Owners Thoughts 4 days in

[Guest Rocky7]

OK, I have had this for 4 days now and I though I would give you a run down.

Who am I ?

Just so you can balance this review its only fair I tell you my phone and android experience. I have spent a long time (18 years) test driving new mobile phones and also developing applications for them.

My android experience was an URGH at the initial G1 release due to looks and battery life but I saw potential and I watched with interest as the android scene grew and jumped at the Vodafone Magic when it was released. This was the first phone I have ever bought in 20 years of having a mobile I have always used the free ones I got given but I was so struck by the little Magic that I purchased a handset. I have used the magic a lot for the last 6 months and use a modded Cyanogen (who else) version.

I also used a Hero but went back to my modded Magic after a week.

2 weeks ago I was trialling a GSM Milestone (Droid) and loved the handset but fell into a love / hate relationship with its looks.

Then along came the Acer, perfect timing from them, I was itching for a new handset to play with and with nothing decent due out I was stuck with my Magic and suddenly the "Available Tuesday" articles appeared on the android sites and I purchased one with every intent of playing with it, slagging it off and selling on eBay.

So my conclusions ? Its early days yet.

What is to like ?

Loads really its a very capable phone and, considering I thought it would be just OK, its fairly blown me away.

* its blazing fast

* screen is great, large, responsive, bright

* it has a proximity sensor (missing from my magic) meaning it locks when close to your head

* it has a light sensor for adjusting the screen brightness

* its battery is quite good, I absolutely battered it on Saturday and Sunday and each time it lasted me to the evening when my HTC sapphire / magic would have been gasping its last

* 3.5mm jack

* its loud, first android phone I have heard ringing buried in my bag

Whats not to like ?

There are lots of niggles, same as with any phone, and some of these are real nit picking

* its slippy to hold so fiddly to press camera button / power button with one hand

* soft button lighting goes off on a different schedule to the screen meaning using in the dark can be a haphazard affair

* no haptic feedback on soft buttons (that I can find)

* I am experiencing the odd truncation of the screen resolution and I can't reproduce it consistently

* Not keen on the location of the power button as the unlock procedure is a little clumsy

* The power charge LED is too bright for night time charging so the phone has to go in my drawer

* Would love to have got the drivers WITH the phone rather than having to get them from here

What you can add to it

* HTC_IME keyboard which, for me, is the best Android keyboard by a country mile (doesn't fully stretch in landscape mode short by 10mm on the right)

* Motorola Droid / Milestone Facebook App ... way better than the current app on the market (although Bloo free has come on in leaps and bounds)

Loads of people love the look of this phone, me I'm torn, its nice enough but a little extra work could have made it stunning.

Button positioning is not great and the lack of a track ball / direction pad or any hard buttons is a real shame.

Software ... whats on it

* Acer settings is nice as it gives you rapid access to WiFi networks, bluetooth, GPS etc

* social integration ? its weak but hey you can use the real apps out there anyway.

* Spinlets, they were "recycled" immediately.

Five "must have" apps to makes it tick

* I always stick Beautiful Widgets - Home widget on any phone I have, looks great

* Handcent SMS - SMS the way it should be on android

* Facebook - the droid/milestone facebook application

* HTC_IME, best kb on the Android platform although doesn't quite stretch to fit in landscape

* Spotify

It's done the unthinkable at the moment, it has my main SIM card in it and the Voda Magic is at home in a drawer.

[Guest goa200]

nice review and totally agree on the conds. It does however seem that lock 2.0 in some way change the neccesity to click the powerbutton to unlock and instead you can use camerabutton.

Gonna install lock 2.0 to verify it for sure.

Update: yes using lock2.0 enables the camerbutton as "unlock" button instead of the powerbutton.

Edited December 14, 2009 by goa200

[Guest Rocky7]

Niggles:

I forgot .. the dialler is horrible .. it works but YUK !

Voicemail number setup fails on O2.