(Mods, if this is seen as advertising or spam, please accept my apologies and remove the thread. It's not really though, promise! I just thought people might be interested in my review of a new PPC not made by HTC )
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Hi all, welcome to this, my hands on review of the new Acer Tempo X960 Smart Device! I've been fortunate enough to be given a review sample of this latest device from Acer, one of their first since their purchase of ETEN corp, and I can tell you, the Acer styling is getting right in there.
First off all, lets take a look as some pics of this gorgeous device.
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As you can see, a sexy looking device that's slim, light and extremely comfortable in the hand and has no irritating bevel around the edge of the screen to get in the way of using it.
Device Specification
Right, Let's get the technical stuff over with.
Operating System:
Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional (Crossbow)
Processor:
Samsung S3C 6410 533 MHz Processor with one DRAM
Memory:
256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM
Display:
2.8", 640 x 480 (VGA), 65,536 colors, TFT-LCD
Dimensions(L x W x H):
106.4(L) x 59 (W) x 13.7(14.8 ) (H) mm
Weight:
131.5g
Communications:
HSDPA 7.2 / HSUPA 2.0 / UMTS (2100 / 1900 / 850 MHz)
Quad-Band GSM：850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
GPRS class 11 / EDGE class 11
Bluetooth® v2.0 class 2 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate),
WiFi IEEE802.11b/g Certificated
GPS:
Embedded SiRF Star III chipset, TMC function supported*,
(*Subjected to changes by region)
Camera:
Built-in 3.2 mega pixels Auto-Focus CMOS camera, up to 2048 x 1536 resolution
0.3 mega pixels Fixed-Focus CMOS camera for Video Telephony usage
Light sensor (L-Sensor):
Sensing the brightness of environment to adjust panel luminance
Expansibility:
MicroSD card slot
Interface/Audio:
Built-in microphone and speaker, hands-free mode supported
Interface/Data:
USB Sync
Ergonomic Design:
Touch screen for stylus or fingertip, power button, 2 quick application buttons (GPS/Home), send/end button, record button, volume control,
Battery:
Lithium Polymer rechargeable with 1,530 mAh capacity
Talk time: 3G: 4h depend on usage / 2G: 5h depend on usage
Standby: 150h depends on usage
Pocket PC usage: 10~15 hour
GPS usage: 2.5~5 hour
* Highly dependent on usage rate/behaviour
Software (pre-loaded*):
Windows [email protected] 6.1 Professional
1. Microsoft® Office Outlook Mobile (Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and Inbox)
2. Microsoft® Office Word Mobile / Microsoft® Office Excel Mobile / Microsoft® Office PowerPoint Mobile.
3. MSN® Messenger / Microsoft® Transcriber / Windows Media® Player 10.
4. Picture / Notes / Internet Explorer Mobile / ActiveSync / Calculator / Game (Solitaire, Bubble Breaker).
5. Microsoft Reader* (* region/territories dependent)
Acer Exclusive Applications:
User interface: Acer Shell v2.0
Phone Tools: Phone settings, SIM toolkit, Speed dial, Communication manager, CSD type, Connection wizard, SMS sender, SIM manager, MMS composer
Multimedia Tools: Pictures & Videos, Camera /Camcorder, Album, Streaming player, Media player
Utilities: Backup utility, Default Settings, Application recovery, Memory Optimization
(*Subjected to changes by region)
A very well specified device that places it squarely in the upper bracket of modern Pocket PC devices, the Tempo X960 sports a highly capable processor with integral 3D capabilities and a custom shell application from Acer to simplify your daily use. Let's take a closer look at it, shall we?
Ergonomic Design
The Tempo X960 sports Acers new styling of a slick black casing with a glossy transflective touch screen flush with the casing. It's constructed of a sturdy plastic with a chromium plated rim and a rubberised back to prevent slipping on things like car dashboards and feels extremely comfortable and light in the hand.
