iQue ships in two weeks

[+jollybgood]

Anyone seen this latest bit on the iQue?

 

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111263,tk,dn062003X,00.asp

 

Jolly R. Blackburn

http://kenzerco.com

"Never declare war on a man who buys his ink by the gallon."

[andyland]

Cool, I've had my eye on this since it was announced, but I was getting tired of the wait and have recently been seriously considering getting the Street Pilot III Deluxe for in-car use. It's going for about $650 after rebate for everything including a 128 mb card and a couple of mounts. But now that I see the features of the iQue... hires color screen, voice prompted routing, memeory expandability, ARM processor, etc. I'm thinking it will do everything the SP will do and be portable enough to go with me when I leave the car. The only two drawbacks I can think of are the nice big buttons on the SP would be easier to use while driving then the small buttons and stylus of the iQue, and the iQue probably doesn't have a very good antenna and probably no external antenna jack. I guess that could be solved with an antenna repeater. What to do, what to do?

 

Andy

[+JDan150]

Straight from Garmin's web site

[+TeamThompson]

Hi,

I've had an opportunity to play with an iQue.

 

Full disclosure: I work for PalmSource. Please keep in mind that I'm speaking here as a GeoCacher, not as a representative of PalmSource in any way shape or form.

 

My first impressions of the iQue were very positive. The display is nice and bright, the navigation software is easy to use and quite powerful. The autorouting capabilities are also quite nice especially as you ignore it's turns and keep going your own way. After a short time it will re-route to keep up with how you're currently going. Another nice feature is the detour. Say you're driving down the freeway and hear of an accident a mile ahead with a half mile backup behind it. The iQue can plot a detour route of 1/2, 1 or 2 miles to route you around the problem. The map zoom automatically changes depending on your speed and the detail required for the routing which is handy.

 

Now the downsides. The speaker isn't really loud enough to clearly hear the voice prompts as you are driving. I understand that the charging cradle for use in a vehicle includes an output connection intended to connect into the car stereo so this isn't a huge issue.

 

What is a show stopper for me for GeoCaching is the battery life. From a full charge, with the backlight off and the battery saving features enabled I was able to get 3 hours use before low-battery shutdown. If used with the in-car charger then that's less of an issue unless you are planning to go on a longer hike. The battery pack does not use standard batteries, so when they die you're stuck.

 

To be fair to Garmin, GeoCaching/hiking is not what they designed this unit for. It was designed for use in vehicles as a navigation aid, then as a handheld PDA but not primarily as a handheld GPS. It's more of a PDA with a GPS added on rather than the other way around.

 

When used in the targetted manner I think it does a nice job, when taken out of its target niche it doesn't do as well I'm afraid.

 

Personally, I've resurrected my old Palm Vx and Magellan StreetFinder GPS. This combination gives me several days of battery life for the Vx and 10-12 hours use from NiMH AAAs on the GPS. The downside with this combo is storage space. A newer device with an expansion slot with a clip on does a very nice job. Not as rugged as a proper handheld GPS but very nice nonetheless.

 

Cheers,

Bruce.

[+Dan_Edwards]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thompson Family:

 

Now the downsides. The speaker isn't really loud enough to clearly hear the voice prompts as you are driving. I understand that the charging cradle for use in a vehicle includes an output connection intended to connect into the car stereo so this isn't a huge issue.

 

What is a show stopper for me for GeoCaching is the battery life. From a full charge, with the backlight off and the battery saving features enabled I was able to get 3 hours use before low-battery shutdown. If used with the in-car charger then that's less of an issue unless you are planning to go on a longer hike. The battery pack does not use standard batteries, so when they die you're stuck.

 

To be fair to Garmin, GeoCaching/hiking is not what they designed this unit for. It was designed for use in vehicles as a navigation aid, then as a handheld PDA but not primarily as a handheld GPS. It's more of a PDA with a GPS added on rather than the other way around.

