What are your opinions on the Froyo Acer UI?

[Guest Elmokki]

As about all of you probably know, Acer included a new and somewhat heavily customized UI with the Froyo roms. I've heard some opinions about it, but I'd like to make a topic and discuss what people like and hate about it. Oh yeah, let's discuss about style and ui, not the performance.

I find that the Acer UI looks quite good compared to Android default UI. The notification bar changes for network/usb settings are really useful and I really miss them when I'm using Android UI. Sadly, that's pretty much all the positive things I have to say about Acer UI. I dislike the layout where your lock screen has five screens and you can't add any widgets or more than 8 quick launch applications to your unlocked screen. I wish I could atleast add a small calendar widget under the clock. Notification bar being positioned bottom instead of top has made me misclick it quite a few times while writing, but I guess that's just a question of getting used to it. The biggest deal breaker in Acer UI is the difficulty in switching between applications on the fly. On Android UI you hold your home screen button to get same sort of window you get on Windows by pressing alt+tab. On Acer UI that opens your lock screen, so you basically have to go to home screen and use the application history thing or something else to swap apps. Ouch. Also, when you play music it changes your wallpaper to the album art. It would be cool, except it causes a quick freeze AND with lighter album art makes the clock hard to look at. Good idea in theory, but doesn't work.

As the bottomline I find Acer UI good looking with a really nice touch with the notification bar (it should stop vibrating when I press it when I remove haptic feedback from the rest of the phone though), but I do find it too hard to use compared to the normal Android UI, which does about everything except the notification bar settings thingie better. Obviously I am using Android UI, not Acer UI.

So, what do you guys think?

[Guest Delnar_Ersike]

In my opinion:

Good things about StreamUI: Widgets on the lockscreen, ability to toggle things like WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS from the notification bar, and it looks pretty. :lol:

Bad things about StreamUI: slow as heck compared to a lot of other launchers, notification bar on the bottom is worse IMO, the Peel to Unlock might be prettier than Swipe to Unlock, but it's a bit slower IMO, the recent apps list sucks, the app drawer takes a bit of getting used to, I like the stock Android UI dock better than StreamUI's, and the launcher is missing a lot of the customization features LauncherPro and ADW.Launcher have (like themes, custom dock icons and shortcuts, widget resizing, hiding apps from the app drawer, etc.).

Bottom Line: StreamUI is pretty, but it's drawbacks are too big for me to use it. If I were to really need widgets on the lockscreen, there's an app called WidgetLocker that can do just that. The ability to toggle WiFi, Bluetooth, and the like is better implemented in TouchWiz IMHO.

[Guest Squide]

As about all of you probably know, Acer included a new and somewhat heavily customized UI with the Froyo roms. I've heard some opinions about it, but I'd like to make a topic and discuss what people like and hate about it. Oh yeah, let's discuss about style and ui, not the performance.

I find that the Acer UI looks quite good compared to Android default UI. The notification bar changes for network/usb settings are really useful and I really miss them when I'm using Android UI. Sadly, that's pretty much all the positive things I have to say about Acer UI. I dislike the layout where your lock screen has five screens and you can't add any widgets or more than 8 quick launch applications to your unlocked screen. I wish I could atleast add a small calendar widget under the clock. Notification bar being positioned bottom instead of top has made me misclick it quite a few times while writing, but I guess that's just a question of getting used to it. The biggest deal breaker in Acer UI is the difficulty in switching between applications on the fly. On Android UI you hold your home screen button to get same sort of window you get on Windows by pressing alt+tab. On Acer UI that opens your lock screen, so you basically have to go to home screen and use the application history thing or something else to swap apps. Ouch. Also, when you play music it changes your wallpaper to the album art. It would be cool, except it causes a quick freeze AND with lighter album art makes the clock hard to look at. Good idea in theory, but doesn't work.

As the bottomline I find Acer UI good looking with a really nice touch with the notification bar (it should stop vibrating when I press it when I remove haptic feedback from the rest of the phone though), but I do find it too hard to use compared to the normal Android UI, which does about everything except the notification bar settings thingie better. Obviously I am using Android UI, not Acer UI.

So, what do you guys think?

SLOW, that's all.

[Guest Elmokki]

SLOW, that's all.

I don't find it that slow with the newest leak really. Apart from the music player changing wallpaper to the album art, which does cause a slight freeze and is really annoying.

[Guest DanWilson]

If you like the notification bar, can't you just install LauncherPro / ADW / Other ?

So you get rid of the Acer Launcher but keep the rest.

[Guest bais]

The music player art can be disabled.

Open the Home decor app, then slide down, there will be an option to disable the music player art.

[Guest Piter1225]

The music player art can be disabled.

Open the Home decor app, then slide down, there will be an option to disable the music player art.

I'm using previous leak, and it disables only for launcher, not for lockscreen, and it makes lots of lags

[Guest Joshuah]

does anyone know how to setup the acer UI so that the applications installed are alphabetically ordered? its really annoying that its nto !!

[Guest akira.pwr]

I like Acer UI, but I'd like to choose what to put instead of recent apps and media gallery, for example social network os something else, botton bar isn't so bad for me, I need only more customization.

[Guest Rajit]

Most of the issues mentioned here can be resolved if you just use adw or launcher pro (i use and love adw) on top of the acer ui. That way, you get the new lock screen, the new status bar notifications, new dialer stuff (which is MUCH MUCH better than stock android although not as smooth) and all the goodness of acer ui and adw mixed together.

I've really grown to like the way acer ui does things. I like the way it implements the dialer and the lock screen widgets. I like the way all the major elements are themed white and black (just like my liquid). With the new leak things are soo much smoother than before and if they could keep on the same path towards refining the ui, it would be SO great!!!

