Acer's latest smartphones: photos

Acer announced four new smartphones back in February, the first of which is expected to reach the market shortly. Two of these devices run Microsoft's Windows Mobile and two run Google's Android operating system.

The neoTouch P400 is the higher-spec Windows Mobile device. It runs Windows Mobile 6.5.3 and has a 600MHz Qualcomm 7227 processor with 512MB of ROM and 256MB of RAM, plus a microSD card slot for storage expansion.

The neoTouch P400 measures 115mm by 59.3mm by 12mm, weighs 125g and has a 3.2in. HVGA (320-by-480-pixel) touchscreen. For connectivity, it offers quad-band GSM, GPRS/EDGE, HSPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. At the back is a 3.2-megapixel camera. Microsoft's Bing search engine is integrated, along with a YouTube client. Business users get Microsoft's Office Mobile suite and full Exchange support.

Acer claims talk time of up to 5 hours and standby time of up to 400 hours from the P400's 1,350mAh battery.

Like the P400, the neoTouch P300 also runs Windows Mobile 6.5.3, but it uses a slightly slower 528MHz Qualcomm 7225 processor. The ROM and RAM complement is the same, at 512MB and 256MB respectively. There's also the customary microSD card slot for storage expansion.

The P300's key feature is its four-row QWERTY keyboard, which slides out from beneath the 3.2in. WQVGA (240-by-400-pixel) touchscreen. Despite the keyboard, the P300 is remarkably slim, measuring 110mm by 55mm by 15.1mm. It weighs 130.6g.

Features include quad-band GSM, GPRS/EDGE, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS and a 3.2-megapixel camera. Like the neoTouch P400, the P300 includes Mobile Office, full Exchange support and a YouTube client among its preinstalled applications.

The beTouch E400 runs the latest version (2.1) of Google's Android OS. It's a high-end smartphone that's full of features yet compact and lightweight at 115mm by 59.3 by 12mm and 125g.

Powered by a 600MHz Qualcomm 7227 processor, the beTouch E400 has 512MB of ROM, 256 MB of RAM and a microSD slot for storage expansion.

The display is a 3.2in. HVGA (320-by-480-pixel) touchscreen and there's a 3.2-megapixel camera at the back. The usual smartphone connectivity features are present and correct — quad-band GSM, GPRS/EDGE, HSPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. A nice usability touch is the Home button with an LED backlight that delivers various notifications in different colours. Another style point is the trio of exchangeable battery covers in 'soft-touch' black, 'ceramic' white and 'pearl' red.

Although it has a distinct multimedia and social media focus, the beTouch E400 also caters for business users with Microsoft Exchange support and MS Office support via Documents To Go.

Finally, the beTouch E110 is a low-cost Android smartphone with a feature set to match. The screen is a 2.8in. QVGA (240-by-320-pixel) unit, which is on the small side for a smartphone display these days. It runs on a 400MHz processor, HSPA speeds are limited to 3.6Mbps download and 384Kbps upload, and it runs Android 1.5 rather than the latest 2.1 version.

There's only 256MB of ROM and RAM, although storage can be expanded via a microSD card slot. The camera is a 3.15-megapixel unit, and the E110 lacks both an accelerometer for automatic screen rotation and a compass. GPS is present but Wi-Fi is absent, which may rule out the E110 for many users.