the general software install (aka "startup") CD. Garmin claims, wrongly, that one has to wait for the general install CD to stop spinning before switching (as instructed) to the map install CD. That isn't it. The best thing to do, is to just wait 15 minutes or so, and then MAYBE you can successfully switch CD's. Even then, it took me 5 tries for it to take. :(

If you are technically skillful and curious (otherwise skip to the next paragraph), I believe the general software install routines accidentally leave a file open on the startup CD when it tells you to swap CD's, which causes all sorts of grief to Windows if you try to eject the CD. By waiting, Windows will eventually time out and close that forgotten file. At that time, and only at that time, you can safely eject the startup CD and put in the map install CD.

However, you usually only need to do this once (thank deity!). From then on, you can update your maps through the Palm Desktop.

The only other oddity I found, that you can have the iQue set up a route from an origin to a destination, but there is NO WAY to easily plot a return route once you want to return back to your original origin (your home?). I think a simple, "swap the current point of origin with the destination, and plot a return route" would be a nice and widely used one-click function. Alas, to return home you have to do a full, new, routing. That is not that difficult, but it is not as simple as one-click "swap" would be.

The only times I had to do a reset, is with a couple of third party games. I think that is more a reflection on the games, than the iQue OS. The iQue seems very solid.

Overall, I think this is unit really great. However, I would suggest getting the iQue M5 instead (http://www.garmin.com/products/iQueM5/).

Rating:
Summary: Poor battery performance
Review: When I first saw this unit advertised, I could not wait to purchase one.
It has turned out to be the biggest piece of crap, I have ever wasted over $400 on!
The batteries last no more than one half hour. When I brought this to the attention of Garmin, they admitted the bads performance, and suggest loading a new updated driver, which I did. Still no improvement. I would hate to be lost in the woods and have to depend on the GPS to help me.
Do not buy this product unless they imporve the batteries