Slashdot Mirror
Garmin iQue 3600
W33dz writes "Several sources are talking today about Garmin's new iQue 3600. This lovely new gadget runs on Palm's OS 5.2 and features an onboard GPS system. Garmin has a long history of being a top GPS manufacturer and has created a neat little device that you can see reviewed here (MSNBC) and here (InfoSync)."
Several sources today are talking about this 3600th post...
crap, and I wanted to get mine before it was posted to slashdot.
how will it find itself? First post.
> The iQue 3600 is the first PDA to include integrated GPS technology.
> With the power of Palm OS(R) 5 and the dependability of Garmin(R) GPS technology,
> this "Super PDA" redefines multi-tasking. Our integrated software not only
> allows you to look up appointments or contacts, but also locates and routes
> you to them with voice-guidance commands!
Impressive, although I imagine voice guidance is going to sound very cheesy coming out of a tiny machine like this. And embarrassing. (Did your coat pocket just say "turn 90 degrees left"?)
You may now begin the usual "How long will it take for someone to put Linux on one of these" discussion.
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
Should we trust the GPS? :-)
.sig
4GeT THe TiMeS u WaLKeD By
4GeT THe TiMeS u MaDe Me CRy
4GeT THe TiMe u HeLD My HaND
4GeT THe SWeeT THiNGS iF i CaN
I cAn No LoNgEr PrEtEnD
I GoTTa ReMeMBeR NoW uR JuST My FRieND.
Now I can say I have an "iQue of 3600" and be telling the truth.
I think its smart that they've finally made a palm without that touchpad built into the screen... That seriously looked bad, and took away lots of potential screen room... Now they can compete better with the PocketPC's for screen size... Now only if they had the resolution....
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Holy crap, call me when it's sub $100.
Oracle is for losers. Their support sucks, their web site sucks, their CEO sucks, and their products suck. They charge too much for an unreliable product with no stability whatsoever. Think about this: You get CDs to install thier stupid fucking database server and what happens? The installer croaks partway through with an error while doing a simple make. You call Oracle and it takes them five days before they say, "Oh sorry. You need to download the latest installer or apply a patch to the installer". !!!! WTF?! Patch the installer? Who the fuck ever heard of such incompetence? Oracle fails it so much!
The iQue does not come with any built in wireless networking. That seriously limits its ability to be used as a transponder.
Dang...my color StreetPilot seems to be obsolete now. The only thing it has left going in its favor is its shape, which sits well on a dashboard. I paid $530 for it back in 2000, and it serves me well. I knew a guy who had a lay-flat GPS, and it was a pain for him to drive and watch it at the same time.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Well, one of the frustrating things about being on a Mac has been the almost total lack of GPS software available for OS X and GPS devices. What I can't seem to find out from the site is if downloading new maps requires Windows? If the maps are platform independent, Garmin has just made a sale.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
The Garmin Legend came with a "basemap" of major highways and major roads, but there are no detailed streetmaps cuz you gotta buy Garmin's CD's for that.
This new unit it pretty expensive, but what how much do you have to spend for the friggin maps?
1) Yes, but does it run Linux?
2) Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...
With a color screen, this is pretty good. It was mentioned it would drop to a few hours with constant use [GPS feature]. On a suckage note the baterry is not user replacable and the car adapter tops $70.
-- Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.
and attach a gps sleeve to it? You could get more processing power and the gps, for much much more less than the 538 by garmin.
Speaker for voice-guidance commands, MP3 player, and message playback
So when play this, does it guide you there ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Some interesting reading:
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Important Stuff:
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Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads.
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Ooo! I can take voice memos now!
"Note to self, save a couple hundred dollars next time."
I don't want more multimedia features, I want a better screen, LONGER battery life, and small and thin (Palm V). The latest trends are definitely away from the last two.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Does it run Jag-U-ar? Panther? If it's called iQue it dang well better.
Now wipe that silly smile off your face...
This would have been a great purchase as my Palm V is getting a bit outdated, but I just bought a Magellan SporTrak two months ago. I curse my insatiable desire to be a dork for not letting me wait for this thing to be released.
I read the Forbes Garmin iQue 3600 overview last week, but it didn't seem quite so exceptional. The Garmin iQue debuted at CES this year. It looks pretty bulky due to the integrated GPS hardware but I can see its usefulness as someone who travels. At $589 for a Palm plus GPS though, the price seems truly exceptional.
I find this offering by Garmin to be superior to other combination PDA and fill-in-the-blank-with-MP3-Player-or-cell-phone-or -digital-camera.
