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Acer Liquid A1

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:17:56 +0000

Acer Liquid A1 is yet another mobile phone with touchscreen and powerful hardware to run Android. The phone is really, really fast with its 768MHz Snapdragon processor processor and has much to offer.

Acer Liquid A1 pros:

+ 768MHz Snapdragon processor
+ 3.5-inch screen showing 800 x 480 pixels
+ Excellent connectivity
+ Fast performance
+ 5 megapixel camera
+ Standard 3.5,, audio jack
+ Built-in accelerometer
+ AGPS

Acer Liquid A1 cons:

- Few customizable options
- Poor headset in the box
- Integration of social networks could be better

The design:
Acer Liquid A1 measures 115 × 64 x 12.43 mm and weighs 135 grams. The phone is made of white plastic and has rounded corners which make it stand out from the crowd of other similar phones such as Acer neoTouch, or Nokia N97 mini. The front of the phone is naturally dominated by the 3.5-inch touchscreen with capacitive technology. Below the screen are four touch sensitive keys. The miniUSB slot is on the top of the Acer Liquid A1, whereas the bottom hosts the 3.5mm audio jack.

Performance:
The Acer Liquid A1 runs on the slightly tweaked Android v1.6. The entire interface looks good and is very fast so you will not have to wait too long for any operations. The phonebook has plenty of fields for information and it is integrated with some social networks so when you add information you can add links to contacts’ Facebook or Flickr profiles. The organizer has only basic functions but since you also get a bunch of applications pre-installed with your Acer Liquid A1 it is not an issue.

Multimedia:
Acer Liquid A1’s nemoPlayer is an application for all media files with comfy interface. It does the job pretty well with movies, music and photos so there is no need for alternative software. You can play high resolution films with the phone as long as they are in MPEG4 format as the Acer Liquid A1 does not support DivX, or XviD files.
The 5 MP camera in the Acer Liquid A1 has autofocus, but no flash so taking photos in dark places is out of the question. There are some manual settings, but the overall photo quality is not that good, so if taking photos with a mobile phone is your thing you’d better look for something else.

Selected Acer Liquid A1 features and specifications:

3.5 WVGA (800 × 480) Capacitive
Processor: Qualcomm QSD 8250 1GHz
256 MB SDRAM
512 MB FLASH ROM
HSDPA Category 8/ HSUPA Category 5 /UMTS (2100/1900/900 Mhz) for EU
HSDPA Category 8/ HSUPA Category 5 /UMTS (2100/1900/850 Mhz) for US
GSM: Quad-band 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
GPRS/EDGE: Class B, multi-slot class 10
Messaging: MMS, SMS
WLAN: 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED network connection
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
Built-in AGPS Support
5MP camera with Auto-Focus
Light sensor
3.5mm jack
Capacitive button: Home, Search, Back, Menu
Battery: Lithium Polymer rechargeable with 1.350 mAh capacity
Up to 5 hours talk-time for WCDMA / Up to 6 hours for GSM

Other recently reviewed cell phones:
Acer neoTouch, Nokia N97 mini, Sony Ericsson Yari, Samsung OmniaPRO B7330, Nokia X3, BlackBerry Curve 8520, Motorola MILESTONE.

Acer neoTouch

admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:13:43 +0000

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, 2560х1920 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

Acer beTouch E200

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:22:51 +0000

Acer beTouch E200 is a new Windows Mobile 6.5 cell phone with alphanumeric keypad and some interesting features. The phone has a stylish design, support for plenty of multimedia, including XviD video playback and user friendly interface.

Acer beTouch E200

Acer beTouch E200 pros:
+ Stylish and durable design
+ 3” touch-sensitive screen
+ Comfortable and responsive keypad
+ 3.2 megapixel camera
+ Video player supports DivX and XviD

Acer beTouch E200 cons:
- Screen is a fingerprint magnet
- Stylus is often necessary
- No flash for the camera
- A bit sluggish
- Poor photo quality
- No Wi- Fi

The design:

Acer beTouch E200 measures 110 x 53.5 x 15.4 mm and weighs 146 grams. The phone is a slider and as it’s made of high quality materials it feels solid and durable. Moreover, the sliding mechanism works great so no worries it will spoil quickly. The front of the Acer beTouch E200 features the 3” screen which is quite prone to fingerprints, yet its quality is commendable. Below the screen is the comfortable and responsive D-pad. That’s basically the entire front. The left side of the mobile phone features the volume rocker and the miniUSB port, whereas the right side houses the shutter release button. The stylus compartment is to be found on the top of the device (at the back). The back panel is rubbery which makes it easier to hold the phone. The back houses the loudspeaker, the 3.2 megapixel camera lens, yet no flash whatsoever.

Performance:

Acer beTouch E200 one of the first phones to run on the Windows Mobile 6.5 and although many people expected some drastic performance improvement no such thing happened. The phone seems a bit sluggish which might be annoying after some time. The user interface is quite customizable and looks really nice. It is so intuitive that you will know it by heart after only a few days of use. The phone has integrated social networking which makes it easy to access flickr, or facebook. The phonebook seeks contact with gradual typing and it is generally snappy. It can hold hundreds of contacts with multiple fields for phone numbers, address, email and other information. Of course, you can assign a specific ringtone and add a photo to each contact.

Multimedia:

The Acer beTouch E200 features a 3.2 megapixel camera which isn’t too much nowadays. Even midrange phones such as Nokia 6600i slide, or Sony Ericsson C901 have 5 megapixel cameras. That would be acceptable if it wasn’t for the relatively poor image quality. The images lack detail, and are sometimes blurry, not to mention the fact that the Acer beTouch E200 lacks any kind of flash which makes evening and night shooting impossible.
Also the videos which the Acer beTouch E200 can record come out blurry, and in poor (320 x 240) resolution.
The multimedia player, however, is quite powerful. The music player support a few file types and it allows you to browse your music library by artist, genre, album and create your own playlists. The video player will easily handle both DivX and XviD files.
The Acer beTouch E200 comes with Internet Explorer web browser which does a good job with less elaborate sites, but if you want to browse the entire Internet without any problems you should consider installing Opera Mobile.

Conclusion:

The Acer beTouch E200 is a decent phone with versatile functions, yet is lacks functionality which would make it stand out in the crowd. If you are an Acer fan, or not a very demanding phone user this might be the right phone for you.
Selected Acer beTouch E200 features and specifications:
Display
TFT – 65K colors
240 x 400 pixels – 3.0 inches
Operating System
Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional
Processor
Qualcomm MSM 7225 528 MHz processor
Memory
Phonebook: Practically unlimited entries and fields – Photocall
Call records: Practically unlimited
Internal: 256MB RAM – 512MB ROM
Network
2G: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G: HSDPA 900 / 2100
Camera
3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels
Video
Yes
Sound
Alert types: Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic / MP3 / WAV ringtones
Speakerphone: Yes

Battery
Standard battery – Li-Ion 1140 mAh
Stand-by: Up to 400 h
Talk time: Up to 5 h
Features
MP3 /WAV / WMA / eAAC+ player
MP4 / WMV / H.264 / H.263 player
Pocket Office (Word / Excel / PowerPoint / OneNote / PDF viewer)
Voice memo
T9
Radio

GPS
with A-GPS support
Data
GPRS
Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
HSCSD

EDGE
Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G
HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
Wireless

Bluetooth
v2.0 with A2DP
USB
miniUSB
Other recently reviewed mobile phones:
Samsung S800 Jet, Nokia 6700 classic, LG GW520, HTC Magic, LG GD900 Crystal, Nokia 3720 classic, Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, Sony Ericsson C901, Nokia 6600i slide