Acer n35 review

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Verdict:

At £234, Acer's n35 is cheap for a combined PDA and GPS system. However, while it works reasonably well as a Pocket PC, the GPS software runs too slowly to make the n35 a good buy.

Review Date: 22 Jun 2005

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Our Rating 2 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Acer's n35 is similar to its entry-level n30 model, but it comes with GPS software and a built-in antenna.

FEATURES

The n35's GPS receiver adds considerably to its size and weight, making it one of the thickest and heaviest PDAs on test at 20mm deep and 165g. The GPS antenna is integrated neatly into the back of the case, but it can be tricky to pull out and feels slightly flimsy, unlike the rest of the PDA.

The n35's button design is more fussy than that of the others on test, and the short cut buttons below the main screen are awkwardly recessed and hard to press. A small joystick takes the place of the usual four-way navigation keypad, but it has no central Select button. Instead, items are selected using the thumb-operated scroll wheel on the left of the PDA or the touch screen. The n35 is also one of only two devices in the group without Bluetooth.

PERFORMANCE

As one of the cheaper PDAs on test, the n35 has a relatively slow 266MHz Samsung processor. It scored a below-average 1,366 points in the Spb benchmark and feels sluggish in GPS mode. The supplied Destinator software runs very slowly, and scrolling around the map and zooming in and out can be very frustrating. The Acer's battery life of just over three hours was also behind all but the rx1710 in our standard workload test. The user has 55MB of memory available for documents and programs.

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