The screen is far enough placed up in the device that swiping with your thumb is very comfortable and reaching the 4 hardware bottons and D-pad on the front is also extremely easy on the hand.
The buttons here are your typical Call and Hang up on either side, the D-Pad in the centre, and also a GPS and Home key. More on those later.
Also located on the front is the VGA front camera, primarily intended for 3G video calls, a light sensor for automatic brightness adjustment, and a raised slit for the ear piece. Hiding either side of this slit are the standard status LED's you expect on all Pocket PC's. Power, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.
Connectors
Starting with the left side, from top to bottom we have a place to fit a lanyard, a +/- volume rocker, a reset hole and the Record button.
On the bottom there is a single mini-USB connector which is the standard these days for Pocket PC charging and synching. This port also doubles as a headphone connector.
On the right side, from top to bottom, we have the power button, Micro-SD card slot, camera button and the bay for the included telescoping stylus.
All of these buttons and slots are flush with the chromed trim which is nice, though I found the SD card slot a little tricky to remove with my fingernail, Mind you, I have chunky fingers so that's probably at least partly the cause. It's not like we'll be opening this regularly anyway, you'll see why a little later.
On the top edge we have the letters GPS.
Behind these hides the antenna for the highly capable SiRF III GPS chipset built in to this device.
On the back we have the main 3.2 megapixel camera with an LED flash and a micro mirror for those self portraits.
Also here are two small speaker grilles, though there is only one speaker actually in the device. Finally, we battery cover which is easy to remove, yet feels of good sturdy construction. This hides the 1530mAh battery and the SIM slot.
Right, that's the hardware covered, so let's switch this puppy on, shall we?
Software
Right, first of all, let's get one thing straight, Acer like black. If there's one thing you're going to see a lot of in Acer's phones, it's black. From the slick outer casing, to the software on the device. Lots and lots of black. I happen to like black, so this suits me right down to the ground.
So... After that admittedly dull boot logo, you are then presented with the regular green Windows Mobile 6.1 startup screen. This hangs around for a short while, before you're presented with this:
This is Acer's all new singing and dancing Acer Shell 2.0. Don't ask me where 1.0 went, I've never seen it and I have no idea if it exists. Who cares anyway? We now have Acer Shell 2.0, and I happen to quite like it.
Anyway, it basically simulates an actual desktop, complete with window showing you the weather outside (by the way, this bit is animated! If it's raining, you'll get rain on your window ), and from what I can tell, appears to be flash based. You can move objects around on the desk, you have three "panes" to help you do this, and on pane 3 there's even a shelf to put stuff too. You can also take objects off the desk if you should wish.
Here's a closer look showing all 3 "panes" of the desk. accessed with a left/right swipe of the finger.
BTW, if you're wondering why these pics are different to the bigger one above, it's because some shots are promo shots from Acer, and some are from the device in my hand. These ones are from my device.
Tapping on any of these objects will open them up to custom applets such as contacts, email, weather forecasts, quick launch, bookmarks, and a rather nifty music player.
As well as the Acer Shell, there are also some other programs preinstalled, these include Google Maps, the new Internet Explorer 6 Mobile (which I have to say, is a massive improvement over PIE and even handles YouTube straight out of the box).
There is also the standard ETEN suit of applications, now rebadged to Acer, that many are used to on the previous Glofiish range of phones such as the GPS Viewer, Application Recovery, Backup, Memory Optimization, Task Manager, Profiles and so on, as well as the usual Windows Mobile stuff such as Office Mobile, MSN Messenger, Live Search.
Two new things of note. We now have a Notification Manager, which can notify you of new updates, and even download for Over The Air updating. Very useful, though I'd be careful of your data charges there. Also, we have what is quite possibly THE most important addition to Windows Mobile ever, and I thank Acer from the bottom of my heart for adding it; card reader mode.
