By providing maps of Puerto Rico, Canada, and the United States, the included City Navigator North America NT 7 DVD is more complete than that of any of Garmin's competitors. There are more than 6 million points of interest (POI) for restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and the like preprogrammed into the database. On the downside, you'll need to set aside a lot of time for moving maps from your PC to the Garmin iQue 3000; a single state can take between 10 and 30 minutes to transfer to the device. The included 128MB Micro SD card is good for a five-state road trip, but we suggest getting a larger card to hold more maps and a bunch of music, given that the device has a competent audio player.
With accurate and detailed maps, predictive entry, and efficient routing, the Garmin iQue 3000 is perfect for car trips. The main screen shows not only the road ahead but also the vehicle's speed, distance, and time to the next turn. As a bonus for those obsessed with time, the handheld gives you an estimated time of arrival. We like the small compass needle in the upper-left corner, and the unit's up/down button zooms in and out of the action with ease. When planning your route, you can choose between the shortest or fastest route, and you can instruct the iQue 3000 to avoid toll roads, unpaved roads, carpool lanes, and so forth. Garmin also nicely integrates the handheld's PIM functions with its GPS capabilities; to wit, it can plot a course straight from an address in your Contacts list. You get 2D and 3D map views, automatic rerouting, and saved routes, and the handheld even goes beyond the basics by including settings for emergency vehicles, delivery vans, and taxis. On the downside, it lacks a GM-10 radio for getting traffic information.
We tested the Garmin iQue 3000 in New York, and it took just more than 2 minutes to get a position fix from a cold start. The handheld constantly updated the onscreen map and never lost contact, regardless of whether we were jogging to an appointment in New York City or driving up and down the East Coast. We were impressed with its accurate plotting, and the routing was efficient. We also like the fact that it reminds the driver of upcoming turns, plus it took only 15 seconds to complete a new itinerary.One thing is for certain: The Garmin iQue 3000 isn't the fastest handheld on the block. It's a RAM-starved machine, so it took several seconds to call up new applications or to draw maps, but perhaps the biggest drawback is its battery life. In our tests, where we looped a video clip using Kinoma's 3EX player and set the backlight level to 50 percent, the unit was able to run for only 4 hours, 26 minutes on a single charge. By comparison, both the Asus MyPal A636 and the Pharos Traveler GPS 525 lasted almost 9 hours. The iQue's numbers rise to 6 hours, 48 minutes when playing music, but they still fall short of the competition.
