Garmin announced a few new GPS solutions today, including a new GPS-enabled Pocket PC called the Garmin iQue M4, which is similar to the Garmin iQue M5. Although I did not get my hands on the iQue M4 (yet), I thought I'd provide my insights since I have seen many GPS solutions and can get a good feel of the iQue M4 just from the feature specs. First, this is the first Garmin Pocket PC to come
\npre-loaded with City Navigator North America NT covering the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. There's no need for downloads from your PC, although with only 64MB of RAM, you'll probably need to download maps if you travel to another area of the world. It also includes a built-in MP3 player that lets users browse music by artist, album, song, and genre and the music can be loaded onto an (optional) SD card. They also included a new higher-sensitivity SiRF GPS receiver.

The \"ho-hum\" factor is that this isn't much of an improvement over earlier Garmin models. For instance, no large SD card is included (1 GB would be nice) to hold a nice huge chunk of maps. It has 64MB of RAM and 32MB of ROM. Also, the M4 runs on Windows Mobile 2003 SE, rather than the Microsoft's latest PocketPC OS. It also runs on a a 312MHz processor, includes an SD/MMC memory card slot, a 3.5-inch, QVGA display. It will retail for \$749.99 when it goes on sale.

The biggest \"ho-hum\" factor is that for \$749.99 you can buy a brand new bleeding-edge PocketPC and then add in GPS software from Destinator or TomTom. Someone also told me that Garmin \"locks\" their PocketPC GPS solution so you can't really install any third-party PocketPC applications, making the PocketPC a strictly GPS device plus whatever else Garmin adds in (MP3 player). Not sure if that's true or not, but if it is, then this is yet another reason why I'd rather buy a high-end PocketPC, a Bluetooth GPS, and then buy the leading GPS software of my choosing.

Garmin makes good quality GPS units and if you want a Garmin iQue M4, you can pick one up on Amazon for a cheap price. If you want to see other user reviews, click here.