jasens: Acer Iconia Smart hands-on (video)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Acer Iconia Smart hands-on (video)

Well, would you look at what finally powered on! Yep, Acer's brought its 4.8-inch phone / tablet to MWC, and not only is it finally ready to show off that beautiful 1024 x 480-resolution display but it also gave it a real name -- it's now the Iconia Smart. For those of you who aren't familiar with Acer's "100 percent phone, 100 percent tablet" that was introduced back in November, it packs a Snapdragon processor, Android 2.3, and is said to be coming to a US carrier sometime in April.

Now that we're all up to speed on the details, we're ready to tell you that the device is a pretty cool one. It's obviously going to be for those with big pockets -- it's one long phone -- but the high resolution 4.8-inch widescreen panel makes it incredibly unique and nice for viewing pictures and movies. The actual feel of the phone is quite good -- it's made primarily of plastic, but the border surrounding the display seemed to be made out of some sort of metal. As we note in the video, the four buttons look as if they are flush with the bezel, but they're actually fairly stiff physical buttons. So, how's the software? Naturally Acer's taken to skinning Gingerbread a bit here -- there's an assortment of Acer widgets as well as that retooled homescreen you're seeing in the picture above. That said, we actually like Acer's neat webpage and media carousel widget. Hit the break for a short hands-on video.

Gallery: Acer Iconia Smart hands-on