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The Acer handsets finally made an appearance in Taiwan at the Computex and the specs quoted are wowing people right and left including the ever so impressive “Snap Dragon”. Acer showcased three handsets and they are all looking impressive. Code named the F1, L1 and C1 these are definitely boosting of features that some companies were going to use to get an edge over other. Take the F1 which has a 5 mega pixel camera, something that Samsung Pixon 12 features and was going to be used in the all out camera phone war. Other specs of the F1 include 3.8 inch WVGA display, 1Ghz snap dragon processor, 300 MB internal memory, FM tuner, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HSDPA, GPS, 3.5mm headphone jack and Windows Mobile 6.5. The C1 and L1 are entry level handsets, the L1 being a slider and the C1 being touch screen. The L1’s specs include 2.8-inch 240×400 touchscreen display, a 5 way navigational button, 12 key numeric keypad and Windows Mobile 6.5 and the C1 similar 2.8 inch dimension display with the addition of 240×400 touchscreen with handwriting recognition, 528MHz processor, 2 megapixel fixed focus camera, microSD expansion, built-in stylus, and Windows Mobile 6.5. Release is expected later this year but all eyes are on Acer on how these impressive phones will perform.

 

Acer has just announced a mouth watering number of eight smartphones for the Singapore market on April 22, 2009. Acer and C20 corporation made the official announcement which makes available immediately the dual-SIM DX900 ($530 USD), the dual-faced DX650 ($397 USD) and the compact X960 ($463 USD). Sometime in May we can look Singapore can look forward to F900 and the M900, and then coming later in 2009 are the F1, L1 and C1, but the pricing for these handsets hasn’t been announced yet. Here are the specs for the five smartphones that will be launched initially;

DX900:

1.      2.8“ WVGA touch screen

2.      Samsung SC3 6400 533 MHz Processor

3.      256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM

4.      Dual-SIM with SIM 1 supporting HSDPA / UMTS 2100/1900/850 MHz and quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, and SIM 2 supporting GSM tri-band 900/1800/1900

5.      1.3 megapixel autofocus camera, VGA front camera

6.      Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR, GPS

7.      Windows Mobile 6.1 Pocket PC Phone edition with Spb Mobile Shell v2.1

DX650:

1.      Dual-Face design with touchscreen on one side and keypad on the other

2.      2.8“ QVGA touch screen

3.      Samsung SC3 6410 533 MHz Processor

4.      256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM

5.      2 megapixel fixed focus camera

6.      GPS, Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR

7.      Windows Mobile 6.1 with Spb Mobile Shell v2.1

8.      Standby time 150h / Talk time: 4h

X960

1.      Samsung SC3 6410 533 MHz Processor

2.      256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM

3.      High speed HSPA connectivity

3.2  megapixel auto-focus camera, 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera

4.      Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR, GPS

5.      Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office, widget-based Acer Shell v2.0 UI

 

F900

1.      Samsung SC3 6410 533 MHz Processor

2.      256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM

3.      3.8″ WVGA touch screen

4.      GSM/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

5.      HSDPA/HSUPA: 2100/1900/850 Mhz

6.      3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera

7.      Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR, GPS

8.      Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office, widget-based Acer Shell v2.0 UI

M900

1.      Physical QWERTY keyboard

2.      3.8“ WVGA touch screen

3.      GSM/EDGE: Quad-band GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

4.      HSDPA/HSUPA: 2100/1900/850 Mhz

5.      Fingerprint reader

6.      5 megapixel auto-focus camera

7.      Wi-Fi, BT 2.0+EDR, GPS

8.      Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office, widget-based Acer Shell v2.0 UI

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While news of the Acer smartphones is nothing new, we’ve been expecting them to pop up in Q2 since ages, pricing has been a mystery. We got a whiff of what the DX650 was going to cost, but what about the high-end business phone M900? According to the Mobile Steals web shop the price of the unlocked M900 is $671.99.  Now let’s hope this handset comes to par in terms of quality and performance and we’ll stomach that price tag, otherwise here’s another for the flop wagon. Currently the phone appears “out of stock” and there’s no further info on release date. Twiddle thumbs at your convenience.

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Remember when we scooped the Acer roadmap leaked at CES, it revealed two mystery Android handsets as well. A news piece by Philippine Business Mirror newspaper says that an Android-based touchscreen smartphone may well be coming our way from Acer this September. The Android handset, A1, may be launched with the other H2 2009 handsets; the F1, C1, L1 and E1 (yes, I agree the alphabet soup is annoying). Now let’s see what comes of this. Should there be another Android phone to give the G1 competition? Most definitely, yes.

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Acer is all set to bring out the devices that it announced at the MWC. The Tempo line is ready to hit the market, with the DX900 to be available towards the end of this month. The DX900 is a dual SIM touchscreen (one SIM for HSDPA and one for EDGE) that runs Windows Mobile 6.1.

The X960 will is expected to see the light of day in April. The X960 features a 2.8 inch touchscreen, a 3.2MP camera, GPS, a 5-way navigation button that lies under the screen and also runs on Windows Mobile 6.1.

The remaining 3.8 inch touch screen models will make a Q2 appearance. The M900 and the F900; the M900, with a QWERTY keyboard slider, is aimed at the business market while the F900 is a thin, stylish handset that anyone could use.