 

When used in the targetted manner I think it does a nice job, when taken out of its target niche it doesn't do as well I'm afraid.

 

Personally, I've resurrected my old Palm Vx and Magellan StreetFinder GPS. This combination gives me several days of battery life for the Vx and 10-12 hours use from NiMH AAAs on the GPS. The downside with this combo is storage space. A newer device with an expansion slot with a clip on does a very nice job. Not as rugged as a proper handheld GPS but very nice nonetheless.

 

Cheers,

Bruce.

---

 

Thank you so much for the info. I was really thinking about getting this for on-road and off road use. I still might get one though, but that battery life thing is a show stopper at the moment. Does anyone know if you can buy more battery packs for it.

 

When I lost my GPS module for my Visor (I know I lost the one thing that was to keep me from getting lost...) I replaced it with a Magellan Meridian GPS (Merigreen) and I am pretty much in love with it for hiking. I no longer have to fear water or dropping, but sometimes I do mis the power of my Visor, because I could use so many different programs to talk to my GPS I had a lot of info available that I don't have on the Magellan. For one XMap's TopoUSA maps are much more detailed then Mapsend's for terrain detail and trail routing. I think what I will do is save myself some money for now and just replace the GPS module from a used one on eBay and take a wait and see with the iQue for now until I hear more about the battery situation.

 

A = A

[andyland]

Thanks for the in-depth report! I've been looking for any info that wasn't the same old PR bable.

 

I'm excited to hear that the system itself works well. The drawbacks you mention are pretty easy to overcome, but only worth the trouble if the basic system is well thought out and intuitive to use.

 

As for the drawbacks, the volume problem should be fixed with the auto navigation kit and it's built in speaker, albeit at a price of $79.99. A cheaper solution would be to connect the headphone out jack to the car stereo with a $2 cable from Radio Shack.

 

The 3 hour battery life is not surprising at all. If an external GPS had to share the battery with a color pda, you would get about the same results. An acceptable solution would be a clip on external battery pack, or maybe a cable going to a battery pack in your pocket. It would be simple to make the latter from a sync cable and a battery box. A nicely fabricated clip on one would be up to Garmin or a third party company to provide.

 

I guess I'm willing to consider these battery workarounds because I really like the functionality provided by the big color screen and the other apps that can leverage the GPS on a pda based system. I currently use a Rino cabled to a Sony Clie NX70 and would be happy to shrink that down to one device with a little battery pack velcrod on the back. But let's hope Garmin or somebody comes up with a better battery fix.

 

Andy

[+bigeddy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thompson Family:

What is a show stopper for me for GeoCaching is the battery life.

---

I guess they design it with a built-in battery to keep the weight down but it sure seems dumb, especially from a GPS manufacturer.

 

Some additional questions if you would be so kind:

 

How well does the built-in antenna perform?

 

Is the navigation software easy to use without a stylus?

 

Can waypoints & routes be transferred from a computer?

 

Does the memory hold more detailed maps than the Garmin GPS V which I find inadequate?

 

Does the new Palm operating system multi-task, so that you can switch easily between GPS and PDA apps while they continue running?

[+TeamThompson]

quote:

---

Originally posted by bigeddy:

How well does the built-in antenna perform?

 

Is the navigation software easy to use without a stylus?

 

Can waypoints & routes be transferred from a computer?

 

Does the memory hold more detailed maps than the Garmin GPS V which I find inadequate?

 

Does the new Palm operating system multi-task, so that you can switch easily between GPS and PDA apps while they continue running?

---

 

Hi,

I found the built-in antenna to do a fine job. It wants to be horizontal, but acquisition and tracking seemed to compare just fine to me current setup with the Vx and Clip-on.

 

One thing I didn't try was to transfer routes/waypoints from my desktop so I really have no clue if this is possible. I would _really_ hope so...

