Posted by Mia in 
Last spring, Acer has signed an agreement to purchase one of the leading players in the market of smartphones and communicators based on Windows Mobile.
The result of beneficial cooperation was the first line of communicators under the Acer brand name, which doesn’t have any common features with known Glofiish E-Ten devices. Today we’ll describe one of the representatives of the new line – Acer F900 communicator.
Construction and design
The first thing that comes to mind when looking at the novelty, is iPhone! The device is actually very similar to the famous “apple phone”: the same shell (118 x 64 mm), very large display, smooth glossy front panel, the rounded corners and edges, mirror framing around the perimeter and even metallic lid of the battery compartment! But … this is Acer.
Although the thickness of the shell (13 mm) and abundance buttons on the sides, connectors and interfaces are not peculiar to the device from Apple. However, judging by the quality of manufacture, materials and design in general, Acer F900, without a doubt, is one of the best communicators on the market.
Thanks to smoother edges, the novelty lies in the hand like a glove. The only shortcoming is that the glossy front panel covers with fingerprints.
Under the display four touch buttons which are illuminated with bright blue LEDs are located. These buttons are responsible for the reception and the abolition of the call, the opening of the standard menu “Start” and closing the current window. It’s nice that the manufacturer has taken care of those who are not fond of touch control, as any click is accompanied by vibration. But the lack of a joystick or even touch navigation button adds a bold minus to the developers.
On the right side in the upper part there is a button, swing to adjust the sound with an extra button in the center of confirmation. This group of buttons performs the role of the buttons and vertical scrolling of the document. Below there is a button activating the camera. Here the manufacturer placed a tight-fitting plastic plug – a slot for microSD memory cards.
You should pay special attention to the telescopic stylus and its place which is located in the bottom of the shell. Perhaps this is the best stylus from all we’ve seen recently. It has three sliding knees, one of which is made thick enough so that the fingers do not feel any discomfort.
Acer F900 looks really expensive, and even elitist. Unlike most competitors, who seem to be such only from a distance, the novelty does not lose its attractiveness even being in the hand. You feel that you hold the thing!
Filling and productivity
The filling of Acer F900 is far from the title of leader. The device has a Samsung S3C 6410 processor with frequency of 533 MHz. If the design of the novelty is a merit Acer, the platform is entirely borrowed from communicator E-Ten of the last generation.
Memory on-board is standard: 128 MB RAM and 256 MB ROM, from which the owner can use 16, and 42 MB respectively. All the rest is occupied by the operating system, preinstalled programs and, most importantly – a new graphical interface. It runs the operating system Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro.
Overall system performance we evaluated by using the Spb Benchmark 1.6, and for comparison we took communicators Toshiba Portege G810 (CPU Qualcomm MSM7200 400 MHz, RAM 128 MB RAM and 256 MB of ROM, a display QVGA, OS Windows Mobile 6.1) and Gigabyte GSmart MW720 (processor Marvell PXA270 520 MHz, RAM 128 MB RAM and 256 MB ROM Display VGA, OS Windows Mobile 6.1).
The novelty can be classified as a medium communicator, capable of performing almost any task. To find out how to handle the device with video playback, we tested it with the benchmark CorePlayer, which in its turn runs three videos, differing from each other qualitative characteristics: 320 x 240/550 kbps, 640 x 480/784 Kbit / s; 640 x 480/1320 Kbps.
While testing, the video lost with a score of 105%. The results can be called medium and say that Acer F900 is well suited for viewing movies on the road.
Display
The display can be proud to belong to Acer F900. Judge yourself: the diagonal of 3.8 inches and resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. Now add to this a substantial margin of brightness, high clarity, excellent color reproduction and viewing angles. Do you need something else for comfortable viewing of movies or photos? Correct – G-sensor automatically deploys the image on the display while turning the device. By the way, G-sensor has a number of options, among which there is a function of binding any programs and utilities.
In addition, the device has a built-in light sensor that can automatically adjust the backlight level. It is noteworthy that the utility which is responsible for the control of this sensor has many flexible settings.
Camera
The device is equipped with 3 megapixel camera with auto-focus and LED flash. The camera belongs to the medium class. Its interface is designed for a Spartan, but this is the whole of its zest. Well, a set of settings is standard: the quality of shooting, white balance, brightness, exposure, etc.
But the camera has very bad focus at close distances. Another concern when using the camera – the lens is too close to the corner of the shell. As a result, the finger of your left hand always gets in the frame.
Communications
In addition to networks GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), it also supports third-generation networks, such as HSDPA / HSUPA (850/1900/2100 MHz). From wireless modules on board there are Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g, which work has been tested with HP iPAQ Pocket PCs 4700. The result raises no objections.
FM-radio has not only a good selective sensitivity, but also a stylish proprietary interface.
GPS-navigation
F900 among all Acer phones is equipped with a built-in GPS-module SiRFstar III, perhaps the best available on the market today. From the navigation software on board there is only one small utility that displays the main parameters – coordinates, altitude, speed, etc.
The Navigator was tested both in the city, among the sky-high buildings, and in the park area, among the trees. Everything was alright.
Conclusions
Acer F900 leaves an ambivalent impression. On the one hand, chic design, high quality, a great display, the availability of various hardware details (G-sensor, light sensor) and a giant set of useful proprietary software put the device in one row with the latest top models of the leading manufacturers of communicators. And the price for the novelty is not cheap. But the modest hardware stuffing spoils all these. Memory is not enough even to install all necessary programs, and processing power is not enough for comfortable video viewing. If shortly device should cost less, then such a purchase can already be called beneficial.
