Smartphones couldn’t be more powerful these days. Thanks to Qualcomm’s QSD 8250 Snapdragon processor clocked at 1Ghz, the UK mobile community can now get its hands on the quick and snappy Acer neoTouch F1 from O2 free with just a ₤25 monthly contract. Acer just recently had the handset officially released with a quick distribution in the UK markets thanks to O2.
Sharing much of its sleek fluid body contours with the recently launched Acer Liquid A1, the new F1 comes in a sexy black body that is sure to appeal to the trendy crowd. Affordability is its main edge over rival PDA-type smartphones on a monoblock touchscreen form. Its reason for being is really quite simple and straight to the point – to bring high end smartphone use with near PC desktop look and feel to the masses. Using what is considered the most powerful engine for mobile phones on the planet, the neoTouch F1 has its promise fully covered.
A Few Compromises
It’s clear who Acer’s direct rival here is. It’s the upcoming Snapdragon-based HTC HD2. But that may be so only in the features department, as both hardware specifications offer pretty much the same thing. Of course you won’t get the remarkable HTC proprietary HTC TouchFLO and HTC Sense user interface. But the neoTouchF1 does not have the hefty HTC price tag. You can call the neoTouch as the poor man’s HTC. Acer seems to have done its marketing homework right with a sure winner in its hands.
With the same Wide-VGA (480 x 800 pixels) resolutions as that of the HTC HD2 on a smaller 3.8 inch touchscreen display that is resistive instead of being capacitive as in the HD2’s 4.3 inch display, the neoTouch F1 clearly defines a lesser specification. As a resistive touchscreen, the display needs a stylus which it comes with. Both share the same Windows limitation of 65k color depth. For a market with a clear focus on value for the money, resistive or capacitive can often be a just a paper difference.
The neoTouch F1 sports a lower internal memory, just 256 MB RAM, about half of what the HD2 has, though both share the same 512 MB ROM specification. Again, very few users really use internal RAM for most of their apps and files, relying more on the microSD expansion slot which the neoTouch carries like any smartphones these days.
Other than these toned-down features, the two rivals share the same technical specifications like quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and UMTS 3G support with HSDAP/HSUPA data connectivity for speedy internet access. There’s WiFi 802.11 b/g for wireless internet access in hotspots as well as Bluetooth 2 with EDR for high speed wireless local data transfers. Imaging gets done with a similar 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. There’s geo-tagging to reference the shots you take based on GPS-assisted location. Both do the same high quality VGA recording. FM radio, GPS and USB ports are in both. Battery life is fairly typical in both specimens.
So what’s the Advantage over its Rivals
As a resistive touchscreen, the stylus should make it easy to use Chinese characters on its handwriting recognition feature. We can put weight as an advantage and a more elegantly styled body design and finish that for many, looks a lot more trendy and pocketable than the huge HD2. But what really sets the Acer neoTouch F1 apart is its value as high end smartphone without the high end price tag. Finally, the market can enjoy a premium phone at a fraction of the price of competing upscale smartphones.
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