Yes, that's right! When you connect to your PC, you will now be asked if you want to go in to one of three modes:
* Activesync
* Card Reader
* Internet Sharing
The middle one is the important one. Card Reader. When in this mode, the SD card in your device will appear as a normal drive on your PC, and you can transfer files at FULL USB 2 transfer speeds! No more being limited by the horrible speed restrictions of ActiveSync! Finally, you can stop carrying that little card reader with you... Thank you SO MUCH, Acer!
In Use
Right, so... I've had this device in my hands for a couple of weeks now, and I've been using it as my daily phone since it arrived and I have to say, this is by far my most favourite Pocket PC to date.
It's comfy in my hand, it's light, it hardly makes an impression in my shirt pocket. It has a clear VGA screen and thanks to the 533mhz Samsung processor, it's pretty snappy to respond, lagging a little only when some memory pig of an application decided it was going to bully the rest of the device, and THAT only happened when I was randomly installing all sorts of stuff on it.
Typing on it suffers from the same problem ALL touch screen devices suffer from; that of having to use a software keyboard. The standard Microsoft one is the usual fair, needing the stylus to type, but Acer have given us a much easier to use "Easy Keyboard", not too dissimilar to Apple's one on the iPhone, and this one is easy enough to use with the finger.
The audio quality is excellent, both in normal and speakerphone modes, as well as video calls, and whilst it uses a USB connector for audio headsets, the ones it comes with are of good quality and are comfortable to wear.
TomTom 6 & 7 both work a charm on it with GPS fix being picked up in 15-20 seconds from cold in an open area.
Battery life I found to be pretty impressive too, with me going 3 days on average between charges. Not bad considering all the hardware packed into this neat little device, all demanding their share of the 1530mAh battery.
Overall Impression
I've used a lot of Pocket PC devices in my time, so I think I can honestly say that I'm not that easily impressed, but Acer have managed to impress me with the Tempo X960. Sure, it's not perfect, show me a device which IS, but it's very very GOOD at what it does.
For me, I think it's biggest plus points are its size and speed, coupled with comfort of use and quality of the audio. All the rest of the stuff is just bling on the core of what is a very well constructed phone.
I think I can sum up my overall feelings about the Tempo X960 thusly... If Acer want this review unit back, they're going to have to fight me for it! Or... they could just send me an invoice.
Thanks a lot
Exellent review!
Now I have it completly discarded
Looks like a nice phone.
unfortunately a 2.8 touchscreen and no HW keyboard doesn't quite work for me.
If you have small hands, or don't need to use it for email it seems like a good option.
Looks like a cool phone, ill do some more research, and maybe check ebay. -Thanks
orb3000 said:
Now I have it completly discarded
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mind if I ask why that is?
Great review. Could you be kind enough to dump the rom so we could ectract the acer software. That shell sounds like a joy to use.
addicus said:
Great review. Could you be kind enough to dump the rom so we could ectract the acer software. That shell sounds like a joy to use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, but I can't. If I do, I can kiss goodbye to ever getting review units from Acer again, and I'm not willing to take that chance.
FloatingFatMan said:
Mind if I ask why that is?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2 reasons:
1.- No physical keyboard!! (Is a must for me)
2.- No HTC build (That means no great support from this forum)
Cheers,
FloatingFatMan said:
Sorry, but I can't. If I do, I can kiss goodbye to ever getting review units from Acer again, and I'm not willing to take that chance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My apologies. It was rude of me to ask.
No worries. There's nothing wrong with trying, right?
Hi,
Thanks for the review. I am more taken with the M900. If you can get one from Acer can you review that for us? I know it is much bigger but I like its feature set better.
I saw a Russian preview of the M900 which seems to claim the the Qualcomm procs are faster than the Samsung one...I always thought it was the other way round!! Do you have any feelings about that from your review x960, and maybe you can run some benchmarks, even though the stats are often different from real life usage. Finally, do videos run smoothly on it?
