Garmin Ique 3200
With the advent of the iQue 3200, there has been a lot of hope that some of the minor bugs that were part of the Garmin 3600 iQue PDA experience would be going away. That has not exactly been the case.

All the way around, the iQue 3200 is a reproduction of the earlier Garmin iQue handheld PDA with most of the same features. The Garmin PDA iQue aluminum cases are still intact and still providing good protection for the Garmin iQue PDA battery. The size of the Garmin Ique PDA is about the same as well, so it is still not really a good fit for the shirt pocket. However, there are a couple of changes that are noteworthy.

First of all, the square screen of 320 X 3200 pixels now has a dedicated Graffiti area. This may come into play, as it will inhibit the map display somewhat. The 3600 could use the entire area of 3.8”, whereas the iQue 3200 will allow for a 3” map view.

While there was MP3 support with the 3600, that has been discontinued with the 3200. There is also no headphone jack available on the newer 3200 model, so you may want to think twice about what to do with those music files.

While the iQue 3600 had recording capability, the 3200 lacks a microphone and a recording application. So you can jettison the idea of an impromptu recording at your kid’s next birthday party.

The cheap Garmin 3200 iQue PDA does have SDIO rather than just SD. What this means in practical terms is that while the 3200 can be expanded using IO devices to include such features as Bluetooth, modems, Wi-Fi and the like, you end up losing valuable storage for maps on the 3200, unless the IO device has memory of its own to bring to the table.

Some of the issues reported with the 3600 still appear to be applicable to the 3200 as well. For instance, an issue with accidentally wiping the storage while putting the 3600 unit in its cradle was traced back to the presence of static electricity. That still appears to be happening with the new 3200. In like manner, garbled voice messages usually require resetting some of the software before the messages will register properly.

Unfortunately, it appears that the newer discount Garmin 3200 iQue PDA from Garmin is not really an improvement over the iQue 3600 at all. In fact, one can almost say that is it a step backward for the product line. Hopefully, the issues will be resolved, and the laudable idea of marrying the PDA with GPS will become fully successful.