Compaq Aero 2130 > Reviews > Compaq Aero 2130

Author's product rating:   

Look & Feel	Poor
Memory / capacity	Very poor
Comfort & Portability	Poor
Ease of use	Satisfactory
Value For Money	Very poor

Advantages:	Colour, Good for the basics
Disadvantages:	Bit Old, bit Bulky, Not Compatible with todays technology

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I have owned numerous of these over the years, and although they are no longer available from Compaq they can be picked up for very cheap on Ebay.

This was a great PDA in its time, and could still be if you were able to upgrade the version of WinCE it runs. Itr still runs on WinCE 2.11 which has not been sold on any new PDAs for about 5 years. This doesn't sound like that critical an issue, since many PCs still run with Win 98. It is able to be docked with a PC, and can be useful as and address book and calender, but it isnt compatible with much else.

I thought I would try to use it since it was otherwise just sitting on a shelf. I installed the latest (compatible) version of Windows Media Player and decided to buy a 128mb Compact Flash Card and try to turn it into a rather bulky MP3 player. My master plan fell through when I found out the CF drive could only accept cards upto 64mb.

After getting a 64mb CF card i tryed to send over a nice selection of MP3s. This is the first time I used the cradle for anything other than transferring a contact. The serial cradle transfers data at about 1-2KB/s. For those of you that aren't computer geeks Ill translate that into an understandable figure. One MP3 is on average 4MB, thats 4000KB, so one song takes atleast 2000 seconds to transfer, which is about half an hour. Its not very useful when you wish to put a few tunes on it before catching a bus. Also a 64mb CF can only hold about an hours worth of music, or 16ish tracks.

The Compaq Aero was just one disappointment after another. After 8 hours of transferring MP3s, i was finally able to get my bus and listen to my music. When i got out my headphones and tryed to plug them into a headphone jack, which was the wrong size for standard headphones.

Since this discovery my Compaq aero 2130 has sat on its shelf . Everything the Compaq aero is able to do can be done by a mobile phone a lot quicker.

If interested in a PDA i would personally suggest a mobile phone with the Symbian Operating System. These are refered to as Smart phones, and they are a lot smarter than a Compaq Aero 2130.