It is particularly applicable for mobile professionals who often find themselves in unfamiliar cities. The high level sales executives where I work immediately come to mind. No they aren't stupid, they just often find themselves having to get to a certain downtown meeting in a city they have been to many times visiting different clients and I am sure it would be nice to have a mobile GPS integrated with the PDA they already carry anyway. Plus it is sleek and stylish enough that even the women in the power suits would pull it out of their purse at a meeting.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
GPS is flawed. At least for most consumer level devices. The service is based on conditionality:
1) Most GPS devices have a hard time working properly indoors. Would good is a PDA device if you can't take it indoors. Something that is "limited" to outdoors might get roughed up due to rain and other environments
2) Satellite position. Some times the service for GPS is not immediately available due to changes within the satellite protocol.
A good device, but I can't justify half of a 1000 dollars on it.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
This iQue 3600 would be a perfect match for the Mensa Babe.
Your superior intellect is no match for my.... err... puny weapons.
(Note for bad-humour impaired... iQue.... IQ... hahahahaha.)
I've been working on a hiking website that uses GPS data to allow users to create and share maps. You can download trails from the website to the palm, and after hiking a never-before-mapped trail, you can donate the GPS track log and my website will add the trail to its network of trails.
I've currently got a whole bunch of trails from the new york/ new england area.
Check it out:
http://www.trailregistry.com
-Geoff
Check out TrailRegistry.com, my hiking site, Maps, altitude pr
Battery life in GPSs has never been all that great, but it's gotten a lot better. I have a Rockwell-Collins Trooper GPS (manuf. circa 1992), and it will drain 8 fresh AAs in 20 minutes. If it's staring up cold, it will often not be able to get a position before the batteries die. Fortunately, it keeps almanac, ephemeris and last position in NVRAM, so it's good to go on the second set of batteries.
TROLL ALERT:
Rockwell-Collins manufactures devices for the military. If they ever manufacturered a GPS device that could only be used for 20 minutes on AA batteries for the military, call me the pope.
It's cheaper and provides hours of amusement as you try to figure out which direction is North from the moss on the trees.
Stop and ask for directions, no! I'm a REAL man.
--This isn't a man who is leaving with his head between his legs.
iQue sounds like "y que?" -> "so what?" in Spanish.
That might be nice, though - a handheld for those who don't give a damn. A machine that conveniently erases the appointments you're not excited about, forgets the phone numbers of people you don't want to date, runs out of battery every 1/2 hour, etc.
And you can always blame technology. Wouldn't that be good?
For the lazy: http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/3903.html
Do not read this sig.
From the MSNBC article:
Apple lovers take heed: iQue comes with PC software only, nothing for Macs.
Just a Blue Tooth and a GSM phone and you have the complete gadget. The power budget would need to be conserved and if you can write your own Unix like programs and scripts, nice tool!
If it is programmable in a normal way (I'd expect that from Palm) and you can get to the GPS, great savings in power are possible by running the GPS and uProcessor mostly in low power mode. I'm tempted. (High) Street price?
Garmin has four earlier models (and a fifth just announced). Most users can drive and still safely make use of them. The screen on the iQue is larger than any of Garmin's other automotive units, and the voice prompts help drivers keep focused on the road and external factors. Putting the unit on your lap would be a bad decision, it needs to be near the instrument panel so your eyes don't have to move far to read it.
That's me, definitely - I don't have a PDA, but I have no sense of direction, and I have a Garmin GPS I take with me on the road. I mark waypoints like "car," "hotel," and "part of town that will get you dead." When I actually get a PDA, it will be a Garmin, no doubt.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
My old Garmin GPS MAP12xl may only be greyscale, and twice the weight, but it is also water resistant and runs for many many hours on alkaline AA batteries. And it bounces.
For any serious usage, such as boating or hiking, this frail-looking unit might not be a very good idea. Ever seen a palm with a shattered screen?
We have a pic and news brief posted here: http://www.pdatoday.com/weblog.php?id=P638
I'm particularly suspicious of cheap GPS that claim to be motorist friendsly. (This new Garmin falls into this category despite its hefty price tag: most of what you're paying for is a very fancy PDA.) It's nice to have audio prompts for when you need to make a turn -- but if the gadget can't acquire a satellite in a moving car, that feature is pretty useless!
Flames welcome here: if you've used a cheap urban GPS that works better than what I've described, I want to know about it!
Although this is a nifty little device and great for mobile professionals, let me tell you this, you're not gonna find 4+ satellites in a downtown urban area with tall buildings with conrete and metal all around you. These things need a clear open view of the sky with at least 4 or more satellites there at the same time. Once you enter any building or even a phone booth, it'll take you approx. 10 mins. or so to be recieving satellies signals again. I have several handheld GPS (that runs Palm OS) and they all work that way. Unless you hike, don't even bother going to a downtown area with these things.
http://www.palmzone.net
This is a great feature to integrate.. The antenna is a bit cumbersome though. What are they physics of GPS antennas? Will it always need to be something this large, and not directly embedded in the case of the PDA (like the 802.11 antennas placed along the LCD display on laptops)?
