Reviews
Socket Bluetooth Adapter
Socket's
two year-old Bluetooth Card in CompactFlash format was a product
slightly ahead of its time. Initially, it offered Bluetooth connectivity
only to Windows CE devices; only later did they release software
and a special elongated PC Card adapter for the card that would
allow the antenna to slightly protrude beyond the laptop's shell.
the product worked well, but in those days there were so few Bluetooth
devices to which one could connect, it kind of got lost in the
noise.
These days, Bluetooth peripherals are popping up like springtime
poppies along a California highway. These days, any Pocket PC
or Palm unit worth its salt has Bluetooth under the hood. Still,
many of us are using older laptops that lack built-in Bluetooth.
This is where the Socket card comes into play. It offers an easy,
unobtrusive, and semi-permanent way to add Bluetooth to you laptop.
On my Bluetooth-less Acer TravelMate C110 Tablet PC, I never use
the PC Card slot, so the Socket card has become a permanent addition
to my rig. Previously, I successfully employed the AsantŽ USB
Bluetooth Adapter, which worked perfectly well but stuck out of
the unit and, frankly, bugged me. The Socket card is a smooth
black extension of about 1/4 inch, with smoothed corners so it
never slang on my case or clothes.
The
Socket software installed without drama, though I did have to
fiddle around with the configuration tool to get the COM 5 port
set correctly for ActiveSync to work. Using its built-in Bluetooth
Manager app, my HP iPAQ 2210 saw the tablet and hooked right up.
It won't say it was painless, but this isn't a PowerBook and a
Palm we're talking about; one must set one's expectation threshold
pretty low to be happy on the Windows side of the fence. But one
it was up, it stayed up and does exactly what it's supposed to
do: wireless sync, Internet access via Bluetooth phone, peer-to-peer
file transfers, and all the rest of the magic Bluetooth makes
possible. $139 with CF adapter for Windows laptops; $129 card-only
version for Win CE devices.
- Edison Carter
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