GPS giant Garmin was showcasing several new GPS devices for the coming year at CES 2006. These new models include the PDA style iQue 3000 and the fitness oriented Forerunner 205 and Forerunner 305.
The iQue 3000 (February – $399) is Garmin’s latest Palm OS powered GPS handheld. This entry level model offers fully integrated GPS technology with a flip up GPS antenna and full mapping features such as shortest route calculations, on screen map viewing and millions of points of interest. It also offers up standard Palm OS features including calendar and contacts, of which a contact can be selected from the address book and then mapped to via the GPS.
Garmin’s 2006 fitness GPS models – the Forerunner 205 (February – $249) and Forerunner 305 (February – $349) – provide outdoors people with real time information such as calories burned, distance traveled, pace and navigation to help someone find their way back to where they started. Both are compact, lightweight and waterproof with a design that wraps the GPS antenna around part of the wrist. The 305 also sports a heart rate monitor that delivers real time heart rate data back to the device. All data acquired by the two Forerunner models can be downloaded to a computer for use in developing and monitoring health goals.
