Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the Hype
Review: This is a great product. I have owned one for a few weeks and it is very cool. Looking at the iQue3600 as only a GPS navigation unit, it has performed perfectly and far exceeded my expectations. Garmin really has the gps navigation software perfected and the palm platform with the 320x480 16 bit screen makes for a pretty impressive package (much better resolution than more expensive in car units). The voice promps work great and the palm interface makes for real ease of use. If you have used a palm before, you will learn the GPS software in a couple of hours. Besides outperforming any GPS nav system in its price range, the iQue 3600 is also a full featured palm with mp3 and voice recorder. If you travel for business, you must get one. The Quefind program has a database of hotels, restaurants, ect, with phone numbers. If you see a place you'd like to eat, call and get reservations, then press "route to" and the iQue does the rest. There is a lot of bashing of this product for alleged hard resets. I have never had one, although I did upgrade the firmware via Garmins website. I actually almost didn't buy the iQue 3600 because of some of the negative reviews I read here and elsewhere. Then I saw a newsprogram on undercover marketing and now believe that some of the negative product reviews here and elsewhere are the work of paid marketing folks pretending to be normal consumers. The dollars at stake are too large and this meathod too easy and inexpensive for it not to be happening. I looked into Garmin and discovered that they are a 5 billion dollar company with a great reputation in the GPS area. So I figured that if the product becomes defective within the first year, Garmin would stand by its warranty and fix it. If you buy this unit, also buy the car mount kit and a 256mb card. For about $600 you get a perfectly sized easy to use GPS navigation system that really works, and it also is a fully functional palm (you can even run other programs while the gps system is running). Everyone that I have shown it to can't believe what it can do or the price. You pay $300 - $500 bucks for a decent handhold anyway, for a little more, you also get a state of the art gps system with voice and a great screen. My bet is that this will be a very hot gift for Christmas this year.
Rating: 
Summary: Seems like it would be a good product if it worked - IT IS!
Review: ALL PROBLEMS THAT I HAD WRITTEN ABOUT BELOW HAVE BEEN RESOLVED BY INSTALLING THE NEW RELEASE - VERSION TWO (2) OF THE GARMIN SOFTWARE!!! I've had this for over a month now (am I past the point of no return?). It took me and the Garmin Tech Supp folks two weeks to get the maps loaded into the 3600 due to corrupt software issues and the need to send me additional install CDs. Now that everything was finally loaded, I really couldn't wait to give it a try. I downloaded my contact list of roughly 400+ names, numbers, and adresses. Downloaded my calendar info for past, present, and future meetings, important dates, and appointments. Then I installed the few apps I purchased along with the 3600. I bring it to the car, set it in the cradle, it resets and erases all of the info I just loaded. It brings the unit back the the calibration screen where the timezone defaults to the west coast. Before I can even begin to reinstall everything I must go through the calibration routine, changing the time zone, etc. This has happened now so often that I have not been able to travel one single route that was guided by the iQue. The resetting was happening before I loaded everything, but the tech support guys thought that it was just because I didn't have anything loaded in it yet. I now need to return it to be replaced (or something close) but I don't have the original packaging and it turns out that this is a real problem with amazon. I'd love to be able to speak with someone from amazon in person instead of trying to navigate the maze of support links that run in circles and circles . . . Oh well. wish me luck. I wouldn't buy one of these until I can come back and definatively tell you what was wrong. I'd also like to hear from the other gentleman who's PDA consistanty reset. Cheers
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful and Lovely Product