Thanks,
Antony
Nicely written review. I do hope ACER will make a clamshell device.
Would you be able to give ACER suggestions that WE NEED A CLAMSHELL DEVICE with a fast processor please?
All devices that are coming out are all either lacking a keyboard, or if they have one, it's just a reshelve version of the first one like the HTC Touch PRO 2.
This 2.8" screen is just too small now a days...an Acer with a bigger 3.5 or more screen could be nice for you!
GPS:
Embedded SiRF Star III chipset, TMC function supported*,
(*Subjected to changes by region)
damn i wish my Touch HD had this type of GPS reciever!
However in the end, it's Acer, and Acer quality control is the worse i have ever seen.
AntonyL said:
Hi,
Thanks for the review. I am more taken with the M900. If you can get one from Acer can you review that for us? I know it is much bigger but I like its feature set better.
I saw a Russian preview of the M900 which seems to claim the the Qualcomm procs are faster than the Samsung one...I always thought it was the other way round!! Do you have any feelings about that from your review x960, and maybe you can run some benchmarks, even though the stats are often different from real life usage. Finally, do videos run smoothly on it?
Thanks,
Antony
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny you should mention that. I have an M900 in my hands too and am writing a review of it. Will take a little while tho.
As for speed, I've never used a HTC Diamond so can't compare them, but these devices are WAY faster than my Kaiser. I'll be happy to benchmark them for you though.. Which benchmark program would you suggest?
Video run flawlessly, without having to recode them to lower resolutions, but like with all devices, it depends very much on the bitrate they're encoded at. For example, I've tried watching Cars and High School Musical 1 on both phones in CorePlayer. Cars played perfectly, HSM was a tiny bit jerky. Both were DiVX files at 720x480 resolution, but HSM was encoded at a much higher bitrate than cars. Don't have the files on the phone atm to say exactly what the bitrate was though.
Psygnosis84 said:
GPS:
However in the end, it's Acer, and Acer quality control is the worse i have ever seen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never experienced any build quality issues on any of my Acer stuff...
galaxys said:
This 2.8" screen is just too small now a days...an Acer with a bigger 3.5 or more screen could be nice for you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The M900 has a 3.8" screen and a hardware keyboard. Review "soon".
FloatingFatMan said:
Never experienced any build quality issues on any of my Acer stuff...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm more referring to their PC ventures, worse stuff ever made.
Hopefully they have a better team for their mobile division.
Hi Guys,
I'm delighted to be a member of the Forums, and am very keen to ask you guys a few questions. Do any of you use smartphones for digital image editing, if so what is the best phone, software, OS, etc?
To use smartphones for digital image editing? Do you think its display is small?
Well first of all for any major editing I find phones are no good for it. Small screen bad controls etc. But for small edits you could use a app like this one https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iudesk.android.photo.editor or something else like it.
I don't use my phone for imaging editing. My main camera is a Canon EOS70D. Which means I require Camera Raw and the real version of Photoshop. Not to mention that my RAW files are 500MB each...
But for regular pictures taken on a phone, there's no app better than Snapseed. Google bought NIKsoftware, the company behind the extremely popular (Amongst professionals) Photoshop plugin NIKefex. Then made a free version of it for Android.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.niksoftware.snapseed
It's not an Instagram-like app, but rather a more professional tool; you have to do all the tweaking (light, blur, colourbalance, saturation, etc) yourself.
As for which device, I recommend something with a big screen and high-end hardware. You'll need a MicroSD slot as well if you're going to juggle larger files.
The 5.7" high-end Note 4 is an excellent option. The Spen is an additional bonus to the big screen, because it allows much more precision and control when editing. Very good canera, too.
Or the 6" Nexus 6 if you don't need a MicroSD. Bigger screen, vanilla Android, good specs.
Sent From My Samsung Galaxy Note 3 N9005 Using Tapatalk