It seems like the chips to do GPS are pretty well minimized. But, if the antenna needs to be large, that will be a practical limit on thue usage of GPS.
This PDA is nice.. But I think I'll wait a couple generations for that PDA that can do fast/broad wireless internet access along with GPS (with long battery life, and a bigger screen)..
Although this is a nifty little device and great for mobile professionals, let me tell you this, you're not gonna find 4+ satellites in a downtown urban area with tall buildings with conrete and metal all around you. These things need a clear open view of the sky with at least 4 or more satellites there at the same time. Once you enter any building or even a phone booth, it'll take you approx. 10 mins. or so to be recieving satellies signals again. I have several handheld GPS (that runs Palm OS) and they all work that way. Unless you hike, don't even bother going to a downtown area with these things. You're just gonna find yourself even more confused.
http://www.palmzone.net
The Palm V family has an awful screen. My wife has one, and I think its the worst screen. The backlight actually makes the screen less legible.
Ironically, Palm (the company) has yet to produce a clearer screen than on the IIIc, but unfortunately, the screen is low-res, and is not visibile outside even in overcast weather.
So I still use my Palm IIIc waiting for the perfect replacement. Still waiting.
So it would appear, but I don't see why they are doing so now. Garmin released the iQue 3600 at least 6 months ago. In fact, Slashdot covered the story on January 20, 2003 (12:06 P.M.).
Uh-oh, now I'm going to be modded down...
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Get a Dell 400mhz Axim and a CF GPS addon for less than the price of this palm. You'll get a lot more for the money.
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As I started to cross the road I was facinated to watch the little white triangle that was mean cross the small red line of the road. Taxi's should show up on the screen as small yellow squares. I say should because they didn't and while I was crossing the road staring at the little screen, one of those large yellow boxes ran me down. I could even see the little white triangle that was me rapidly changing direction and increasing velocity before I blacked out. Luckily, I can still take voice dictation with my one good arm thanks to the clever controls on this fabulous device. If you don't know how to read a map or ask for directions, this could be just what your looking for.
Yesterday I checked for a firmware update of my Emap and noticed that they had fixed a minor bug and removed French as a language choice, Hurray for Garmin. http://www.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp ?id=73
Your street pilot is even more obsolete than you thought. Garmin also just released the new StreetPilot 2610 and 2650 (with inertial nav built in for those places you can't get a GPS signal)
The manual is available online [pdf] if you're like me and have to know every detail about this lovely piece of gear.
I would have to agree with the statement that Garmin make the best GPS units. I purchased one about 6 years ago. It was the Garmin gps 35 http://www.garmin.com/products/gps35/ I installed a desktop computer in the trunk of my vehicle running off a power inverter. Touch screen lcd. It's mint. For the Canadian Map, I use Microsoft Streets and Trips 2003. I'm sure that the Garmin iQue 3600 will be a great product to professional people on the run. But I would rather have a full setup in my vehilce than something which is limit by it's portability. It nice to see technology moving forward. 8-5 years ago, people laughed at me when I was trying to have full size computer in my vehicle. Now I laugh at them. I have sent Garmin a thank you letter. After the number of hours which I have used the GPS35. I have never had a problem. Not one. It's been sitting on my dash in full sunlight forever. It retains the backup informaion of satellite locations without failure. Fuck'n quality that you do not see anymore. Thank you Garmin.
For high-drain devices, use Ni-MH Batteries ( Nickel Mental-Hospital? hmm.. )
http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.H TM
IIRC they show the watts, mAh's, and minutes ( digicam-type load ) for a LOT of cells, including the anemic 'alkaline' cells.
The Nexcells are the most cost-effective, it seems, though I gather the Maha 100-minute charger is with Maha batteries amazing, I also gather that a given charger can be gentle with one kind of cells and destroy another, apparently similar kind.
http://www.thomas-distributing.com/batteries.htm
Messages to/for me ( in me journal )
This totally sounds like an ad. Besides, there are tons of other GPS solutions available without having to buy a proprietary device (I know it runs palm... but) for this functionality. I'd rather have a plug-in module for a normal palm frankly. Just my 2 cents.
'Que' is spanish for 'What?'
Where did people get the idea that 'que' is pronounced like the letter Q? It just looks stupid to me, like they're people that can't spell queue.
This is a pointless reply, but you are in fact incorrect (You're the pope!). Rockwell-Collins did make a non-military GPS called the Trooper. It was marketed to civilian law enforcement agencies (hence the name). It may have been sold under the "Rockwell" trade-name, but that was before Rockwell Intl. and Rockwell-Collins were different companies. It was pretty much a product failure, and Rockwell-Collins had scads of them in surplus. So many that they gave them out employees in '97 - that's how I got mine.
Here a picture of the insides of one. (Halfway down, on the right hand side.)