New Acer Android Communicator: beTouch E400

Hope everyone is upset with the HTC Wildfire enough to consider alternatives? Today I want to tell you about the new smartphone of the same price category and designed for the same audience as Wildfire. Under Habrakat - Acer beTouch E400 review.

In early June in England, the E400 went on sale and caused some hype. By that time, it was already known that Wildfire was delayed until August and this apparatus looked the only alternative. While expansys.co.uk was processing my order and coordinating issues related to not joining billing and shipping addresses - the first batch of smartphones ended, which the store employees hurried to upset me with. Despite the fact that the store employees were expecting a new delivery in 5 days, the brand new E400s were already brought up the next day’s lunch. Well, it seems, Acer skillfully took advantage of the delay Wildfire

• 115 mm x 59.3 mm x 12 mm, 125g
• Unique flat and light design
• 3.2 "high resolution touch screen (HVGA) (resistive)
• Qualcomm MSM7227 600 MHz processor
• 3.5mm audio output
• Android OS 2.1 Eclair
• Price about 370 USD including VAT in England at the beginning of June

And so on

First impressions

The manufacturer's website is not lying, the smartphone impresses with its design, size and weight. You do not feel the smartphone in the usual sense in his hand, but rather just a mobile phone with a sufficiently large screen. G1 on the E400 background is a smartphone of the last century.
Having started, we see Android 2.1 almost unchanged. Several additional applications, a couple of shortcuts for registering on the Acer site, searching for updates and contacting customer support. There is nothing to complain about. Although no, the dialer looks strange, is it really the native Android 2.1 dialer?
The whole system works very fast. It is even puzzling why the G1 is noticeably slower considering the comparable processors (528 MHz). In general, the system works quite stably, however, there are problems. About them below.

And fly in the ointment ..

• The smartphone wakes up slowly, by pressing any iron button or by incoming call. The caller will already hear two beeps before your Acer wakes up.
• The smartphone sometimes spontaneously reboots. I can not reproduce the problem, I can not explain it either. Over time, the reboots almost disappeared (approximately once every 2-3 days after 2 weeks of use).
• Once or twice, the E400 tightly hung and required a reboot with the battery removed.
• Quite often, Acer begins to lower the volume of the incoming call on its own. Again, I can’t reproduce this problem, it happens randomly and does not depend on user actions.

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The problems are not critical, of course, but if you buy an E400 as a gift to a person who has not dealt with smartphones, you will have to explain for a long time that this is almost a full-fledged computer with all the disadvantages that follow.
On the part of the iron cons too short. With the most important function, calls, it is not easy to manage. There is no "iron" button to answer the call. The presence of the "hang up" button does not allow me to create a coherent theory that Aser members were afraid to hang up the function of answering too sensitive buttons, but I have no alternative ideas.
As for the screen, for me personally it is difficult to open the top status bar and scroll through the various menus. My G1 is better controlled, but I understand that the E400 has a resistive screen and devices on capacitive screens are significantly more expensive. However, the top status bar is a real misfortune, it seems that every person will have no more than one finger with which he is able to open this menu. I was lucky, this is a pointer, but not everyone is so lucky.
Also, it is worth noting frankly stupid back cover mounts. Opening and especially closing the phone, eliminating all the gaps along the perimeter is a real adventure. At the same time, the memory card is under the cover, next to the SIM card.

Total

It seems that Acer hurried with the release of the device. The phone has enough problems. Of the annoying iron stocks, it is worth noting not thought-out control keys. For the rest, you may want to close your eyes. I am sure that you will not regret taking the E400 and let my criticism not stop you. I just warned.
Good luck!
Photos taken with gagadget and mobile-review .