Comments on: Review – Accu-Chek Compact Plus GT

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:24:41 +0000

@Teloz The Compact Plus is a bloody awful meter! Far too huge, vile and clunky!

By: Teloz

Teloz — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:33:38 +0000

@Robert MacMillan I think you only need a software upgrade Robert, they should send it for FOC. I'm fairly sure that's all I did. I think my Accu-Chek Compact Plus GT is wonderful, despite the opinions of all these Luddites!

By: Robert MacMillan

Robert MacMillan — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:30:27 +0000

I upgraded from the blue/silver Accu-Chek Compact Plus to the Accu-Chek Compact Plus Model GT. Now I discover that the software and dongle to download the meter data does not work and you have to buy new software and dongle. What a nuisance!!!.

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:18:22 +0000

@katerina I said that because I misread the specification! I got the decimal point in the wrong place – oops! Anyway, I’ve duly updated my review accordingly. I’ve also updated the site so that I consistantly use μL throughout (unless I’ve missed any!) Thanks for pointing out my failures

By: katerina

katerina — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:29:01 +0000

I was confused with μl and ul actually there are the same
(I checked it out) so why would you say 1.5 is miniscule when the freestyle only wants 0.3??

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:26:36 +0000

@sam I'm getting the sense the Compact Plus isn't going to be at the top of everyone's "Meter of the Year" lists. Oh well.

By: sam

sam — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:20:04 +0000

i actually really hated the compact plus…I found it way too noisy especially when testing in public. I don’t particularly like being stared at as i’m testing my blood but the noise emitted from the compact plus made that er…kind of inevitable. Plus, its too big, and ugly and the test strips get everywhere, even more so than normal ones cuz they’re so small! Also, looking at the back of the meter really got on my goat too. The amount of times I was out and suddenly found I was out of strips cuz I hadn’t checked the back. Awful meter. 0/10 from me – a very irritated ex Roche customer

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:29:35 +0000

@Alan Good point Alan – I only got one lots of test strips so I never had the chance to get irritated by this feature. But now you point it out – yes, yes that would be annoying.

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:11:26 +0000

I used a Compact Plus for quite a while – only ditched it when I got a new meter at the same time as my pump last May (new meter ‘talks’ to the pump). This GT model looks pretty similar – in fact I am struggling to spot the difference, but no doubt once I have posted this comment I will find out!

The most infrutiating thing for me was what Tim describes as:
“a handy dial round the back of the meter tells you how many strips you have left in the meter”

Why was this infruriating? Because I never look at the back of the meter and unless you do, the first time you know that it is empty is when there are no strips left! At this point, a quick BG test takes more than twice as long as you were expecting – remove the old drum, get a replacement out, insert new drum and wait for this to initialise as the motor spins it round to the first strip. It would have been better if they had put a counter on the display as I pointed out to an Accuchek rep once – but more expensive to produce no doubt.

Best feature apart from not having to load strips every test is the handy dandy pricker which stays with the meter – definitely an all in one.

Alan

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:15:28 +0000

@Alison You’re probably right Alison – but, in their defence, they were actually quite good test strips – small, slurpy and a tiny sample. Still not a great meter though. Bah!