Although the monochrome Aero 1500 can compete ounce for ounce against the Palm handheld from Palm Computing Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., I never had a problem with the 1500 s size. Compaq s engineers now have leveled the playing field via free software, QUtilities. The software can be downloaded from the Web for old and new Compaq handheld devices. WinCE s main flaw like that of the mythical Ouroboros snake is that it eats its own tail.
Programs stay open when the user switches to other programs.
Closing them is a fairly difficult process. After a time, WinCE devices run out of available memory and either refuse to open new programs or crash. You can t rely on a handheld s limited memory to drive multiple programs, and the problem gets worse when you have no idea what s still running. Digging out a color version, the Aero 2130, from the post-review pile, I charged its batteries and synchronized it with one of the lab s test computers. Setup of the new OS download was a breeze.