Garmin iQue M3 Pocket PC integrated with GPS

Average customer rating: 3.5

Garmin iQue M3 purchase
works as advertised
GPS not reliable
After a year's use, not a keeper
Garmin iQue M3

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Garmin iQue M3 Pocket PC integrated with GPS

Manufacturer: Garmin
Product Group: CE
Binding: Electronics
ASIN: B000ACURFG

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Product Description

Ique M3 Pocket PcGarmin International part number 010-00437-00

Customer Reviews:

Garmin iQue M3 purchase.......2007-03-09

The Item is as dis-scribed and I am very satisfied with the purchase.

works as advertised.......2007-01-10

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.

GPS not reliable.......2006-12-02

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.

After a year's use, not a keeper.......2006-12-02

I was given the iQue M3 for Christmas of 2005. A few months into the new year, I dropped it onto pavement, and it broke. For $99, Garmin replaced it with a refurbished unit, which I consider a fair price. Unfortunately, the refurb unit couldn't play directions at full volume, so I returned it for another refurb. This unit fell off the windshield still in it's cradle, and it started making that frying sound of short circuits. I called Garmin and was told that if there was no obvious damage to the unit, they'd look at it under warranty. I had told the guy what happened, so I was pleasantly surprised; they did, in fact, replace it.

Under all circumstances, the report you get back says the returned unit was "within specifications" (or words to that effect), even though clearly not. I have no idea why. Units will be returned with new software keys to enter, and the software will begin urging you to register, even though you already have.

For some, the mapping software on the M3 will appear crippled. It is a basic drive from here to there unit. It does not allow you to load way-points, Points of Interest, and the like.

Each of the units had quirks. On the first one, every time I inserted the SD card with maps, Windows player (or whatever it's called) would start up and ask me if I wanted to search the card for tunes. The second one had inaudible volume. The fourth one has a problem common to the first one: The brightness resets itself randomly to zero. Yep, zero. The first one left the powered brightness full on, so you could give power and see to reset the battery brightness to half on, but this one resets them both to zero. So you may think the unit is not turning on, but it's on. You just can't see anything on the screen. If you're outside, you can put it in the sun and see dimly enough to navigate to the brightness setting, but if it's dark, you need a flashlight.

The current one will do a hard reset if I start the car with the unit plugged into the lighter and sometimes when I put it in the cradle. This means I have to do the full new user routine. Touch the screen on the little plus signs to register the touch screen. Press and hold to learn again how to copy. Press and hold to learn again how to paste. Reset the time from Olathe, Kansas, to where I live. All contacts, notes, calendars, and other information is lost. All preferences are gone. After I've gone through the restart routine, the unit will then find the satellites and get me where I'm going, but I can't load destinations from contacts, as they're gone, so I have to type them all in by hand.

If the battery runs out of juice, the unit is dead. It forgets everything, and I have to touch the screen where the plus signs are to register the screen. Press and hold to learn again how to copy. Press and hold to learn again how to paste. Reset the time from Olathe, Kansas, to where I live. All contacts, notes, calendars, and other information is lost. All preferences are gone.

I complained about this to support at Garmin, and I was assured this is a Microsoft feature and that Garmin can do nothing about it. They recommended that I buy a program from one of several vendors that backs up the data to an SD card where it will not be lost. So now I carry a card with my detailed maps and a card with my backup data. I did learn, though, that if the battery runs down, the backup program is lost, so you can't retrieve your data from the backup SD card unless you have told the program to save as self-extracting archives. I learned it the hard way, of course.

To restore, I pop out the detailed maps SD card, insert the backup card, navigate to the File Explorer, navigate to the SD card, open the contents of the SD card, select the latest back up, click through the restore procedure, click to OK that it has finished (just a minute or two with my small amount of data), click to restart, wait a long time for it to restart, tap to get past the owner data screen, enter the password, then pop the restore card out, reinstall the map card, wait while it reads it, then I'm good to go. I can't do it while I'm driving, of course, so if the unit resets on its own, I just go with the complete lack of contacts and without the unit knowing where "Home" is, which means I have to type it or other locations into the Where To dialogue.

The unit defaults to 3D directions instead of north is always up, which is confusing for me as I can't look at the screen and out my window and make immediate sense of where I am vis-a-vis the map. I'm sure this is my shortcoming, and I then have to remember how to navigate the menu to the setting for north is up, which I can't do while driving. It also defaults to different displays for day and night. The night display uses a dark background, and I have found that the menus for the Windows programs use a transparent background with black text. So I can't read the menu selections against the dark display. And the unit will not save my preference for using day at all times if I lose power or the unit resets when I start the car or sometimes when I put it in the cradle.

On the contacts database, the unit assumes all phone numbers start with the area code to Olathe, Kansas. It also formats all numbers as US numbers. I have a few overseas numbers, and they are crammed into the (xxx) xxx-xxxx format, even though they are longer and don't start with an area code.

In the calendar, if I have meetings scheduled outside my time zone, I enter them at the time they're scheduled. Then when I get there, I have the option of choosing the visited time zone, and all the times are screwed up, as the unit assumes all times entered are for my original time zone. So I never use the visited time zone feature, and the unit assumes I'm still in my home zone wherever I may travel.

I have not found a way to have it tell me how to get to places that have no street address, but for which I have the lat/long coordinates. I camp in places that are off main roads and trying to move the map around gets to be burdensome at the scale necessary to show unpaved roads - I quickly lose where I am and have to zoom out, which loses the road.

On the whole, the directions part of the M3 is excellent. It gives good directions, has reasonably up to date maps, and lets you find stores, restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and the like in your area, and it provides addresses and phone numbers so you can call ahead for information and reservations.

On the whole, using the device is too aggravating to make it a keeper. After a year of use, I can't put up with it anymore. I'll take Garmin's word that this is all a shortcoming of Windows Mobile and not Garmin's fault, but I can't put up with it anymore. I'll switch to Magellan or TomTom or some other unit that isn't Windows-based and that doesn't completely lose its mind when the battery runs down, doesn't randomly do a hard reset, doesn't randomly set the brightness to zero, and doesn't assume all phone numbers start with the area code to Olathe, Kansas. Maybe another manufacturer will let me import POIs and way-points from other people's files.

Garmin iQue M3.......2006-11-07

Fantastic deal, quickly shipped in an excellent package. Will definitely shop from again.

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