Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen Acer’s Android 2.1-powered Stream a time or two before, but we couldn’t resist the opportunity to give it a look ourselves here in Taipei. Acer’s full gamut of smartphones were out on display, but this 3.7-inch monster was easily the standout. Build quality was remarkable, and the screen was downright luscious; viewing angles on the AMOLED panel were nothing short of incredible, and the haptic feedback was a nice touch, too. The 1GHz Snapdragon CPU handled the transitions within the OS with poise, and it actually felt a good bit lighter than some of the other touchscreen-based smartphones that we’ve played with recently. ‘Course, we couldn’t help but long for Froyo, but with a hardware set this powerful, we wouldn’t be shocked to see it handed down shortly. Vid’s after the break, vaquero.

Continue reading Acer Stream preview at Computex 2010

Acer Stream preview at Computex 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My, how the tablets have turned. Despite valiant efforts, even Acer can’t resist the temptation of diving into the ever-expanding e-reader market, but rather than going head to head with Amazon’s Kindle, the company seems to be readying at least one unique creature for release into the mainstream. Thanks to a stop at Qualcomm’s lair here at Computex, we think we may have found the company’s numero dos. In just about every respect, the simply-titled eBook is nothing at all like the LumiRead; in fact, it looks (sort of) like an iPhone 4G after pulling a Mark McGwire. We weren’t told just how large the screen was, but as you can tell from the gallery below, it’s quite long. The device was reportedly made as a way to showcase Qualcomm’s aging MSM7227 processor, and while there’s obviously no way to know if this thing is / isn’t headed for the production line, it was running Android underneath. Unfortunately, responsiveness wasn’t this thing’s strong suit, and it was fairly obvious that the software wasn’t exactly fully baked (we surely hope not, anyway). That said, the form factor could certainly be honed into something practical, and we’re sure they could get the UI humming along a bit smoother if they really put their minds to it. For now, it’s the gallery below… or nothin’.

Acer eBook concept preview: Qualcomm MSM7227 and Android onboard originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In these halcyon days of impromptu Vietnamese gadget reveals, it should come as no surprise that Acer’s Stream has gone from FCC filing to hands-on honey in a few days flat. Now it’s been the subject of a rather more thorough photo shoot in Ho Chi Minh City, and also was kind enough to share a little footage filmed from its five megapixel camera. Sadly, it’s not raw 720p footage that was YouTube’d, so it’s perhaps too early to draw conclusions — but we’ll go ahead and say the video doesn’t look very good just the same. Still, it looks to be yet another intriguing entry to the Android assault, and we can’t wait for the next leak.

Update: Thanks to kreatos for pointing out that there’s a second, albeit shorter 720p video on YouTube as well. We’ve got that embedded below and it does indeed look a good bit better — but you can certainly still tell it came from a cellphone.

[Thanks, Tran]

Continue reading Stream sits still for the camera, shows off its camcorder abilities (video)

Stream sits still for the camera, shows off its camcorder abilities (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 May 2010 07:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On Thursday, Acer announced the Stream Android smartphone – although it’s unlikely that U.S. consumers will ever get their hands on it.

The Stream is a now-conventional slab-style Android phone running Android 2.1. While a press release issued by Acer doesn’t indicate the type of touchscreen used, the WVGA AMOLED screen measures 3.7 inches.  The phone is 11.2 mm thick.

Inside is a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, currently the high end of the market, 512 Mbytes of RAM, plus 2 Gbytes of internal flash memory and a bundled 8-Gbyte microSD card. The camera also includes one 5-Mpixel camera.

Connectivity options include 7.2-MBit/s HSDPA and 802.11n Wi-Fi, plus Bluetooth.

Some of the standout features, however, include an external HDMI cable, also a feature of the Sprint EVO 4G, Dolby Mobile sound, and the ability to record video up to 720p in resolution.

Acer has also included a redesigned multitouch interface, which the company promises will be common to most if not all of its new products, including laptops and all-in-one PCs. On top of that, Acer has added a custom phone UI, with a status bar that “appears as an innovative divider between logical spaces. It shows all
the essential information, providing shortcuts to most frequently used
settings and its position allows a very easy access to the settings or
notifications.”

Acer has also bundled Spinlets, a free music streaming service that connects to “major labels,” the company said.

Sounds neat, right? Unfortunately, Acer probably won’t bring to the phone to the U.S.

Content is king. That’s a given in a world now dominated by me-too devices. That’s why Acer is launching clear.fi, software meant to ease the process of sharing and playing your media — be it pictures, recorded TV, eBooks and music — over a variety of devices including Acer notebooks, desktops and smartphones connected to your home network. Content can be stored centrally and then easily distributed to any compatible device via the clear.fi console. Acer’s Revo family sits at the heart of the clear.fi network, a suite of devices that includes the Revo multimedia center, RevoView media player, and RevoCenter home storage appliance.

The Revo all-in-one media center (pictured) comes packing a funky RevoPad wireless controller with touch-sensitive backlit QWERTY keyboard that turns into a multi-gesture touchpad with a click. Sorry, no specs yet on that. The RevoView is a set-top media player that plugs into the TV and home theater sound system. It can play content from USB, hard disk, flash cards, optical disk, or UPnP compatible devices. It also features a hard drive that can be swapped with Aspire M Series desktop PCs and the Acer RevoCenter — a compact NAS supporting UPnP streaming and up to four hot-swappable SATA disks. Check the press release and pics of the RevoPad and RevoView after the break.

Continue reading Acer launches clear.fi on Revo family of multimedia devices

Acer launches clear.fi on Revo family of multimedia devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 07:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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