Customer Reviews

Garmin iQue 3600 GPS Auto Bundle

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

I've had the IQUE for over a year now and find it to be an excellent product. BUT--you have to compensate for a few design quirks. I would still buy it again for its utility but you should keep its shortcomings in mind. First the good news.

**A bright, clear display large enough for even 55-year old eyes to see map details easily.
**With the 256-MB memory card plenty of memory to download 3 or 4 state maps.
**Excellent point-to-point map routes.
**Quick recalculation.
**Tied to the address book it offers routing to all your friends' houses, businesses, clients, etc.
**good sync routine to sync up PC and IQUE databases and maps.

The bad news:

**short battery life. While the travel package includes a car adapter, should you put it away for a long weekend and the battery drains completely you've lost all your data including even the basemaps. A MAJOR FLAW. You can restore it all with a sync to your PC but recently I travelled without my PC and the battery discharged completely. Even when recharged all data was lost and all my waypoints for the trip were gone. I ended up renting a car with a navigation system instead.
**When driving into the sun the display is difficult to see.

I have owned an iQue 3600 since August of 2003. It is hands down the coolest most useful gadget I have ever owned, or dreamed of owning. If I lost mine, I would run, not walk to the store and buy another one. I don't think I could even wait 3 or 4 days to have one shipped from Amazon.

It works perfectly as an in-car navigation system outperforming any built in system I have ever seen. The auto nav kit is a must as it holds the unit securely on your dash, provides power, and has a built in speaker for the voice prompts. It is small and light and I love it. It is my PDA, I have long since gotten rid of my Clie, and with a 1GB SD card, it's a darn good MP3 player.

I have one of the very first iQues and lived with a few problems (electric shocks reseting unit) that have long since been cured by both software and hardware upgrades. My original unit is working just fine and I just bought another one as a gift and can tell that the units are now bulletproof. Any issue with reliablity has been solved and Garmin has the best customer service of any major company I have ever seen.

The only reservation is that if you are not familiar with palm pilots, the learning curve may be steep (my 65 year old mother figured it out in 2 days with a little help). If you are not that tech oriented and just want a great Auto GPS for about $500 you can get a Garmin Quest (very cool and a better pure handheld GPS than the Que), or the Streetpilot 2610 is a near perfect dedicated auto GPS system.

To all those who complain about battery life, turn the backlight on the screen down and use the GPS when only on battery power sparringly. The super bright screen will suck the battery dry in an hour or two, but at minimal brightness, it lasts as long as any palm pilot I have used. It lasts over 10 hours playing mp3 (the screen turns off after a few minutes when just playing mp3s)

If you are looking for an excellent palm-pilot with a GPS add-on, this is probably not for you. It is not designed to be an outstanding palm. If you are looking for a GPS based nagivational aide with some palm capabilities, then this is excellent.

The time to acquire satelites varies quite dramatically, but it does. I have even managed to track my location whiles flying. The location and airspeed were dead on, but the elevation of 50 ft seemed to be a bit low, considering that we were at 29,000 ft.

Quick to re-calculate if you get off route. It has been accurate, with 1 exception. In Boulder Colorade (despite the basemap and detailed map being loaded, it couldn't find all the streets, and had me displayed in the middle of a lake once.

All in all I am very satisfied with this product.

I have to give Garmin 5 stars on this product, I would give it a 10 if I could. I researched well before buying this unit and I could not be happier.

Price:
First I will talk about the price then tell you why you can not beat this unit for the price. If you go to any office supply store or electronics store and try to pick up a GPS with the detailed maps and voice guidance as this unit has you will easily pay $900+ with the average being $1200+. I know, because I looked and looked then looked again after I received my Garmin IQue 3600. Now add in the PDA, Palm OS 5+ and you will pay $200+ to $400 for a PDA with the same technology as the IQue 3600. If you purchased a GPS and PDA separate that is comparable to the IQue 3600 technology you would be looking at $1,100+ minimum, enough said :).

Battery:
Now for the IQue 3600 itself, first I will touch on the negative comments about the battery I have read from some other reviewers. What battery problem? I have not had any issues with the battery at all. If people are having battery issues then they must be sitting with this unit on for over an hour working with the backlight set to the highest setting and the GPS on. If these same people bought the IQue to take into the woods for a day hike using the GPS without the car kit or are running around a city with it on at all times then they bought the wrong unit for the job.

If you use the car kit which charges the IQue and keep it in its desk cradle when not in use which also charges the unit then you will have no problems. If you do go running around the city on foot then turn it on get your position in under a minute look where you are then turn it off and go again. If you are going into the woods away from the car then buy another Garmin unit like the Etrex which is made for that purpose.
If you are trying to use the MP3 feature while out of the car or away from your desk for extended use then you probaly will run out of battery, so you should buy a MP3 player.

I can sit and use the IQue without the GPS feature on and work fine with all the Palm functions for an hour. I say an hour because I have not worked with it on continually for longer than that. Usually I turn it on review my schedule or contacts, make notes or updates then turn it off.

