Garmin iQue M5 - 3.5 in. Handheld GPS Receiver

I resisted the temptation to review this unit the first week I had it, since it takes a while to learn. I've had it three months now, with mixed results. First the good: the voice navigator is awesome, clear and easy to understand. The car window mount works perfectly. The GPS is sometimes slow to acquire satellites (1 minute to one hour), sometimes loses signal. The GPS part has now quit completely, and I'm waiting to hear from customer service. You have to e-mail customer service, because it's a 30-35 minute wait (at least, I never actually got connected to a person) and it's a long distance call (the 800-number is out of service). The PDA part still works. Programs hang, but it's easily fixed by turning the unit off then on again. Remember to back up data on this, just like a PC. I got complacent, and lost contacts and other files. I turned the unit on one day and found everything completely reset, with all contacts and maps lost. Garmin includes the whole US on CD, so I can re-load the maps. Many people ask me if there is a monthly charge for GPS or the maps; luckily no, it's all included. The restaurants in the point-of-interest database are a little out of date (some have been closed for years) but the info is generally very useful. If I had it to do over I would get a separate PDA and navigator, same as buying a separate TV and VCR. The Palm Tungsten for $200 is a far superior PDA, and there is a lot of softare available for the Palm OS, not much for Window Pocket PC. I assumed it would be the other way around, but not so. Maybe Pocket PC is still too new? The Magellan navigators are pricey, but far easier to learn and use. I had one in a Hertz car and was able to navigate with voice in seconds, without reading the manual - it's very intuitive. The M5 manual comes as a pdf, you don't even get a paper copy. Ironically there is no pdf reader for the M5 - it would be nice to be able to access the manual from the unit itself.

On the plus side, the size is good, and battery life is good. No problems with the leather cover - I like the way it's attached but easily opens. I tried to liten to books on tape and mp3's on an airplane with the M5, but the sound output through headphones is so low it's not usable. In a quiet room you can hear the speaker. The speaker that comes with the car adapter is plenty loud tough for navigation.

Smart disk is a must for maps, but a 1 gig SD was $79 so this doesn't bother me. With 2 gig you can load the entire US maps - I have about half the country in 700 meg, leaving room for other files. Hope this review helps someone.