 

Garmin provides a map install tool that allows you to select maps to install in the internal RAM, and a set for the currently installed SD card. The maps are organized more or less on a county level, one map per county, and are really big. Fortunately the internal RAM is also quite large, either 16M or 32M I can't recall which but strongly suspect 16M. One downside is that on the desktop side it doesn't remember what maps you have already installed. Any new set you install simply replaces the existing set.

 

I can't compare the map detail to the Garmin V, but I found the maps to be highly detailed with a huge number of searchable POIs and search tools to help find nearby shops, etc.

 

The navigation prompting continues running in the background while you are running other apps. Voice prompts and pop-up turn detail maps come up as you move along.

 

Hope this helps!

Bruce.

[+bigeddy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thompson Family:

Hope this helps!

Bruce.

---

Yes! Very valuable to get a report from a geocacher. Thanks for taking the time.

 

In looking at the Garmin website it appears that the iQue has the same map database as the GPS V but more than twice the built-in memory. Presumeably, the PC software is the same and allows communication with the device. Hope it's faster because the GPS V can take 40 minutes to download 12MB of maps!

 

My remaining concern is how the interface works. From the pictures the iQue looks menu driven with a stylus. That could be awkward in both the car and in the field for geocaching. I have a Palm V and have dropped the stylus in bad places many times. Can the buttons be used to navigate menus?

[+TeamThompson]

Hmmm... Working from memory here (it's been nearly a month since I had my hands on the beast...) I believe that the buttons were used intelligently. In fact, I seem to recall that the NotePad button had been changed to a button that by default rotated through the various GPS related apps. Also, as I recall most buttons were big enough to be selectable either by a fingertip or a fingernail.

 

Cheers,

Bruce.

[+Record Holders]

I got to play with an iQue recently and I really liked it. It had 32mb of internal memory, plus you can load maps on the SD card as well. I suspect that both types of memory will program faster than the V because of the USB connection vs. serial...should be by about a factor of 10. The car kit seems to correct the speaker volume issue. I agree with the previous poster that the iQue is probably not the perfect unit if your main use is geocaching...I love my Vista for that, but it felt more rugged than most PDA I've used. I'm pretty sure that the next version of MapSource will support sending maps to the iQue. It is annoying that the maps are loaded from scratch everytime, but since the programming should be so much faster that won't be quite as bad as on the V.

[+JDan150]

MapSource Version 4.13 to 5.00 BETA Differences

 

26. Added support for transferring maps to removable media (Compact Flash, Secure Digital) over USB.

 

47. Added support for sending maps to Garmin iQue Palm device.

48. Added support for reading tracks from the Garmin iQue Palm device.

[+RECS]

Question about battery life...

 

Let's say I'm just using the unit for PDA purposes, appx. how long can I expect the battery to last?

 

Thanks for all the incredible and expert info. I'm really considering this unit but I will mostly use it for pda purposes and the gps for occasional (once a month) road trips.

 

Thanks again,

Ron

[+TeamThompson]

Hi,

The battery life when not using the GPS seemed pretty decent, but I didn't pay a lot of attention to that I'm afraid. My expectation is that it is somewhere around a week or two with "normal" usage (whatever that is).

 

Since the HotSync cradle is also the charger, I would expect that if you HotSync every day or so and leave it in the cradle for an hour or more when you do that you'll never see the batteries run down on you.

 

Cheers,

Bruce.

[+RECS]

Thanks Bruce! I have to say that after reading about all this geocaching stuff, I think I'll be using the GPS more than I thought. I knew nothing about this hobby until I read through some of the posts and the FAQ's here on this site, while searching for info on the iQue device. I think when I get this unit I will dive right into the gecocaching hobby you guys/gals seem to enjoy so much! I'll read as much about it as possible so that when this unit finally releases, I'll be up to date on this whole Geocaching adventure. Sounds like a lot of fun and a very interesting hobby. I'll be back soon...

 

Ron