Review: The Garmin iQue is overall an excellent product. I highly recommend buying a Sandisk 512MB SD card to store more maps. I was able to store virtually the entire east coast on my card. (1GB sandisk SD cards are not out yet but will be soon). I also highly recommend getting the auto navigation kit. That will allow you to securely and conveniently place your iQue 3600 on your dash and I find that the iQue locates the satelite much faster this way. (Typically within 60 seconds). Thirdly, Garmin has release a new version of the operating system on their website under the iQue 3600 software updates. It is the PalmOS Software V.5.2.1r2 your iQue might have shipped with r1. It is easy to install with the garmin instruction. Garmin has excellent support for their products. Even with the additional items that I mentioned, the device still costs much less than other navigation systems that offer much less features. The screen is of much higher resolution then the other products. The PalmOS 5 ability to run a wealth of other applications make this product great. I can see this product being a must for sales people who travel by car because they can keep all their customer info on the handheld and get accurate direction to go there as well. The product also has a nice MP3 player.The Battery life of the iQue is indeed shorter than a Palm m515 for example. You can go on for weeks with out recharging an M515. You can go on for about a few days using the GPS and using the PDA normally without recharging the iQue. But this is not a problem at all if you have a car navigation kit because the iQue battery is not used for the navigation and it actually recharges the iQue battery in the car as you drive. The battery also recharges when your sync up your data, email and ms office documents etc... So if you use your iQue with an Auto navigation kit, you will have no battery problem at all. The battery will also last much longer if reduce the brightness of the screen. When I navigate with the auto navigation kit I put it at full brightness because it's not using the battery, otherwise a third or a quarter of the brightness is enough for me. I have also heard that switching off the infra red Beaming capability when not needed will lengthen battery life. The mp3 player does not use much power because it turns off the bright screen after a while to save power as it plays. To the people who claim that the product crashes, it is probably due to an ill behaved third party application. You should determine which application it is and remove it. Note that even if you are not running/using an application it is still loaded can cause issues. Old, ill behaved OS 4 applications can cause this on the new OS 5. Upgrade your apps and confirm compatibility with the vendor and you shoud be OK. I highly recommend the iQue 3600, it is from a GPS navigation leader (Garmin) and from Handheld OS leader (PalmSource). I did a lot of research before buying this product and found that it is simply the best Handheld/GPS navigation system out there and it works extremely well. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Spontaneous Hard Resets
Review: I bought a Garmin iQue from Amazon a few weeks back. All seemed wonderful. I discovered however that the unit would do a spontaneous hard rest in my pocket. After losing all my data multiple times, I called Garmin. They had me send the unit back to them. I had to pay shipping costs.
The new unit, to a lesser extent suffered the same problem. In addition, the new unit would not turn off the GPS system. When the antenna is down, GPS tracking is supposed to go off. Not on this unit though. And GPS tracing sucks up battery juice.
I called Garmin again, and again I was told I had bad hardware and to ship the unit back. Enough, was enough. I returned the unit to Amazon.
Amazon was wonderful. Garmin's product was abysmal.
Rating:
Summary: Great gadget but it made me get a ticket!
Review: I recently moved to Houston TX and got one of these gadgets to explore the area by myself and not have to worry about reading a map while driving. It's great, well almost perfect. I'll talk about the only negative points I have found using it. 1. Driving along the interstate in the slow lane and suddenly it thinks your not on the interstate anymore, it decides that you are on the frontage road - "Off route, recalculating..." it says. That is annoying. 2. It sometimes decides on routes which take longer and involve more turns than required. (But i guess if you know a better way, then go for it, it soon realises that you are off route and recalculates accordingly) 3. I was trying to find the nearest Outback Steakhouse from my location and the nearest one it found was 12 miles away, which is completely wrong as there is one less than 5 miles away. I suppose it can't know everything. 4. I was stopped by the police for doing 69 in a 65 zone and the police woman spotted the Ique on my dash while writing me a warning for my speed, she asked what it was. After I told her she said that it was illeagal as of September 2003 (in the state of Texas) to mount any device on the dashboard which blocks any part of the drivers field of view. She wrote me another warning for that. So now the Ique sits on the arm rest in next to the drivers seat, but the signal is not half as good there and it often looses a satellite reception. All that said though, I still reccomend it to anyone who hates maps or who has a spouse who's terrible at map reading. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to drive without it.
