Customer Reviews
Reasonably priced good product 
2006-07-16
This is a great PDA and GPS receiver in one. I have been using this for 3 weeks and I love it. The only problem is that it requires a soft reset atleast twice a week (pda crashes). It provides routing and voice prompts. It does provide optimal routing 75% of the time. Overall good product.
The iQue 3600 has a high IQ 
2006-07-12
This is a terrific device. I am a long-time palm user, and this upgrade (adding the GPS and mapping) is awesome.
- Simple to use.
- Directions are usually quite accurate.
- Extremely accurate regarding my location.
- And even the palm features are an upgrade from my most recent palm pilot!
I would not recommend owning it without the auto kit. The charger includes a bigger, better speaker. And, of course, the charger includes a charger!
Barely gets the job done ... 
2006-05-10
My company car has a built-in GPS unit and I have gotten to like it, sort-of. I have gotten lost in a rental car trolling around Silicon Valley enough to get a portable GPS unit. After some research, the Garmin iQue 3600 is what I ended up with and I paid about $700. The unique feature of this portable GPS unit is that a PalmPilot comes integrated into the package. I use a PalmPilot, so this GPS unit replaces my PalmV. Installation was quite awkward, and getting it up and running was a chore. I got the thing synced up and some maps loaded and have been using it for several months now. It does do the job, fitfully, and has several glaring issues. Most irritating, the Palm function and the GPS function are not seamlessly integrated. If an address is entered in the Palm part and then route to this address is selected, the iQue 3600 makes you find the location. But the address from the Palm section doesn't transfer cleanly into the find section and you must retype the address. I'm left-handed and graffiti has NEVER worked for me all my letters are drawn backward. The GPS can be engaged as soon as it recognizes where you want to go, but my unit takes a good 5-10 minutes to find the satellites when first exposed to sky. This means that I must have a good idea what to do for the first 5-10 minutes. Sometimes I just drive randomly until the GPS locks in and starts to issue navigation orders. Also, the antenna must be deployed to get any GPS reception and must be forward enough in the windshield to see sky. This is OK, except that the iQue 3600 doesn't tell you that the antenna has not been deployed.
The iQue 3600 does not work propped up on the passenger seat so a 5 pound holder is necessary to hold the unit on the dashboard. If the antenna is not deployed, the iQue 3600 simply doesn't navigate and doesn't tell you why. Worse, it acts stupid by going into a dangerous and unhelpful simulate mode. If I ever figure out what that means, Ill tell you in a future post. I figured out the antenna problem the hard way in an ice storm outside of Ottawa. I'm a fan of GUI design, and I must say that the UI here is very, very bad. Not the worse I have ever seen, but very bad: non-intuitive, inconsistent, and arbitrary. The FIND function/button has an entirely different function in the GPS section from the Palm section. Of course, the same icon is used. I cannot imagine grandma using this thing to navigate. What little there is of the very pretty documentation is atrocious. About 10 times more information is needed here. It shuts down randomly on occasion for no apparent purpose (Battery savings maybe?).
The secure digital card is too small (max of 256MB), so you can't put more than a few California counties in the memory. Maps storage is managed with a rather hostile GUI. This is not fatal, but is irritating. I would rather put a 1GB SD card in the iQue 3600 and be done with it.
The iQue 3600 burns too much power to be used as a portable, so it must always be tethered to the car or resting in the cradle. I don't find the power issue to be a problem. I understand that to get clear, bright screens it is necessary to use power. I agree with the tradeoff here.
ique 3600 review 2006-04-04
Ive had this PDA for about 2 months and over all it has been very useful. The 2 drawbacks are that the battery life if poor if you dont turn the back light to a low brightness level and that the SD slot is not SDIO compatible so there is no chance of using a wifi 802.11b card to surf the net. The M3, M5, and ique 3200 are all SDIO compatible but the 3600 isnt for some reason.
It does however vibrate which is an option that most PDA's dont have.
Garmin IQue 3600: Great product 2006-03-23
The product was received in a timely fashion and was exactly as advertised. Hardware is top quality. Software is equally so. Only quality which prevented me from assigning the fifth star was the lack of display screen brightness to be seen easily while sitting on the dashboard of a vehicle with a large windshield. Otherwise the unit met my every expectation. PDA software is better than average but the crowning glory of the unit is the quality of the mapping system. It is outstanding in every respect. Not sure how much map data can be loaded into the internal memory but the entire U.S. can be loaded onto a 2.0GB Secure Digital external memory card loaded into the slot on top of the unit. GPS and the navigation voice commands are OUTSTANDING!!! Battery life is more than adequate, provided the brightness level is lowered significantly. When in a cradle (auto or desktop) I run at full brightness.
Would I buy this product knowing what I know after two months usage? Answer is an unqualified YES!
great GPS/PDA 2007-11-16
I love Garmin GPS products and the PDA function of this device is great also. As long as you keep it charged and do not let the battery die it is a great product. I do not like the dash mount that does not suction cup to the window. I had this product for 3 years now and it slides across the dashboard. I had to purchase the suction cup with makes it 100% better. It also fits right into my purse for easy travel. I do not leave it in the car to prevent it from being stolen.
Okay product but just doesn't last. 2007-02-26
Realize that this unit is discontinued and probably with good reason: it just doesn't hold up. My first one lost the ability to find any satellite signals. To Garmin's great credit they replaced it even 'though it was several months out of warranty. No argument, didn't even have to ask, they just did it which leads me to believe that they knew they had problems with the design of this unit. My second one has just failed the same way about 10 months later and this time Garmin want $150 to repair/replace it. I wouldn't mind the charge so much but the fact that it has happened twice makes me think I'll only get another year out of it so why bother?
The maps were out of date when this thing was new and not just for new roads or developments. A major road near here has been a divided highway for ~20 years but the iQue database knew nothing about that.
Disappointed that my ~$500 investment has only lasted me 2 years. Agree with the others about poor battery life - you could NEVER use this unit for walking for example and somewhat of a compromise as a PDA. Should have stuck with separate units but tried to save money.
Never Get Lost Again! 2007-01-19
It works great, and I can use it on my boat (including the fishing calculator that's built in!) Would be neet to be able to choose a man's voice instead of the woman's though. Most women are always getting lost!
Avoid this product and found something else to buy 
2007-01-07
The accompied CD does not work. I had to call a friend to get a copy. I finally installed. It worked OK excpet that it had been no sound since after a couple of months.
Good in a limited way 
2006-09-17
I will make it short since there are already some nice, detailed reviews.
This unit is good for automotive, plugged-in use only because of its VERY limited battery life. Even when not in use, whether at home or in car, keep it in the cradle. Else, it will drain itself of battery, lose memory and require re-synching! Limited to this type of use, it is a good GPS. But if you want to get a car GPS then perhaps you should get one intended for that purpose because the pen-based interface of this product is cumbersome to use while driving.
If you are hoping that you can replace your normal Palm PDA with this one - forget it (because of limited battery life even with GPS off).
So what's special about this Palm-based GPS? Simply that you can integrate your Palm address list with the waypoints of the GPS.
Good luck.
