Acer neoTouch is one of the first cell phones to run on the Windows 6.5. As its name suggests it is a touchscreen mobile with excellent connectivity, built-in GAP, microSD expansion and a lot more.
Acer neoTouch pros:
+ Wi-Fi with DLNA technology
+ Built-in GPS with A-GPS functionality
+ microSD card slot (up to 32GB)
+ Quad-band GSM support
+ Windows Mobile 6.5 with Acer Homescreen
+ 5 megapixel auto focus camera with LED flash
+ 3.8″ 65K-color resistive TFT touchscreen, WVGA 480 x 800 pixels
+ Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor, 256MB RAM
+ Tri-band 3G with HSDPA (7.2Mbps) and HSUPA (5.76 Mbps) support
+ Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Acer neoTouch cons:
- Poor user interface customization
- No camera lens cover
- Poor photo and video quality
- No DivX/XviD video support out-of-the-box
- No navigation software
- Fingerprint magnet
The design:
Acer neoTouch measures 118.6 x 63 x 12 mm and weighs 130 grams so it might seem too large for comfortable use, but what would you expect if it houses the 3.8-inch screen. The Acer phone has quite traditional design for a touchscreen phone: the front is dominated by the screen below which you can find some hard buttons. The screen is large and responsive so it is very comfortable to use. Above the scree are the video call camera, the earpiece, proximity and ambient light sensors. The right side of the phone houses the camera shutter key along with the volume control keys, whereas the left side features the hardware Lock key. The top of the phone features the 3.5mm audio jack and the stylus compartment, whereas on the bottom you can find the microUSB port and the microphone. The back of the Acer neoTouch houses the 5 megapixel camera lens, with the LED flash. As the phone is made of shiny plastic is attracts fingerprints quite easily.
Performance:
Strangely, although the Acer neoTouch has pretty large screen showing quite high resolution and vivid colors its direct sunlight legibility is rather poor. The phone runs on Windows Mobile so you get the usual set of timesaving applications such as calendar, outlook, widgets and the internet explorer web browser. However, Acer tweaked the software a bit so you can for instance change the home screen to a more friendly one. The Acer neoTouch has a quite powerful processor and plenty of memory so all the actions are performed instantly.
The phonebook has plenty of fields for information and as you might expect you can add a photo, a specific ringtone and group contacts. The phone has no issues with signal reception, or in-call sound quality.
With the large touchscreen and virtual keyboard messaging is very pleasant and fast with the Acer neoTouch. Email account setup takes only a few seconds as it is fully automatic. Although you get the virtual keyboard you also have the option to use handwriting recognition, but it is not usually as fast.
Multimedia:
The phone has only about 300MB of memory so you will most probably end up buying a memory card. The music player in Acer neoTouch slightly disappoints as it is only the standard Windows Mobile media player. It has limited functionality and user friendliness, but it gets the job done. However, if you want to have some more fun you can find a free video player on the Internet and then enjoy DivX/XviD videos. Surprisingly the Acer neoTouch with its fast processor and plenty of RAM failed to play HD videos smoothly. The multimedia player might not be the best when it comes to user-friendliness, but its audio quality is really commendable.
The Acer neoTouch’s built-in 5 megapixel digital camera with autofocus is capable of taking up to 2592 x 1944 pixels. The camera’s interface is quite straightforward, but the image quality is only average. The noise levels are just ok and the color accuracy is far from perfect.
The phone can also record VGA videos at 30fps but their quality is only about average.
The Internet Explorer web browser, on the other hand, performs better than you might expect. The websites are rendered very well and the browser has full flash support. It is entirely touch optimized so you mat scroll, pan and zoom with your fingers and it’s all done very fast.
Selected Acer neoTouch features and specifications:
Network
2G
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G
HSDPA 850 / 1900 /2100
Display
Main
TFT resistive touchscreen, 65K colors, 480 x 800 pixels, 3.8 inches
2nd
no
Memory
Internal
256MB RAM, 512MB ROM
Card Slot
microSD(TransFlash) up to 32GB
Camera
Primary
5 MP, 2560Ñ…1920 pixels, autofocus, LED flash, Geo-tagging
Video
VGA
Videocall
-
Features
CPU
Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz processor
OS
Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional
Java
MIDP 2.0
Browser
HTML
Radio
Stereo FM radio with RDS
Messaging
SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
GPS
A-GPS support
Others
- Acer UI 3.0
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Ambient light sensor
- 3.5mm audio jack
- MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ player
- MP4/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
- Facebook and Flikr integration
- Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, PDF viewer)
- Voice memo
- T9
Connectivity
3G speed
HSDPA,7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
Others
GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth, USB, WLAN
Other recently reviewed mobile phones:
Nokia 3720 classic, Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, Sony Ericsson C901, Nokia 6600i slide, Acer beTouch E200, HTC Touch2, Nokia 6760 slide, Sony Ericsson Satio, LG BL40 New Chocolate, Sony Ericsson Aino
