Garmin iQue 3200 PDA

Garmin IQue 3200

iQue 3200 PDA Review, by Tracey Capen October 22, 2004

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• Reviewed by: sdupadhye

  Strengths: 1. Easy Access to key Menus2. Does the job with additional Bells & Whistles3. WAAS Support

  Weaknesses: 1. Speaker could have been improved. Mettalic voice.2. PC Software has some kinks to fix.3. No Software updates for separate download. Web Upate ONLY.

  Overall: Irrespecive of what you find in on-line reviews, this unit is doing a great job for the purpose it was designed to do. Many people compare it to the twin brother iQue 3600. But you have to know that that's not a right comparison. On its own this unit is meant for people who'd like to get from point A to Point B and have basic PDA functionality to go with it. It does that job very well. It might not be accurate to the last feet. But that's asking way to much for the price you are paying. Compared to other GPS units in its price Bracket, you get a bigger screen with higher Resolution. Instead of carrying around bunh of DVDs, you end up with a few SD memory Cards. So what ? you just need to pop-in the appropriate card. Biggest peeve for users is low memory. The device memory is rather small at 32 MB (available 22 MB for user). So it is pretty much restricted to the Palm applications alone. You do need to buy SD memory Cards. But those you'd have around anyway for your Digital Camera or Camcorders. So realistically you are not carrying around anything extra.

• Reviewed by: binguo

  Strengths: Fast to locate satellites after the first time; lots of functions of a PDA

  Weaknesses: Battery cannot hold long; Lost all the maps when battery runs out

  Overall: This is a PDA with GPS fucntions. Easy to use, and fast (less than 10 seconds) to locate satellites.The most important problem is that if the battery runs out (30 minutes), ALL maps are lost. It would be a nightmare if you are on a long distance travel without your laptop.Another problem is that when I put it away after fully charged, the battery runs out without using it after a few weeks.

• Reviewed by: msebastin

  Strengths: Voice enabled real time navigation and provides for most functionality of a regular PDA

  Weaknesses: Display area reduced when compared to 3600

  Overall: I bought this unit after getting almost addicted to one of my friend's.It's an excellent companion that comes in handy especially driving to new places. No more hassles of printing mapsI love it!!

• Reviewed by: filburt1

  Strengths: Powerful navigation in a small and inexpensive package

  Weaknesses: Hard to flip out antenna, must get external card to store a lot of detailed maps, dedicated silkscreen takes away from screen space (see iQue 3600)

  Overall: At around $300, the iQue 3200 is a powerful navigation device that integrates seamlessly with the PDA functionality from the native Palm OS 5.2. You can find items by address, name, lat/long, category, distance from your location, distance from along your route, and much more. The car mount is quite sturdy; it's actually hard to remove it once the suction cup is stuck to your windshield. The power adapter cord could be longer.However, there will only be around 22 MB free of internal memory when you receive the unit. That wasn't enough to hold the entire DC and Baltimore beltways. I got a 512 MB SD card which now holds the entire eastern coast of the US with 200 MB to spare.Also, while the SD slot supports SDIO, there are few Palm OS SDIO devices available. Specifically, there are few Wifi cards, and no browser such as Netfront is built into this PDA.

• Reviewed by: bobc469

  Strengths: Navigations system has worked very well in guiding us around in unfamiliar areas.

  Weaknesses: Battery Life limited when using GPS. Car holder charger makes up for this short coming.

  Overall: The IQue 3600 has MP3 play and pictures display that overcomes the short comings noted by reviewer.I have used the 3600 to record meetings and found it to be very handy.