Customer Reviews

Garmin iQue M3 Pocket PC integrated with GPS

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been using the Garmin iQue M3 for five months. This is my first PDA and my first GPS. I use it daily. It is very helpful and causes me little trouble. The list of tasks the Garmin iQue M3 is capable of performing is long. It keeps track my office and personal contacts, appointments, task lists, and notes, which are synchronized with my office and home computer. I use it on business and personal trips as a GPS. I use it for email and Internet with an optional wifi card. I use it to learn Spanish and to watch movies (requires memory card). If you need both a PDA and a GPS the Garmin is worth considering. I recommend getting a memory card and I have never used the Garmin without one. Strengths: good PDA, good GPS, smooth integration of the two, and car mount. Weaknesses: no built in wifi, low memory, and the battery cannot be replaced by the user.

This is one of my first GPS and it has been excellent! I paid a whopping low $377 shipped for it, brand new!

The 3D maps, Points-of-Interests, and voice-guided turn-by-turn directions are very accurate...just like the same in the crazy expensive Nuvi 350...especially when you enable the WAAS feature! This allows nearly superior accuracy over conventional tracking.

The off-route calculation is fast and efficient after going off rate for about 1000 feet... route calculations are pretty quick usually taking about 10-15 seconds. The voice prompts are clear and audible.

Yes sometimes this unit hangs once in a while (especially when you are searching for a location and then you go back and try to browse a map).

Overall this is a great PDA with integrated GPS. It is a lot better than the M5 because it features 3D mapping. The M4 is the latest of the M-series family of Garmin GPS/PDA and that (m4) features integrated maps already onto the PDA. But for me, the 512MB SD card is more than capable of holding 75% of the North American Continent, so the M3 is probably a wiser choice considering it is a lot cheaper than the M4! The entire state of California only requires less than 70 megabytes of storage.

Other features include the SDIO/SD slot which allows wireless 802.11b capabilities if you buy a $50 wireless card.

Overall this is a excellent buy if you are looking for a portable PDA with integrated GPS and can get it for under $400.

I bought this unit and was excited to see how it performed. It turned on and acquired the satellites within 10 minitues initially, all ok. I spent the next 4 days trying to get it to work with my computer. After several emails and phone conversations, Garmin finally told me the deal. No Garmin unit is designed to work with Windows XP Media Edition. Additionally, their USB connection will only work if the USB chips are Intel. The following chips will definitely not work: ALI, NEC,or VIA. I am not happy with Garmin. They could have saved me a lot of grief by stating this in their advertisements or home page technical FAQs.

Overall I think, for my money, nothing beats this product...hands down. The reviews about slow satelite connection or slow off route recalculation do it a kind of disservice. These people are either impatient or to "tech savy" for this piece of equipment. Putting half the US on a 256mb card or having a wifi connection on the go is waaayyy worth a slow connection here and there. This total package is what any "average Joe" can handle and would be well worth any pennies spent.

As soon as I recieved my Garmin M3, I went to garmin.com and downloaded the latest updates which were very easy to download and apply. This should be standard practice anytime anyone purchases a PDA running a version of Windows. The M3 has preformed flawlessly for 2 weeks straight. I'm a heavy PDA user and I've put this thing through it's course. It hasn't locked up or needed to be reset once since I've been using it. The GPS works flawlessly. The included window cradle mount for my car is great and I like the fact that it charges when it's in the cradle. The PDA works fine for my contacts, calendar and tasks. Even a few games I have on it work fine. If you need a GPS and use a PDA regularly then this is the unit for you.

I bought the Garmin M3 for my summer travels and it has been a great piece of equipment. The screen is clear, the sound is loud and crisp, and the directions are correct.

The few "cons" to the M3 is that the processor is a bit slow and it is easy to accidentally turn on the unit.

There have been no glare problems with my M3 nor have I experienced any problems that would require me to call Garmin support. I would recommend getting a >1GB memory card if you want to travel around America. With a 1GB card (which is what I have currently), I can only store about 2/3rds of the United States.

