Well, I have been getting more of the free stuff and exploiting it. This week's free thing is an Accu Chek Mobile blood glucose meter courtesy of my fabulous DSN.
Firstly a little bit of an overview. The Mobile is a blood glucose monitoring system that does not have strips. Yes you heard. It doesn't have strips. It has a cassette thingy inside with what I suppose is the equivalent of the strips on it. The reagents are also in there.
What's good about this is that there isn't any faffing about with the handling of test strips and popping them into a meter then jabbing your finger with a lancet.
This is fantastic. I love the concept.
Now the downsides.
Firstly the noise made by the meter when you fire it up is quite phenomenal. No good if you're trying to sneak a stealth test in there and need it to go unnoticed.
Secondly the size. This is quite something to look at really. When you line it up against my Contour USB in it's pouch with strips and lancets it's roughly the same size. However what can't be done is when I need to break the black USB pouch down into its component parts and stash them in various pockets. That can't be done with the Mobile which makes it rather hard to conceal unless you have rather capacious pockets. I suppose I'd best get my bum bag from my early teens back. That carried everything in it with the one downside of looking like an utter tit. This Mobile is a housebrick and a rather unweildy piece of kit. Not liked.
The Screen is rather large which is a nice thing but then it's only a single colour and is rather lack lustre when compared to the Contour USB.
Then there are the flag options that you get on both the Contour USB and the Mobile. Firstly there is a much wider range of flags on the Contour USB. The Mobile's ones are somewhat limited in comparison.
Turning off. Something that may be trivial but I don't appreciate having to physically turn off the meter after testing. I love the fact that if I take the strip out of a USB then it just turns off. Simple. Not so in the Mobile. You need to manually shut it down after testing or setting the flag on a BG result. Not helpful.
So, in conclusion then I don't really like it. It's a large and bulk meter that isn't as accurate as my own Contour USB. There isn't any software such as the simplistic and easy to understand Glucofacts that comes with the Contour USB. Ultimately it's good for the novelty value that it's a unique concept and the only one of it's kind but when it comes down to using it day in day out in the way that I do it just doesn't cut the mustard really.
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