In the next minutes, we will introduce one of the latest offers and the one that performed the youngest bliss in the cellphone market, Acer. The handset is the Acer M900, a high end windows mobile-based smartphone that’s all about business.
It comes equipped Acer Shell, a proprietary interface with the manufacturer, 3.8-inch touch screen with high resolution, five-megapixel camera and full QWERTY keyboards. And the most interesting thing however is the phone supports a function that’s quite uncommon with smartphones finger print recognition.
The sensor you need to swipe your finger against is located right below the display. You didn’t have any problems using it. In terms of weight, the M900 is a heavy weight contestant. So, we don’t think many of you will be carrying kit around in their pockets. Although a leather case to save that day comes in the box so you’ll be able to hang the handset onto your belt.
The huge 3.8-inch display performs great in artificial lighting although it gets virtually unusable in direct sunlight. There are microSD slot and a three-way rocker wheel that controls volume loudness on the left-hand side of the device while the telescopic stylus compartment, camera shutter, restart, voice control and power on and off buttons on the opposite. We would have to say we did not counter any issues with any of them.
The keyboard is easy to open and supports large buttons that have enough travel although we have several graphs here. First, the space button is located way too close to the edge, which makes it unhandy. And second, entering commas or full stops means you have to press the function button everytime. Although the keyboard is possible when it comes to texting, although it’s far from being comfortable, Acer Shell makes Windows Mobile 6.1 professional easier to handle and more appealing and user-friendly.
The level of personalization it offers is not as profound as with Touchwiz 2on the Samsung Omnia PR0 B7610 nor as showy as TouchFLO 3D on the HTC Touch PRO2 and Diamond2 but it’s welcomed.
The most interesting part about Acer Shell is your Virtual 3D Office. Visualize on the screen is a typical office workspace where you have a desk, window, and shelves. There are different items scattered around that are actually application shortcuts and they can be rearranged or removed to your liking by keeping your finger pressed against the screen.
A menu consisting of eight icons pops up when you’re opening the keyboard. They allow creation of different types of messages, making calendar entries or phone searches. Unfortunately, the cited functions are fixed and cannot be customized. The Acer M900 comes with the latest version of the standard Windows Mobile browser which is Internet Explorer Mobile 6 that now features full flash support.
Surfing—feels easy and elements from the webpages optimize for desktop computers, load and visualize with almost no issues. It’s just too bad that the handset runs out of memory all the time, so you’ll have to get used to the frequent notifications. You can disregard them and keep using the browser but this will lead to an extremely sluggish and unresponsive performance. As a whole, Internet Explorer Mobile has become a better browser but apparently it needs more resources than the M900 is able to provide.
Now, let’s take a look at the most interesting function of Acer M900, the finger prints recognition. Its initial set up is fast and easy. Just slide your finger against the sensor four times, choosing the watt conditions it’s supposed to self activate in your game.
The good thing about the function is it enables you to lock your phone in such a way that it’s only you who’s able to unlock it. Moreover, you have the option to protect files, contacts and information you consider sensitive in case you need to lend your phone to someone for a while.
Finally, the phone allows you to set a master password that will unlock it. If something happens to your finger on the overall, we do think many business users will love the function especially people who needs better security. The interface of the five-megapixel camera features a major improvements along side of the version on the X960.
All I can set larger and handier to press with a bare finger and this is something we quite life. You’ll have several shooting options like caller effect, white balance and ISO sensitivity and eight different scene modes. Image quality is quite good in natural light but it gets much worst in artificial lighting or dark places.
Despite the lack of dedicated Mac remote, the M900 performs quite well with this type of snapshots. The M900 can be used as multimedia player as well. Compared to other Windows Mobile handsets, the Media Player in Acer M900 preforms better.
We didn’t have any problems with MP4 H264 videos with the resolution width of 720 pixels and even DivX extra content plate without a hitch. Well, the sound through the box to your phone system are loud yet muffled and to what comes out of the viewed in loud speaker is not nearly loud enough, but we can live with this.
Although, within the Acer M900 is not a worthy investment. It delivers good in call quality, the uncommon on the cellphone’s finger print recognition feature, handy interface and Internet Explorer Mobile 6 that fully supports flash but there are major drawbacks we cannot turn the blind eye on.
The lack of enough memory available to application leads to inadequate multi-tasking and renders otherwise capable phone browser virtually unusable. Moreover, the keyboard is really far from being an—with the best we have used.
The HTC Touch Pro2 is in the same price category and we definitely consider it a much better option to the Acer M900.
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