IQUE functions:
I can not be happier with this unit. I am a private pilot and I am use to using navigation in the air and I can tell you that you can not go wrong with this unit. The IQue is very accurate, it usually tracks my position within 12-20 feet depending on how many satellites it is picking up at the time. The voice guidance is outstanding and I have not had a problem with it yet. It prompts you at about 1.2 miles, .250 mile, then 400ft and finally 200ft before changing roads or a turn. It also zooms in on the voice guidance instructions it is giving you at the time to highlight what you are suppose to do visually. If you do get of track for any reason it recalculates your position very quickly and gives you prompts to get you back on track.

Other features: MP3 player, voice recorder, wireless capability, Memory socket, I have a 512MB SD card in mine, and all the features you would expect on a modern Palm platform. The updates from Garmin are easy to install and I have not had any problems or glitches. My unit already came with SW Ver 3.0 and I have not had any of the glitches others reported here before updating to SW Ver 2.0. You can also update the unit as I have to be compatible with 1GB SD cards.

My favorite feature:
I use the IQue for business and my favorite feature is being able to link my Palm date book and address book to the GPS technology. I can set a waypoint with a contact or an actual appointment and the IQue will route me to my appointment from my current position, very cool!!!

I could go on all day about how great this unit is and you will find similar reviews stating the same things here, you can not go wrong with this unit buy one and you will see why.

Negatives:
I have found a few negatives with the IQue 3600 but none of them are to do with the software or functions of this unit.

1. Case: Very hard to find a case for the IQue, I searched all over and no one makes one for the IQue itself including Garmin that is decent. I found one made of leather for a Toshiba pocket PC with a belt clip and it fits very nicely.

2. The car kit mount: The mount seems to work for some and not for others and you will see this reflected in other reviews. Garmin did come out with a suction mount that others say works well and Amazon does sell it on here. I went for the normal car mount and I am very happy with it. I did not think it would hold well on my dash as others have said in reviews so I fixed the problem by using Velcro tape. I mounted one strip of sticky back Velcro on each side of the IQue car kit stand and matched them to Velcro strips on my dash. I have no problems at all. The Velcro easily makes it so I can remove it and switch cars.

3. Screen protectors: Hard to find for the IQue, so you will have to use screen protectors from another PDA, I found the screen protectors for a Palm T-5 to match well so this solved the problem.

4. Screen viewing in bright sun: If it is bright out it makes it hard to see the screen because of the glare, it is not the units fault because I do not know any LCD screen or other that could be seen well with a glare. With the voice prompts you do not have to look at the screen. Another reviewer suggested making a small glare shield with Velcro and cardboard which should work well. If I cup my hand over the unit I can see it fine. You can also take it off the car kit to use the palm features if it's bright out.

My recommendation is buy, buy, buy, you will not be sorry!

Great job Garmin!

Have used the Ique 3600 for 9 months or so now, I find it to be an extremely powerful and synergistic combination, and would recommend it to those with PDA experience and/or patience. A PDA is a natural mate with a GPS and Garmin has done a pretty good job in this combination. I do understand the frustration of some of the reviews posted here though, as there are a few quirks which can make the initial experience less than smooth. But if you hang in there to get past the learning curve of futzing with the maps during 3 or 4 downloads and figuring out how to work with the address book and the 'find locations' feature, you will then have a powerful ally in your daily life's travels and travails and will not part with it for a minute.

Recommendations: get as big an SD card as you can, 1Gb or more, and put the whole dang US map on it and forget about tweaking it for every trip, since the download process is pretty painful. Also, leave it in the charger every night, as it needs a charge pretty much once a day. Gotchas: popping it into the car holder will occasionally glitch it due to static on the connectors, requiring a reset. Try to touch the connectors of the car and the PDA while it is still off before popping it in in order to discharge the static.

Update: after about 18 months of daily usage, on the charging cradle every night, the rechargeable battery finally would not hold a charge for longer than 10 minutes of usage. Though it seems the unit is not really designed for a user to replace the battery, I was able to successfully replace the battery with one from laptopsforless using their instructions. It wasnt too hard, and I only scratched up the case exterior a little. Now the battery life is back to normal, i.e. ~3 hours of continuous use with backlight on.

I have wasted money on a lot of things that prove to be only half as good as they appeared to be. This product definitely exceeded my high expectations. I travel a lot, and many times, to places that I have never been before. This product was a life saver because it gets me to where I need to go every time, with only a few minor errors (i.e. newer streets not available, address slightly off on smaller side streets). However, one should not expect that it can be perfect every time, even though it does get it right more than I expected.

I have been using Palm OS PDA's for several years now, so I was really excited when a friend told me about this. The PDA on the Garmin iQue 3600 is probably equivalent to a higher-end Palm-brand PDA (i.e. Tungsten) and it has worked out great for me since I took it out of the box.

Please, keep in mind that this item is a PDA with a really good GPS navigation system. If you want a strict navigation system, Garmin makes a few products that are better for that purpose.

