Garmin iQue 3200 PDA

You can add GPS and mapping capabilities to almost any Palm or Pocket PC handheld, but the Palm OS-based Garmin IQue 3200 is one of the few PDAs designed with GPS in mind. The IQue has a built-in GPS receiver and buttons dedicated to mapping and navigation. Low-detail base maps for the United States and Canada come stored in the internal memory, and you can download detailed maps from the accompanying CD to the IQue. The kit also includes a car mounting bracket and DC power adapter.

Garmin's IQue PDAs use a custom version of the Palm Desktop. In addition to the usual categories of contacts, tasks, and memos, it has a Map Install icon for selecting map sections and downloading them onto the IQue. You start with a map of the United States and Canada that's divided up into squares, and click squares until you've covered the region you want on your IQue. The geographical area contained in a square depends on the amount of associated map data (roads, points of interest, etc.) the program has stored. A couple of squares, for example, encompass British Columbia, while the San Francisco Bay Area requires about ten squares (and uses 20.8MB of memory).

If you want to store lots of maps on your IQue 3200, get a high-capacity SD Card. Downloading the Bay Area maps took a little over 3 minutes through the USB connection using Palm Sync; each subsequent sync took about 45 seconds. Downloading the files directly to an SD Card through a card reader took less than a minute.

One gotcha on installation: When we installed the Garmin version over Palm Desktop 4.1.4 (the most recent version) on our desktop, we received error messages that seemed to be due to conflicts between the two versions. If you're replacing another Palm OS handheld with the IQue, uninstall the old software from your PC before installing the Garmin version.

The IQue 3200 works well as a navigation device. To turn on the GPS, you flip the built-in antenna up and wait for the GPS to initialize. As with most GPS receivers we've used, getting the initial position correct took several minutes. But subsequent satellite locks took less than 20 seconds, provided we had a clear view of the sky. Getting a location fix among tall buildings and anywhere else with a limited view of the sky is, of course, more difficult.

The IQue 3200 stores waypoints in the Palm Address list, and it's fairly easy to turn a Palm address into a waypoint; thereafter, you can find it quickly on the map or use it as a destination for routing. Other nice GPS-related tools include a satellite status screen, a trip recorder, a sun- and moon-phase display, and a listing of recorded GPS tracks showing where you've gone.

At standard levels of detail, the IQue 3200 redraws maps fairly quickly as you zoom in and out, or pan. If you set the level of detail high, however, redraws take noticeably longer. A reflective back on the handheld's LCD keeps the screen legible in bright sunlight.

As a PDA, the IQue 3200 supplies an address book, a datebook, a memo pad, a calculator, and other minor apps--but no MP3 player, no headphone jack, and no photo viewer.

Battery life depends on the brightness setting of the screen and on how much you use the GPS. In our informal testing, the IQue 3200's battery life did not seem unusually short. The battery might last an entire workday running PDA functions only, but if you plan on heavy GPS usage, you should bring along the included auto adapter kit for charging on the go.

Garmin offers additional (though somewhat pricey) maps, including topographical and marine charts, and selected city maps for places outside the United States.

Upshot: The IQue 3200 is passable PDA and a capable GPS, but we'd like it better if it had a headphone jack and MP3 capabilities.

Tracey Capen