Rating: 
Summary: NYC GPS Weak; Don't Install "Backlight"
Review: It's a nice PDA with tons of features. Just one drawback, and one incompatible program:1. So far my GPS reception around NYC has been weak. I have not been able to get a fix in most areas except very open spaces like Union Square and Verdi Square. Walking around low and medium density neighborhoods in Queens and Manhattan, and driving in Midtown have been frustrating and rarely successful UPDATE: WITH THE DASHBOARD MOUNT, RECEPTION IS MUCH IMPROVED. ALSO, AS SOMEONE ELSE NOTED, DON'T POINT THE ANTENNA DIRECTLY AT THE SKY. POSITION IT PARALLEL TO THE HORIZON. 2. (Preface: I am a Palm amateur, so many of you will hit your hand to your forehead and say "what an idiot!" but for those of us every day users) When I first synced my iQue to the same PC where I had previously synced my m500, it installed a bunch of software - all of which I wanted. Then it crashed on every power down and needed a reset. Bad iQue. I read all the other reviews, found out about the patch, installed it. No improvement. I called up Garmin (before Christmas), waited 20 minutes on the phone, gave them all the info about the error, and the only advice I got was "one of your programs is causing a problem, we don't know which one, we don't have a list, we don't care." Not as helpful as I'd like for $500+; I can't imagine what they'll be like after a couple dozen thousand frustrated owners started calling around noon EST, 12/25. So I started deleting programs left and right to find the offender - even stuff they provided on their CD, because the support folks wouldn't say if they were the problem - Vindigo, Key Contacts, Palm Reader, Docs to Go, power One, Taipan, iSilo, Diddlebug. Still nothing. Finally, I started rooting through the apps list and found a little 2K thing called "Backlight." Killed it, and that did the trick. UPDATE: HAS CRASHED A GRAND TOTAL OF ONCE SINCE THIS REPAIR.
Rating: 
Summary: Wow! I want all my friends to buy this...
Review: I love the accuracy of the route navigation and how it recalcs once you're off route. I love the day to night view as the sun sets and how accurate it is identifying the street numbers as you pass them! I wish it came with more standard memory as I have to keep deleting and adding cities and regions each time I try a new route! Overall, a great toy to have and wish I had bought one sooner!
Rating: 
Summary: Wait for the next generation hardware
Review: I received my iQue 3600 on 11/15/2003 to replace my older Earthmate GPS which needed a PC to work with. Took a while to install the system with the poorly done user's guide for installation. Then, I was happy with device for about one week, as it was a replicate of my favor NeverLost system. The guiding software system was great. Had a clear voice and good direction. After the one week honeymoon, I had at least three reset and reboot from 11/22/2003 to 12/19/2003 without any warning. I had to bring my laptop as a backup with my trip. Sometime, I wonder why I need the iQue when I already have my laptop with Earthmate GPS receiver. Finally, my iQue stop working after 12/19/2003. I reset it and reload the software, etc. Called the technical support today. Well, got to send it back to the shop for repair. I had to pay for the shipping. It will take Garmin up to 10 days to the unit fix after receiving the device!!! Now, for my X'mas & New Year vacation, I will be depend on my laptop with Earthmate GPS, not the iQue. My opinion, you are better of waiting for the next generation hardware.
Rating:
Summary: IQue rocks for navigation; takes work for other apps.
Review: I recently bought the Ique as a replacement for my lost Ipaq 3835, which I used with a GPS sleeve from Pocket CoPilot. While I was relatively satisfied with the pocket copilot, it was fairly annoying at times, requiring weird info (such as the name of the county!) to determine a destination. In just a short time using the IQue, I find that it is dramatically superior. It lets you find ANYTHING, and quickly at that. Probably the second most used application on my Pocket PC was a Powerpoint viewer, for sales presentations and training. This kind of program is tougher to set up for the IQue. Neither of the two popular Palm applications will support landscape mode on the IQue, so eventually I settled on the Resco picture viewer for Palm, which does allow full-screen viewing and imports from Powerpoint. Voila...it works. My job is a 100% travel, highly technical medical sales position, where I make many presentations. If you're like me, and travel a lot, and also require a very functional PDA, the IQue will work great for you, with just a few additional programs. I'd suggest buying a windshield mount, a cigarette lighter adapter, and a travel charger, plus a 512 mb SD card (about $150 online), and you'll be able to travel light and carry the entire southeastern US map data plus LOTS of files.
Rating:
Summary: Convenient, works well, and fits perfectly in a Saab
Review: I am a new owner of a Garmin iPaq 3600. I recommend it for anyone looking for a convenient and seamless PDA/GPS combination. I found the iPaq fits perfectly in the foldout cup holder of my SAAB 9.5. This places it nicely in view from the driver seat and it has not had any problems acquiring and keeping satellites. The cup holder has some rubber around the rim that protects the PDA while holding it tightly so it does not shift or rattle. This is fantastic, as I don't have wires and extra stuff cluttering up my car. The battery life has been fine for several hours of driving around Austin even though the iPaq had to frequently wake-up to give me directions. I had not changed any of the default settings (brightness, time to sleep, etc.) and was happily surprised that I still had over ΒΌ of a battery charge left. I am certain tweaking the PDA settings will extend the battery life further. Audio has also been fine, if somewhat distorted by high volume, for hearing the voice commands over music and road noise. This is expected because of the small speaker size necessary to fit inside the PDA. I also think my SAAB is a fairly quiet car and I don't usually blast my car stereo. As a result, I returned the Auto Navigation Kit. Your mileage may vary. However, I recommend you first try the unit in your car before spending the money on a car kit. Whatever you decide, I do recommend getting an in-car charger for longer trips. Bottom line: For short trips in my SAAB, I just put the PDA in my cup holder and have it provide me with directions. No messing with wires or mounts required. I also purchase a SanDisk Ultra II 256 mb secure digital memory card to go with my Garmin iPaq 3600. This card has worked flawlessly with my PDA. I have loaded all the map sections from Austin, Texas to Los Angeles, then up the coast to San Francisco and finally northeast through Reno and up past Boise Idaho. This requires about 130 mb of storage. I chose a high-speed card because I was concerned a slower memory card would cause delays when the Garmin had to recalculate a route (i.e. when I miss a turn). So far, I have noticed a delay of one or two seconds at the longest - even with all that data available. I did have some problems with hotsynching, but they went away after I applied the software update from the Garmin website. All told, I am very happy with my purchase. Good luck and I hope you enjoy yours as well!