I bought this unit as a gift for my wife. We already have a Garmin GPS unit that we love and she had a need for PDA functionality so this seemed ideal.

The GPS side of things is fine. I have maps for all of the east coast of the USA and as far west as Ohio on a 1GB memory chip (and only 60% of the chip used). The screen is clear, voice prompts are the same as my Street Pilot III, finding addresses etc is pretty easy.

My gripe with the unit is that the PDA functionality runs on Windows and is very frustrating at times. In the two weeks we've had this unit, individual programs have locked up and at one point the entire unit did. The manual was totally useless in figuring out how to get over these issues. In the case of the individual programs I ended up deleting them from memory via the settings page. The locked-up unit eventually got going again after 30 minutes.

The software provided will only synchronize with Windows Outlook. Great, now we're forced back to that **** software. At least we only synchronize appointment, tasks and contacts. Oh, that reminds me, another one of Microsoft's gems...contacts only become available to be added to appointments etc if they have an e-mail address. A minor irritant, but an irritant nonetheless.

If you buy this unit you should install the autosync program and get the updated operating system from Garmin. Apparently, this unit would be even more buggy without it. The instructions for doing this aren't very clear, so good luck.

Lastly, the autosync allows you to back-up the PDA data on a regular basis. Get in the habit of doing so as a complete reboot for a totally locked unit will result in data loss from the unit's built-in memory.

In summary, the GPS/PDA is reasonably priced. GPS functionality is good. Microsoft side of things very infuriating at times.

I've had my M3 since early September and my experience has been quite different. I had an older NavMan GPS sleeve for my IPAQ, and compared to that the GPS acquisition time, route calculation, and off-route detection is much faster. I have used it quite extensively for business trips and it consistently acquires a position in 1-2 minutes and detects that I'm off route by the time a get a couple blocks. I've run across a couple software bugs, however looking at my Garmin log the last stack dump was Sept 28th (3 months ago) and I have never had to reset it while in use.

I can't compare to the more expensive Garmin GPS systems (that have consistently gotten good reviews), however for the price (~$450 compared to $1000+ for higher end models) I think you get quite a bit for the price.

The only complaints I have are that there is not an optional cradle that I can use to sync with my PC (you have to use a USB cable) and I don't like the fact you can't selectively download maps (when you download any new maps it completely overwrites the maps you have loaded). I do agree about Garmin support. I have tried to use their support web site and NEVER got a response back from them.

The m3 works well enough for a discontinued product.

Due to its slow processor the operating system sometimes lags during other operations, it uses Windows Mobile 3 which is great but it lacks PowerPoint (which is only included in newer versions of Windows Mobile, and there is no way to upgrade the OS on the iQue).

Initial satellite signal acquisition takes anywhere from 3 - 15 minutes, but once acquired it holds signal very well. If signal is lost reacquisition time is very quick.

There is a slight lag in the GPS, by the time it tells you a turn is coming up in 200 feet, you have already reached the turn, so don't rely on audio only for directional purposes, especially if driving somewhere that you have absolutely no clue where you are.

There is no Wifi built in, so you will need to buy an SDIO card to install yourself. But there is no support for authentication certificates so I am unable to access 802.1x networks encrypted with WPA-TKIP

If this was a year or two ago I'd recommend this product highly, but the newer SIRFstar III GPS products will work much better.

3 stars for doing what it is advertised to do.

When I first purchased this item, I loved it. There were a few times the GPS led me astray, but generally, it really helped me get from place to place in my job. It helped my find places where I did not know where they were, or helped my find short cuts from place to place. However, soon after I got it, it quit "acquiring satellites". It would try and try to find satellites (even though it showed them on one of the screens). Most often it would never find the satellites, or if it did, it was about the time I arrived at my location. The GPS had trouble no matter what location I was in, whether rural or city. I sent it in for repair, and from what I can tell of the paper I received when it was returned (which was very vague)to me, they replaced it. Unfortunatly, it is still doing the same thing. It is a great data management system, however, and I love that it interfaces with "Word". The GBS is a big disappointment. It's overpriced for what it can truly provide.