Acer n30 review

After a brief flirtation with Palm devices, Acer has confirmed that it will be sticking with Pocket PC for the foreseeable future. The n30 is the first PDA it has released since this announcement, and it's a no-nonsense, low-cost model.

This isn't the most stylish of devices, but it balances out by being thin and light at just 130g. In fact, it's so compact that there's no room for the traditional five-way navigation pad at the front. While this may annoy some, the four shortcut buttons are still present, and for most people the stylus and jog dial will suffice for general navigation.

In place of the navigation pad is a surprisingly loud speaker. Unfortunately, due to its diminutive size, the sound quality is quite horrendous - it's barely capable of producing beeps with any real clarity. At least there's a headphone socket at the top, and the n30 can play MP3s solidly for nearly four hours.

There's no cradle supplied in the box, although one can be bought from Acer's website. The supplied USB connection cable is the only method of charging it too, which can be a little annoying. However, the cable does come with a client connection, which means you can plug in a USB flash drive or USB memory card reader and transfer pictures to or from the n30. This may seem quite a trivial addition, but will come in very useful if you manage to fill its 55MB of available memory.

Despite Acer's description of the n30 as a 'wireless wonder', there's no 802.11 wireless built into the chassis - a disappointment but no real surprise given the n30's low price. However, an SD slot is included on the top; it's SDIO compatible and can therefore handle items such as Wi-Fi cards. The n30 does have a Bluetooth chip inside though - see our feature on p140 for a definitive list of the benefits this can bring.

The n30 runs Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC 2003, although only the Premium Edition, not the Second Edition that we saw last month in Dell's Axim X30 (see issue 119, p63). This is no great loss, however, as the significant improvements are restricted to having a landscape screen and Wi-Fi protected access. But if you specifically want these enhancements, you'd be better off with the Dell, as Acer isn't currently offering the ability to upgrade to it.

Pocket PC 2003 Premium Edition is still an excellent OS though, and runs smoothly thanks to the 266MHz Samsung processor and 64MB of RAM inside. However, it's not the fastest chip around, and while video playback and general use showed no shudders or glitches, those wanting to use their PDA for multimedia may wish to look to PX4270 XScale-powered PDAs such as the aforementioned Dell.

The screen is good enough for movie playback, but it isn't particularly bright and colours are a little dull. Text is clear, however, and as this is what the n30 is primarily designed for we can forgive its poor colour representation.

Given the exceptionally low cost, the n30 is one of the cheapest Pocket PCs available. Fujitsu Siemens' Pocket LOOX 420 is still our preferred Pocket PC, but if you're looking for a lightweight, basic business tool with Bluetooth, put the n30 at the top of your shortlist.

Author: Mark Walsh