Rating:
Summary: Incredible GPS with nice PDA functions
Review: ***UPDATE*** Had to send back to Garmin (paid for shipping) due to the fact that the flip up antenna malfunctioned where it wasn't acquiring any satellites for navigation. Also, the unit was getting fatal errors for no apparent reason. Garmin sent me an external antenna that solved the navigation problems (went to NYC for a weekend and it worked great). However, I need the flip up antenna to work if I want to go portable with it. Garmin fixed issues by sending me a refurbished model instead of fixing the unit that I had sent in. I had to reload the new unlock map keys and the unit is working well. Time will tell if I encounter any additional problems. Purchased it with a 256Mbps SD card, carrying case, and auto nav kit. I am very impressed by the functionality of this device. The display is very clear and automatically changes from day to night mode. The directions are clear and the sound quality from the auto nav kit is very good. I haven't used the MP player functions yet but with the 256M card, I was able to load in the entire east coast (Virginia to Boston as well as the coast down to South Carolina.) I was also able to load in most of Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Fran. Still have room for 19M of additional info. The only problem I have is if I touch the Ique and have static electricity, it wipes out my address database and calendar
Rating:
Summary: It Works and is Great
Review: I initially read a lot of negative reviews mainly on the battery and on the soft/hard resets. Later I read on the GPS sites that the battery is not an issue if auto navigation tool kit is bought along with PDA. And also mentioned were that lot of soft/hard reset issues are done with after getting the update patches (available on Garmin Site).
I decided to give it a shot and believe me it works and works perfect. I like the feature of searching the 'points of interest' at current location/destination. It makes life lot more easier since you not only need not to know the address of star bucks (or any other point of interest) near by, but you also have its phone number. Great Feature.
I like the auto re-calculate options and how fast it works, when you are off route. It tries to take you back to the old route until the point where it makes more sense to come up with a totally new route. I tried to fool it around a bit, but it succeeded in taking me to my location. You sometimes might feel why is it taking to all the different streets, because you are used to one of your own routes all these days. But if you are a total stranger to the place believe me you can believe on this machine.
Also doubles as MP3 Player, Calendar, To Do, Digital Photo Slide Viewer. I sync up my outlook calendar but not my outlook email, since I have too many mails and also have no need for the email on the go. I am not sure if one can access web using this (May we with a modem/SD/CF card?). I also like the SD card concept because you can buy the size that you think you need.
Rating:
Summary: Neat Gadget, Poor QA, Battery Stinks
Review: Absolutely fabulous gadget. With the car kit, worth the price as a navigator alone. Really readable. Software very well thought out. But. First one I got, the battery would not take a charge, and it kept hard resetting at random. (Some people report installing the firmware update solved the resets.) Buy one from a company that will exchange a defective unit for you. Battery life is horrible. Garmin says 10 days at 30 minutes a day, backlight off. Very funny. Can't read it with backlight off. Seems like battery life is about an hour, regardless of whether GPS is on or not. And it's rather sleazy for Garmin not to give a realistic spec on this important issue. Bottom line: I love it. But I have a nagging suspicion that in six months, Garmin will be forced to come out with a unit with a decent battery.
Rating:
Summary: Garmin iQue 3600
Review: I've owned this unit about one month and made several trips using it and it works absloutely flawlessly. If you know a little about computers, you can use and enjoy this unit. We traveled to a couple large cities (Pittsburgh and Buffalo) and the unit took me right to the door of where I wanted to go. The two biggest drawbacks is there is no manual included for using the "Palm" programs (i.e. address book, etc.)but it can be downloaded from the Garmin web site -- which I would recommend. Also, the unit is extremely hard to attach (and unattach) from the "hot sync" unit. It can become very frustrating. They should have designed the "hot sync" to attach as the mobile unit attaches. Even with these two drawbacks I highly recommend this unit. It's great as a navagation unit and as a Palm Pilot. What more could you want???
Rating:
Summary: Great Product - Ignore Most Negative Reviews
Review: I did a lot of research before buying this unit and I was still a little nervous, given some negative reviews here and elsewhere. I believe the negative reviews were almost all created BEFORE the second release of the software, as this is really a great unit. It was very difficult to get the unit to synch to Outlook and also continue using my Treo for everyday (non-travel) PDA functionality. The tech help was great at Garmin, though, and I should have called them much sooner...you should too if you run into a problem of any kind. Definitely buy Chapura's Pocket Mirror if you are planning on synching with Outlook and using the Garmin plus another device. This thing is BETTER than NeverLost and will cost you way less if you need it more than a few days a year (there are much higher value car rental companies than Hertz, who often doesn't have the NeverLost you were hoping to get anyway). I highly recommend this great product.
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