[Guest cubatista92]

I like new things. i like modifying them to make them my way, yet this one is becoming a bit of a pain. i've had it for 30 mins, so this is probably not the best moment to tell you about my experience, but after having had my phone for months and having been able to dial and do many things without even looking at the screen, it's becoming a challenge to get used to this new Frankenstein.

I will probably post some more once I've spent some more time with the gadget, but something about the notification bar ar the bottom needs to be done. i keep pressing it as i try to use the buttons and it's driving me crazy.

i wouldnt be surprised if i went back to the original UI. it's too big a change. they should have introduced things slowly and test the waters. not take forever to come up with an update when most phones already have it. i understand they're trying to make a personality of their own for the phone, but such a large change can be frustrating. especially if you use your phone as much as i do...

let's cross our fingers and pray i don't go back to the other firmware completely. that'd be involution...

[Guest Auxx]

Acer UI sucks.

They did nice touches like very functional and useful status bar. But it always vibrates when you touch it and it can not be turned off (WTF?). It is very slow to open. It is placed on the bottom, so when you type and press space button you accidentially press status bar. And there you have unwanted vibration and big lag. WTF? PUT IT ON TOP!

Lock screen. Now your home screen is your lock screen. WTF? Clickable widget on a lock screen? You MUST be kidding! And your home screen? Well, now it is 100% useless. It is even dumber them home screen in iPhone. Looks like someone smoked some bad weed making these decisions. On a plus side I like lock screen grid - it is better then default.

Icons. Why did they change default icons? And why did they change only a small subset of default icons? Now the menu looks very ugly. Bring every icon to one style!

I will write a proper review this week with all of my thoughts. So in my opinion Acer made some nice touches, but overall Acer UI is bullshit.

[Guest Andy__P]

I kinda like the statusbar implementation but i'd prefer it to be on top.

But it has some problems too as mentioned. You can't disable the vibration, you can change your alarms (which is nice) but you can't add new ones.

Customizable lockscreen is cool but i haven't managed to remove unused pages.

And most importantly it's slow as hell. Seriously have you tried scrolling through lockscreen pages? For me it's unusable.

I don't see how people say it's "not that slow"? Maybe it's faster on LiquidE or they have never tried ADW or LP.

[Guest Auxx]

I don't see how people say it's "not that slow"? Maybe it's faster on LiquidE or they have never tried ADW or LP.

Yep, comparing to my favorite LauncherPro, Acer UI is a slideshow.

[Guest Rajit]

Yep, comparing to my favorite LauncherPro, Acer UI is a slideshow.

Why don't you try it with launcher pro? best of both worlds!

[Guest skitbra8934]

i use acer ui but have installed launcher pro plus ontop of it.

i get the nifty notifications bar and the nifty lockscreen and its not so slow, ive seen slower eclair so its not so bad.

[Guest Rajit]

i use acer ui but have installed launcher pro plus ontop of it.

i get the nifty notifications bar and the nifty lockscreen and its not so slow, ive seen slower eclair so its not so bad.

I have a similar setup, but i use adw. My only complain is that scrolling through the lockscreen is laggy. Apart from that, everything is really snappy. I am using rooted stock. Have removed a lot of acer stuff and i have around 55 mb of free mem on startup. My setup is more snappy and much smoother than any eclair I tried. The only rom which was more snappy for me was lcr-f beta (the one which was based off frf91 and never saw a release due to the acer leaks). That rom had quadrant of 1060 at 998, and was over clockable upto 1200 MHz!!! But it had some stability issues and random reboots. My current setup on the other hand is stable as a rock (just as an official one should be).

[Guest TheShak]

One of my biggest complaints was that you could not add widgets (except Acers limited ones) to the lock screens.... WRONG!

In the latest leak when you select the add widgets, just scroll down (no scroll bar shown) and you'll see the rest... which is great new. Now where's that reboot widget...

I've disabled the history which helps on speed etc.

So, I've gone back to the Acer UI as i prefer the dialler etc.

Cheers

Edited October 12, 2010 by TheShak

[Guest Morris Lee]

I think it sucks, notification bar at the bottom is so not android, my fat thumb covers part of it during typing, and it is freaking hard to open the notificaton bar as it is sooo small. I like the peel unlock screen, only if we can keep nothing on it except an option to go silent or mute like the default android lock screen, therefore it will run much smooth as it does not need to support the widgets. Needs option to hide album art from the peel screen as I dislike album arts everywhere.

As for the nemoplayer's widgets for media and bookmarks gets a cut off with the elastic effect at the end with default android ui

The acer's notification bar is way too bloated, why the hell is the alarm setup on the default opening? I easily change the alarm to 6:59 intead of 6:00 by accidents all the time, which can screw me over in the next morning!! Why no confirmation for changes at the very least? It shoul not be there on the notification anyway, dumbest design I have seen as a custom ui

Galaxy s vibrant has iphone drawer like so what? At least it is suppose to use the majprity of the screen to go through your apps but noooo, acer only allow like 50% to show other apps and with the unoptimized scrolling is just unprofessional, none the less, the nemo widget in tje acer ui is so confusing and sluggish too, the previous version like the one in android ui is still way neater looking, faster, and more efficient to find what you are looking for.

Enough ranting from me, :)

Morris

[Guest Splux]

AcerUI with launcherpro is pure love. If they just could make the lockscreen stop lag when I change lockscreen..

Because having widgets on lockscreen is the smartest thing Acer ever have come up with, and I like it. If they fix the lag. And I don't have so much more to say about it, except for AcerUI without LauncherPro sucks hard. But with LP it's real good.