Acer seems to be improving in its Smartphone efforts with every handset their release. Their latest is arguably the most impressive, the Acer Stream. This is a handset which resembles something of a cross between a touchscreen tablet device and Smartphone, with a wealth of features, and impressive styling.
The unit measures 119.5x 63x 11.2 mm. These dimensions are necessary to cater for the large 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen; however the handset remains very slimline and lightweight at just 140 g. The aforementioned screen boasts a pixel configuration of 480x 800 which can display up to 16 million colours. Therefore the Acer Stream is the ideal handset for viewing photos and videos as well as gaming and surfing the Internet, thanks to its superior display quality. As is standard with most Smartphones these days, both proximity and accelerometer sensors are included, and it supports multi-touch input.
The Acer Stream offers a handy 2 GB of on board storage along with its 512 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM. Once the internal storage has been utilised, there is a pre-installed 8 GB memory card within the integrated microSD slot, however this can be replaced with a card of up to 32 GB meaning users can easily store music collections, or a large number of any other file types such as videos or documents etc.
Class 10 GPRS and class 10 EDGE keep the Acer Stream connected to cellular networks allowing phone calls and messages to be carried out, whilst Internet access relies primarily on 3G coverage. The latter utilises an HSDPA connection which allows download speeds of up to 7.2 mega bytes per second along with HSUPA at 2 MB per second. Whilst this provides a fast and reliable web browsing experience, a faster connection can be achieved through Wi-Fi, which takes advantage of local wireless networks. Bluetooth and micro USB allow the handset to be connected to compatible devices whereby a number of different tasks can be carried out.
An easy to use and powerful 5 mega-pixel digital camera is located on the back of the streamlined and modern looking handset. It operates at a pixel resolution of 2560x 1920, resulting in superb quality still images. Autofocus and image stabilisation are included to simplify the task of taking impressive photos, whilst geo-tagging, thanks to GPS, means users can keep track of where they took their photos. An added bonus, the camera can also shoot video footage and this is in no less than 720p high definition.
Social networkers are well catered for with the Acer Stream. Facebook and Flickr integration are included as standard, along with a number of other social media websites such as YouTube. The operating system of choice is Android 2.1, meaning it also includes the full package of Google features such as Google search, maps and Gmail. There are entertainment features aplenty such as a music and video player which supports multiple file formats, games and a radio player, as well as productivity features including a document viewer which is compatible with Microsoft Office documents. Demanding applications are handled with ease thanks to the renowned 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. This features in many Smartphones, which is testament to its quality and reliability.
Both the hardware and software of the Acer Stream are impressive, meaning a wealth of tasks can be carried out with the utmost style and flair.