Acer tries its hand in the smartphone arena.

We take a look at what happens when long-time computer maker Acer tries its hand in the smartphone arena.

By ONG CHIN HAN

The Acer F900 has one of the better and more well-thought out packages for a smartphone. It comes with software, an extra stylus, handsfree kit, screen protector and even a protective pouch. The volume rocker on the top right side of the phone also doubles as a list scroller.

The F900 is a slim but very wide and tall phone because of the large screen. It is solidly built with sturdy plastic and has a metal battery cover and metal accents.

The massive 3.8in resistive screen is in 16:9 ratio. It’s a joy to watch videos on it and the colours are vibrant.

However legibility under sunlight like most phones is less than desirable. In addition to the fully touchscreen interface, there are four touch-sensitive buttons below the screen: Accept, Windows, Back and Cancel.

The buttons don’t light up until you touch one of them so you might not notice their existence there in the first place.

Acer customisations

The Acer development team have actually put in quite some effort to replace the Windows Mobile 6.1 Today screen with something more usable.

The screen shows a desktop (no, really, it’s a desk) and you can sweep you finger to the left and right to access other features such as your SMS, e-mail, calls, calendar, weather, photos, music, time zone settings and program shortcuts that are on the desktop.

Sweep your finger up or down to get an icon-based display of all the options on the desktop which in my opinion is more useful as you can see all the options without having to scroll.

Functionality

Call quality was satisfactory. Video calls are not supported because there is no forward facing camera. The Acer Shell also did a good job of assisting in scrolling through the contact list using the Speed Dial feature.

The F900 comes with the usual litany of productivity applications that most smartphones have nowadays. You have the usual calendar, alarms and Office Mobile so you can work on your Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.

Outlook works flawlessly in managing your e-mail. Typing e-mail and text messages was quite speedy thanks to Acer’s customisation and tweaking of the on-screen keyboard.

Like any other modern high-end phone, the F900 covers most connectivity options. It offers GSM, GPRS, 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth.

All of the transmitters can be turned off in Flight Mode for use in hospitals and on planes. The microUSB port is used for data transfer, connecting the handsfree as well as for charging. The F900 has pretty good battery life as it lasts about four days on a full charge.

Most phones in the market now have an accelerometer which allows you to tilt the phone to one side to view the screen in landscape mode. The F900 accelerometer only works on a few applications out of the box.

You have to select the applications that are affected by the “Gravity Sensor” application so that the accelerometer will work on the applications you want. The special bit about the F900’s accelerometer is you can tilt the phone to either side to view the screen in landscape mode rather than to only one side.

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