Rating: 
Summary: Pros and Cons with the iQue 3600
Review: I am owning an iQue 3600 right now, and this is the first GPS that I own. I thought that Garmin would make a very decent and reliable product such as the iQue 3600, since they are in the GPS business for a while. I am so dissappointed. This is a list of my experiences with Garmin iQue 3600: 1. Battery life is terrible. If you play around with it, e.g., entering data, waypoints, etc., the battery drains so fast. 2. I don't like one-touch keyed-on power. Whenever something hit the pouch that contains the iQue 3600, the unit will automatically be turned on. This is not so bad, except that the unit could get reset accidentally. I prefer a total control on the power button, i.e., when I want it on, I mean to turn it on. Otherwise if I want it off, it should be off. No accidental turn-on. 3. The unit keeps being reset all the time. It occured to me almost everyday, whenever I take it off the auto/car mount. The automatic reset also occurs when there is static and you are touching it. 4. Slotting the stylus in and out its slot also creates resetting sometimes. It happened to me about 3-4 times. Again, I suspect that there is static developing when the stylus is moving in or out its slot. This is only my speculation. 5. There is no mechanism to save waypoints, addresses, and data to the SD card instead of the unit's memory. So even in the case that I have a memory wipe-out due to a reset, I still have all the data intact. If I am not incorrect, the access of the data from the SD card to internal memory or buffers for calculation happens only once, so storing data on the SD card should not slow down the calculation and/or the unit's timely updates/responses. I don't know what Garmin's engineers have been thinking! 6. There is no such thing that I call "on-field user-friendly features." Garmin can make a scroll up/down button to select waypoint items (and a push-in would make a select) instead of using stylus to point. In a car, when you are travel, searching for waypoints/addresses would be a hassle if user has to use stylus to point to (a little tiny) a line on screen. This "stylus action" requires concentration and sometimes two hands. Why can't they make it for one-hand operation, i.e., scrolling up/down and then pushing in to select the desired item? 7. Opening the antenna of the unit is really a hassle. The slot reserved for your finger is too small. Again, what have Garmin's engineers been thinking? Haven't they tested a prototype before making it into a full production? Don't get me wrong. The GPS has many good features, but I think this iQue 3600 needs more considerations into its design. I would definitely wait for the future generation if I have another chance.
Rating: 
Summary: The Good, Bad and Down-right Ugly
Review: First, I've owned a Garmin GPS-III for a decade, and I own an Earthmate. I'm *NOT* selling either because I've got the new iQue 3600! I'll agree with most of the other reviews: It's worth buying, it's fairly accurate, it computes routes *very* quickly. The battery life sucks (see tips below to increase the life) *IF* you don't use the device wisely. So, I'll dwell on the bad and ugly, but I still recommend buying it! Manuals: the one that gets installed is almost worthless. The ones you can download from Garmin's site are better, but if you have Adobe Acrobat (note: don't confuse this with the Reader!), you CAN'T create your own bookmarks or add notes. Garmin has decided their "offical release" is all you need and locked everything down, so be prepared to do a lot of guess-work "searching." There is no way to import waypoints from other routing software (e.g. Street Atlas). So, you're *stuck* with letting the iQue find you a route FROM WHERE YOU ARE to where you want to be. For someone who travels for a living and who wants to jump-off the airplane and get to his destination from the airport, this means you have to set-up waypoints by hand before arriving. And then, if the automatic routing doesn't just happen to pick the route you want, you'll have to modify the route by inserting your waypoints. Yes, you can pick waypoints by hand while sitting in the rental cars' parking lot: but, each time you "choose from the map," the map zooms to a point where you can see almost the entire US of A, and you get to zoom-in from there. Very clumsy and time-consuming. Be prepared to earn your PhD in "PDA user interface:" trying to add waypoints, viewing information, etc will take you away from your map and leave you with no easy way back. For the GPS hobbyist, techno-freaks and casual traveler the iQue is a lot of fun. For those trying to do serious business traveling while in an unfamiliar area, be ready to pay a few days learning the device. UPDATED 10/31: Side Note for we who travel on large motorcycles: the DC adaptor DOES NOT requires the Auto Mount (a glorified beanbag with speakers and a plug). I just got my DC adaptor, and it plugs into the bottom of the unit WITHOUT the need for a cradle of any type! COOL! UPDATE: For the heck of it, I tried a test. 1) I set the screen to low intensity. 