Acer N30 Bluetooth Pocket PC

It’s small and lightweight and does everything I need it to do. I find Activesynch to be fine. I synchronise my N30 on a work and a home PC, using different settings for each and it’s unproblematic. I love the ease-of-use of ‘Pocket’ versions of programs like Outlook, rather than converting my old Psion applications to synch with Windows. I do miss the large keyboard and have had to recalibrate the N30 screen a couple of times since using a screen protector film, as it seems to lose some sensitivity, particularly when using the small on-screen keyboard.

I was impressed with the accuracy of the handwriting recognition (anyone remember the Apple Newton, which was atrocious?), but have defaulted to on-screen keyboard entry (old habits…).

Also bought the Acer leather case, which is very high quality – imitations available on the web looked shoddy.

I was initially concerned about the manual’s warnings about losing data if the battery was exhausted, and thought I would need to regularly plug the mains adapter into the power socket on the supplied synch cable. Soon discovered that the unit recharges from the USB connection to a PC and, as I have mine connected at least once a day, low battery has never been a problem.

The reminder alarm is loud enough to be audible when I’ve got this stuffed in a briefcase on the back seat of the car (which has been fortunate!) and the diary functions are great (standard Outlook stuff).

Did have a minor panic when I thought I’d lost 80% of my contacts, but realised I’d accidentally selected ‘Recent Contacts’ rather than ‘All Contacts’ (Doh!)

As someone who was initally cynical of the Pocket PC platform, I wouldn’t now go back to a proprietary system. Only four stars because of the screen issue. I like the flexibility and the add-ons (considering the SatNav), and it looks really smart.


No Complaints   December 12, 2005
K (UK)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

I always used to think that the people that wrote the reviews were marketing people in desguise, just trying to sell their own product. I read the other reviews on here, but still bought one after extensive research. I must say, i dont work for acer or any marketing firm selling this. I'm just a very satisfied customer.

This thing is really the mutts nuts. OK granted, it is my first PDA, but it does everything i need it to do and more. Have updated the OS, (even though i dont think i needed to) I can play movies on it and mp3's. I'm a teacher, and i use it a lot for school. The kids think its cool. Got myself a gig SD card, and have satnav for it. The USB host is a dream allowing me to use my 2gig pen drive with it. (carrying the cable around is a bit of a pain though).

It's quite sturdy, and it's size is great. Sometimes have a few problems with it freezing, and need to hard reset it, but i keep regular backups, so there is absolutely no problem at all.

The only moan i have is with activesync, which is rubbish but i cant blame acer for that.

If you're thinking of buying a cheap PDA, that you want for the basics, just like i did, then you will not be disappointed.

K