One of the world leaders in mobile computing Acer has unveiled the latest addition to its beTouch family of smartphones with the new Acer beTouch E400. Android fans can rejoice as Acer has opted to go Android 2.1 Éclair and abandon the Windows Mobile 6.5 used in the first three beTouch smartphones released starting last October.
An Average Feature Profile
The E400 is powered by the 600 MHz Qualcomm QSX 7227 CPU and runs the latest Android 2.1 Éclair. There are some Acer-specific widgets and services like free music streaming but other than that, the E400 is as average as any mid-range smartphone with no stand-out feature to brag about.
It's a quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE on 2G and a dual band UMTS/SDPA/HSUPA on 3G. There's WiFi 802.11b/g as well as Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and microUSB 2.0. SatNav gets a GPS receiver with E-compass location finder and Google Maps with Latitude, Traffic, Street View and POI search.
Its elegant iPhone-like styled body measures 115 x 59.3 x 12 mm and weighs just 125 grams. It accommodates a 3.2-inch TFT half-VGA resistive touchscreen with 256k colors and comes with an accelerometer. Imaging is supported be an average 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with digital zoom, geo tagging and video recording that Acer is silent about.
Your entertainment on the road gets a Roll Tech Nemo Player that supports the popular media file codecs, a stereo FM receiver, free online music streaming with music Spinlets and YouTube video streaming. For stereo headphone listening, you can opt to go wireless with its A2DP support or go wired with its 3.5mm audio jack.
It has the same 256 RAM and 512 MB ROM phone memory as its E100 predecessor and microSD expandability for up to 32 GB. You get a talk time of up to 5 hours and a standby time of up to 400hours from a 1090 mAh Lithium Polymer battery when fully charged.
There's social networking integration, access to the Android Market and comes pre-bundled with a document viewer for PDF and MS Office files, Google Search, PC Sync and Google cloud sync, an Android email client and web browser, Gmail and IM using GTalk.
Conclusion
It's clear that the above feature won't take the Acer beTouch E400 above the smartphone crowd but it's also a capable if average smartphone. A review of the Acer mobile phone products since it started in April last year shows it has its sights trained on the markets currently lorded over by its compatriot HTC, considered the world leader in smartphones outside of the Symbian OS.
The last Mobile World Congress bannered Acer's commitment to triple its mobile phone business by 2011 starting with a target sale of 3 million units this year. That's a tall order considering it only sold half a million units last year. Acer might succeed but not with lackluster smartphones it showed at the MWC.
While the Acer beTouch E400 looks and acts better than its predecessor, it's more because of the new Android OS and nothing more. Same with its Liquid e which is nothing more than the old Liquid A1 with an upgraded OS. Acer has better get its innovative act together in an industry that puts a premium on it.
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