Garmin Readies GPS-Equipped PDA

NEW YORK -- A PDA that shows you see exactly where you are--and tells you where you can go--is on its way to the market, after a preview at CeBIT America here this week.

Announced in January at the Consumer Electronics Show, Garmin's IQue 3600 is a Palm OS personal digital assistant with something extra. It is the first to include a built-in global positioning system.

The $589 device, available in two weeks in stores and at the Garmin Web site, will feature automatic route calculation, turn-by-turn voice guidance, full street addresses, and points of interest. Taking advantage of the Palm Address Book and Date Book, the iQue 3600 can pin specific addresses in each to the GPS electronic map.

At a Glance

The 32MB PDA uses the latest Palm operating system, Palm OS5. It has a crisp 320-by-480-pixel transflective TFT display, and is powered by the Motorola Dragonball MXL processor. This combination of technologies enables the device's fast screen refreshes and the graphics needed for a mapping system to be effective.

At 5.2 ounces, the iQue 3600 is light enough to carry in a pocket. However, that light weight belies its power as the first handheld GPS device built into an otherwise full-function PDA.

GPS requires an unobscured line of sight with the sky, so Garmin's optional car kit with mount and hands-free speaker system really is required for convenience and safety. Pricing will be announced upon its release, but the add-on is expected to cost up to $30.

Data and Advice

Garmin is bundling a MapSource CD from which you load the specific maps needed for your trip. The data can go into internal memory or be stored on an SD memory card in the included SD card expansion slot.

The base map offers such information as U.S. highways, railways, bodies of water, and city and state borders. Points of interest featured include restaurants, hotels, museums, and even automatic teller machines. International maps are also included.

Also included with the unit are third-party applications from Data Viz, Vindigo, and SplashData, which can take advantage of the Garmin's Que technology.