2) I set the log tracking to "least often." 3) I turned-on the "Battery Saver." I drove to and from work (90 minutes round trip) and only used 1/3 (one third) of the battery life. Doing a little math: you should be able to get about 4.5 hours of use, 'eh? Reading other reviews on Amazon, here some suggestions: 1) "No vibrate for the alarm." Goto the Home screen, choose the System category, and click the "Prefs" icon. Turn "Alarm Vibrate" on. 2) "Carry a paper clip to reset." Pull-out your stylus, unscrew the top (non-pointy end), and use the special "Reset" pin. All Palm's come with 'em! 3) "Slides all over the dash." Go to your favorite Cell Phone vendor. Buy a $15 sticky pad for your dash. Craddle your Garmin, and set it just like you would on your desk on top of your sticky pad. If you're NOT Mario Andretti, it'll stick just fine! 4) For all-day use on one charge: TURN DOWN YOUR SCREEN intensity!!! Turn OFF the voice. Lower your colors to "basic." If you leave the voice on, then when it says "five miles, turn left," turn OFF the PDA for four minutes! Turn it on four miles up the road, and let it give you more directions. This is a great, accurate, useful device. Use it wisely, and enjoy the company! UPDATE 10/31: You can now download a "conduit" to retrieve your breadcrums from the iQue, and view them in the Mapsource software. Oh, and you have to download the full-version Mapsource software: it's NOT on the installation CD! Go figure. You can't, however, UPLOAD routes to the iQue, yet. Tech Support says it MAY be here in the future. One can hope, eh?
Rating:
Summary: Don't leave home without your Garmin iQue!
Review: I just returned from wandering around Mississippi and the new iQue is everything I was hoping for in a GPS. The iQue replaces my Palm and my Garmin Street Pilot. Besides having all the street detail, it can find the closest gas stations, MacDonalds, museums, motels, airports, rental cars, etc. Driving instructions are accurate and easy to follow. It's a great Palm also, with an excellent screen. If you want to use it in the car, you will need the Garmin Auto Kit to hold it in place, provide power, and amplify the voice turning instructions. You also need a memory card large enough to hold the maps you need - 128 mb or 256 mb.
Rating:
Summary: Great product with software release 2
Review: If you get this- definitely get a 256K card for detail maps and the car kit; I keep all of New England and the eastern seaboard down to Washington DC on mine. It works well as a GPS and the spoken directions are excellent- almost all the time. Once in a while it seems to "get confused",so do not have this as your only source of guidance; you need to know those few times it "gets confused". The GPS was invaluable last night when a detour in an unknown neighborhood dumped me in strange territory with little logic to the streets; the GPS guided me right through the maze. More recently it took me through strange parts of Washington, DC in heavy traffic, always keeping me in the correct lanes for the next turns.
Before upgrading to software release 2 there was a static electricity problem causing hard resets, but that appears solved wtih release 2. Garmin seems to have wrestled with and solved the problem in good time; they could be more forthright that the reset problem existed and that they do have a solution.
It is definitely bigger in the pocket than simple palm powered PDA's, but still small enough not to be a problem. However, I never try to carry it in a shirt pocket; too easy to have it fall out; I use a front pants pocket with the glass facing in towards my leg which seems to protect the most vulnerable parts.
Now that the reset problem is solved it is a beautiful thing. The only question in my mind now is whether combning the palm and the GPS is the best route- for some a combination phone and Palm, and a dedicated GPS, might be a better combination.
Rating:
Summary: Great features outweight the negatives.
Review: What's good? Small size fits shirt or pants pocket, use of SD cards for expanding memory, fine Garmin navigational software and GPS hardware, integrated PDA/GPS functions, audio announcement of turns, good maps relatively up to date, runs most all Palm OS 5.0 games and programs in high resolution color, nice PDA display, fairly good list of accessories available, good satellite acquisition, great audio output, audio recording, great price for what you get but shop around for the best web deals (Amazon.com has great price on this item and delivers FAST and reliable.) What chould be better? Internal battery life very short making external battery support essential, some programs won't utilize expanded SD memory (not a fault of the PDA), Crashes on low battery power requiring an external powered reset, no auto-off settings to conserve battery power (that I know of), can't save routes or waypoints from PC map software. Final assesment: Get one today and you will never regret it. I will not go outside my home or office without this device. It will become your most prized material possesion.
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