Garmin iQue 3600 GPS Auto Bundle Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)First the important: Do I recommend it? Yes
I bought Garmin iQue 3600 with the car mount (that includes the mount, car charger, and the attached external speaker) only a week back. However, I have been using it extensively. It has served me well so far, with minor problems and a few items already on the wish list.
I recommend that you buy this unit with car mount and 512MB SD card.

Pros:
(1)All Palm functionality works fine straight out of the box, including the virtual grafiti2 as this has Palm OS 5.2.1r2
(2)iQue 3600 is stylishly built including the its sync cradle
(3)Very easy to create route, either to an address on the Palm Address Book, to a point in the map, to user created waypoints, or to thousands of point-of-interest (POIs) from map software loaded in the unit
(4)Allows saving a route if you want to travel the same route later
(5)GPS has worked flawlessly. Acquires satellite positions within a minute. Tip: if it doesn't, start driving and it quickly acquires satellite positions, and starts instructions for the current route automatically thereafter.
(6)As you drive, it continues to update and display the estimated arrival time based on the current speed of travel, and actual stoppages at the signals or due to traffic. However, I think the estimated time is based on the rates speed along the route, and does not account for the intended signal stoppages.
(7)Turn-by-turn voice instructions along with pop-up on the maps are extensive with an option to turn off the voice instructions.
(8)You could also preview the turns at any time for an active trip
(9)If you miss a turn or want to go by a route other than the suggested one, it informs of the fact, and immediately re-calculates alternate route with voice instructions.
(10)One of the most versatile use of this unit - you will love it - is finding point-of-interest (POI) places wherever you are at that time, and ask it to take you there. Once, done you could ask it to get back to the original route without any problem. The POIs could be food joints, shopping, transportation (rail, air, road), attractions, entertainment, lodging, intersection, services (ATM, car wash, garages) etc.
(11)You could also save any POI as a waypoint for later re-use quickly. You could also create your own waypoint that is not listed in Garmin's POI database.

Cons:
(1)When there is no need for any instruction; for example, when you are on a highway and the next turn or exit is far away on the route, the current position of the car moves out of the map area. One needs to tap the current position icon on the Palm taskbar to bring the position marker back on to the map. I think this is a bug that would be addressed in future patches.
(2)Battery life before re-charge seems like an issue but only if plan to charge it weekly. Plan to buy it only with the car charger.
(3)It has hung up few times requiring soft reset without loss of any data. I think Garmin needs to address this issue as I didn't have this problem in Palm m505 with the same software. Mind it some old software that are not compatible with Palm OS 5, will also cause the unit to malfunction.
(4)Loading the map on the unit is a two step process and takes at least 1.5 hours using a fast 2.8 Ghz Pentium IV PC. Even if you want to add or delete one city, the process time is the same, as the PC needs to prepare one image file each time for all the maps to be loaded into the unit.
(5)Interface to Garmin routing is available only from Palm's Address Book, which sucks. Garmin should build interface from better Palm contact softwares such as Iambic's Agendus.

Overall, I am quite excited and happy in the first week of using this unit.

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Product Description:
Powerful 200 Mhz Processor Powering Palmos 5.Integrated Que Technology With Garmin Gps & Mapping Software.Flip-up Integrated Gps Patch Antenna Can Be Positioned For Optimal Reception.Speaker For Voice-guidance Commands, Mp3 Player, Message Play.