Pricing and carrier details aren’t known yet, but we’ll keep our eyes open.

 

A handset that Acer didn’t announce at the MWC 2009, the DX650, has just been released in the Philippines. From the specs, it seems like this is not one of Acer’s newest developments. The DX650 features the old Eten personalized interface, instead f the new one which was unveiled at the MWC. Although we had expected the handset to make an appearance at the MWC, but Acer probably had its sights set elsewhere.

The unique aspect of this handset is that on one side it features a full fledged touchscreen with two hardware buttons, while on the other side, there’s a numerical keypad with a small black and white screen. Unusual, but what’s the point? It seems that the small black and white screen is there to improve upon the abilities of a Windows Mobile device by putting what would be considered a low-priced phone on the reverse of the high-end touchscreen to make sending and receiving texts easier. If you remember, the DX650 features a 2MP camera, GPS, 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi and a microSD slot to expand the memory. The handset costs 24,990 Pesos which is roughly $517 US dollars. Will the United States be seeing any of this action, hardly. Seems like Acer is going to keep this a Philippines thing.

 

Right now I guess it would be hard to name a smartphone maker who didn’t have an online application store. Well the manufacturer who wasn’t on the list was newbie Acer. And of course, in true high school fashion, because Acer so wants to fit in, it’s also thinking of launching and app store for its Windows Mobile handsets. Of course how soon we’ll be seeing the Acer app store go live is not a certain thing, it’s still in the ‘discussion’ phase, whether such an effort will actually be beneficial for the handsets or not. One thing to note though, since WinMo is a platform that transcends manufacturers, having an app store which caters to it will give Acer a pretty big chunk in the smartphone users’ application market.

 

If there’s one word that can get people to accept your product, its gotta be the word, “Free”. I mean when people pay money they tend to think twice but when it’s free you’re a pack rat. In response to the not so enthusiastic welcome it received, Acer has added the magical word “free” to its newly introduced phones displayed and dissed at the WMC. To refresh your memory, the phones displayed by Acer at the WMC were your average smart phones with windows mobile touch screen a UI band aid…been there done that. Acer picked up the response and in an attempt to turn things around has decided to offer free handsets via AT&T and T-Mobile according to Acer’s smartphone unit president Aymar de Lencquesaing.

This will most definitely work to gain some hype and acceptance and is also a good way to get people to give your stuff a chance. If people are willing to download dozens of Apple apps they will never use just because they are free, then who would actually say no to a free phone. Acer already has influence on the notebooks market and will use it to boost its position on the smartphone market with this tactic. If all goes as Acer plans, then a whole new breed of smartphone owners will be born. Initially, it is expected that Acer’s Windows Mobile 6.1-powered Tempo line will be the only range of handsets that might come in for free any time soon, with choices from its C1, E1, F1 and L1 possibly being introduced further down the line as Windows Mobile 6.5 handsets begin to launch. How many of us will get pulled in by a Tempo with a $0 entry fee?

 

In pure James Bond fashion, and with relatively simple equipment at hand, an MWC attendee has done the unthinkable. Well at least Acer probably didn’t see this coming, (another thing you guys don’t know about us Mobile junkies; we’re hound dogs.) Seems like an MWC attendee walked up to an Acre representative and asked about the rumored Android handsets, the gullible and so-not-disciplined-in-the-arts-of-stealth representative took out a notebook and today we have a road map and clues to Acer’s two new products to show you. Oh glee!

The notebook shows that there are two ‘secret models’ planned under the heading of Android as well as four handsets that haven’t been announced yet and are slated for release in the second half of this year. Now just keep your fingers crossed that the smartphones are truly smart and not like these.

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Acer really tried to make an impression at the MWC, too bad it brought stale cookies. I mean smartphones that run on Windows Mobile 6.1 and have spec from about 2-3 years ago…who wants that? The handsets, launched in the Tempo line, have pretty sleek forms, but what’s under the hood also counts. The four handsets are the X960, F900, M900 and DX900. Here are the specs for each;

X960

1.      Pre-installed GPS software

(Navigon try-and-buy, for Europe market)

2.      2.8″ VGA touch screen

3.      High speed HSPA connectivity

4.      New easy-to-use virtual keyboard

5.      Access directly to key applications

via widget-based home screen

6.      3.2MP Auto-focused camera

F900

1.      Pre-installed GPS software

(Navigon try-and-buy, for Europe market)

2.      2.8″ VGA touch screen

3.      High speed HSPA connectivity

4.      New easy-to-use virtual keyboard

5.      Access directly to key applications

via widget-based home screen

6.      3.2MP Auto-focused camera

M900

1.      Physical Qwerty keyboard

2.      3.8“ WVGA touch screen

3.      Fingerprint reader

4.      5 Megapixel autofocus camera

5.      HSPA, WiFi, BT

6.      Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office

DX900

1.      Physical Qwerty keyboard

2.      3.8“ WVGA touch screen

3.      Fingerprint reader

4.      5 MP autofocus camera

5.      HSPA, WiFi, BT

6.      Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office

7.      Standby time 160h / Talk time: 5h