It looks more upmarket than other Acer mobiles, with a tidy construction in metal-effect plastic. Be warned that the gun-metal paint is liable to chip and wear off in everyday use, however. The back is a tough rubberised plate, with a cover that slides off to reveal the removable battery and slots for the SIM and microSD cards.
The main screen is an AmoLED-tvpe 3.7in capacitive multitouch screen. It's colourful, but not as sharp as the iPhone 4's retina display. The line of three hardware buttons below the screen is intriguing. These keys have somewhat cryptic icons, and according to the manual, they're media control buttons, to control rewind, play/ pause and fast forward. We tried them on a video, but they didn't do anything. Two connection ports are
offered under a rubber bung on the left edge - microUSB for charging and data connections, and mini-HDMI.
The power/standby switch is located at the top left side, where it's easy to press. Below this are volume-up and -down keys.
On the bottom-right corner is a similar switch to activate the camera. This was tricky to operate, with no tactile feedback. Often, you would know that a picture
had been shot only when it appeared on screen in place of the live view. In our tests, images were underexposed and not as good as we'd hope from a 5Mp camera.
Equipped with Google Android 2.1, this handset is somewhat behind the curve. There's no attempt to render Adobe Flash content, for instance. And we noticed that at least one key feature was absent: the option to tether the handset to a nearby laptop over Wi-Fi.
Unlocking the screen makes use of a neat corner-roll effect, with the lower-left corner showing an animated curled page you must swipe up to unlock.
The Acer's user interface displays apps in two rows at bottom of the home screen. You'll need to swipe upwards to access the rest of the installed apps. These apps also appear at the top of the screen when you swipe sideways.
If you swipe downwards on the home screen, you can browse Cover Flow-style through recent apps and pages. Screen animations were ambitious, but a little jerky and amateurish-feeling.
Facebook, Twitter, Picasa and YouTube are brrilt right into the Acer Stream, as well as Smart Web Radio arid Google Maps.
The Acer Stream's battery life is quite good at around three days in standby, and up to two days with intermittent calls and online usage.
VERDICT
With 17 Google Android-based smartphones across Acer's four mobile phone categories, the company is taking a scattergun approach to its Android
line-up. The Acer Stream is one of the better-equipped models that it offers, although there's little here to recommend this me-too handset over competitors from HTC or Motorola.
Details
Price (SiM-free) £400 inc VAT
Further information mobile.acer.com/en/phones/stream
Specifications Google Android 2.1 (Eclair); 3.7in, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor; 5Mp camera; up to 32GB Micro-SDHC card storage; 126g, 63xllxl20mm
No comments:
Post a Comment