The best features include:
1. Integration of address book and GPS allows to quickly route to an existing address book entry or set up entries as waypoints for even quicker access.

2. Tremendous list of stores, restaurants, etc. allows you to look up items near your current location, near your destination or even near a point that you choose on the map.

3. It recalculates! If you miss your turn or make a wrong turn, it will automatically recalculate your trip based on your new location and make sure you still get to your destination.

4. It is extremely mobile. It does everything a PDA needs to do and you can use it as a handheld GPS device while you are walking down the street. This is great in larger cities when you cannot always park in front of the building you need to go and you need to walk from a parking garage, or if you road in a taxi or took the subway/metro.

The worst features/issues include:
1. The poor battery life. I can understand the battery being drained quickly when the GPS is on, but when I am updating my contacts or inputting appointments it should not burn out the battery so quickly. Be sure you have access to a charger if you think you will need to use it a lot during the day. However, I have not had any problems with the battery draining significantly when I don't charge it for several days and it is not being used.

2. The maps cannot be modified (or at least, I have not figure out how to do it). This is not a serious problem, but there was one instance where there was a new road near my destination that would have significantly reduced my travel time. The iQue didn't know the road was there and I could not add it for future trips. I just had to remember to ignore the last part of the directions and the iQue made it look like I was driving "off road" during that point of my trip.

3. It takes a little while to upload new detailed maps. It never took up to 1.5 hours as one other review mentioned, but it is not a quick process. The few times that I did it, it took about 25 minutes for the software to prepare the maps and perform the hotsync. However, you should only need to do this every once in a while, unless you constantly need to change maps or you don't have enough memory to store all of the maps that you want.

Regardless of any slight imperfections (as most products have), I plan to buy this product for my wife and for my mother. That just shows how much it has been a benefit to me and how much I can trust it.

As a GPS junkie, I appreciate just how slick this navigation PDA is. The detailed City Select mapsets that come with the PDA are very detailed, and give you voice guided turn-by-turn directions anywhere you want to go. Add a SD memory card and you have more than enough memory to hold all the maps you need plus MP3's and other Palm applications as well. The only drawback, and it's a biggie, is that after 3 weeks my IQUE 3600 has completely stopped working. Garmin has asked me to mail it back to them (at my expense) to be repaired (at their expense). Maybe it's just a bit of bad luck with my particular unit. If navigation was all this unit did it would be worth the money (it costs 1/3 of similar non-portable in dash vehicle nav systems with similar capabilities), but it is also a great PDA and MP3 player as well. If it continues working after Garmin fixes it, I wouldn't hesitate to reccommend it to anyone.

I bought the iQue 3600 Bundle several months ago now and use it every day. The unit has operated flawlessly. I've read other reviews below (with attention to others "cons" for the product). I am always curious about overall product quality and other people's experiences. Plus, I like knowing if there is a problem that I have not experienced - if I do experience it, at least I'm not surprised or disappointed.

I have to say honestly that I personally have not experienced difficulty reading the screen when driving into the sun in Michigan. Additionally, I have never lost my base maps. I do agree that purchasing the SD card is important. I bought the 1GB SanDisk card from Amazon (48$ using rebate and Amazon discount offered [...]- did not see advertised at Amazon...) and have stored detailed maps of the entire mid-west, coastal areas, portions of Canada, etc. Overall, to store detailed maps of all of Canada / US requires 1.6GB... I am waiting for a 2GB card to come out!

I agree that the battery life is short. My experience with PDAs is that all battery life is short. No problem when using for business; I keep it in the hot sync cradle and its on all day. Travelling w/o constant power gives you very little time to play with your device (games, etc). And the GPS really cannot be used if you are hiking. To be fair, this is not what this model was built for. In the vehicle, I keep it in the no-friction dashboard mount with constant power and have travelled on 13 hour trips. It worked without flaw, guiding me there, all through town on my stay and on the way home. The level of detail is surprising - it tried to route me on a two-track in the Upper Peninsula! I should say - more detail than I required! I simply opted to miss that turn and Garmin recalculated quickly. This has been a real gem and I wish I bought it long ago.

As for the price, considering an automotive GPS is about a grand, the multiple functionality in this unit makes the price VERY reasonable. Especially when you consider a standard PDA w/o an integrated GPS is typically $300 or more. Love Garmin, Love my iQue!

PS - I was missing a part for the mount; Garmin customer service was IN the USA (what a treat!!!), I did not wait on hold for more than 20 seconds before speaking with a person! They were great about the missing part (I didn't realize it until about a month after the purchase!) - I had it 2 days later. I purchased from Circuit City so the missing part was not likely Garmin's fault...

Overall this unit works pretty well. The user interface is a mess - and I am very experienced technology user. It took me several weeks to really get the system to work the way I needed it to.

The maps aren't always quite accurate, and a lot of time the voice guidance runs behind schedule, so it tells you to take an exit just as you pass it, for example.

Other than that, its a nice system that performs as advertised, and also acts as a Palm organizer and MP3 player.