Design

With dimensions of 119 x 62 x 17.1mm and weighing 188g, the M900 is a very hefty device. This is somewhat justified given that mobile phones with slide-out QWERTY keyboards are generally heavier. For comparison’s sake, the HTC Touch Pro2 has similar dimensions and weighs about 10g lighter at 178.5g. Those very concerned with the size and weight of a mobile will probably give this model a miss as it will weigh down handbags and cause a bulge in pants pockets. 

Even after getting used to the size, we were still unimpressed by the build quality. For one, the screen felt soft to the touch and depressed slightly when tapped. After sliding the screen out to expose the keyboard, we noticed a slight wobble. Comparing this again with HTC’s Touch Pro2, even though the latter has a more complex construction due to the fact that the screen tilts upward, it feels much more solid. 

In its open position, you can make use of a physical QWERTY keyboard on the M900. The layout is similar to what you find on a desktop keyboard, so we had no issues with finding letters. That’s about the only positive point of this keypad. All punctuation keys would require first pressing the Fn key, even the all-important full-stop and comma. This slowed down messaging and made typing a chore for us. Though the keys are well-spaced apart, each of their top surfaces slopes downward, making them very shallow and thus hard to feel individually when your eyes are focused on the screen. Given the amount of space Acer has had to work with, the QWERTY keyboard implementation on the M900 is disappointing. 

One of the reasons this smartphone is so large is because of the 3.8-inch touchscreen display. This is the same size and resolution (800 x 480 pixels) as what’s found on the HTC Touch HD. The screen quality is good. Text appear sharp and colors are bright. 

Below the screen are four buttons and a fingerprint sensor. The buttons include Call and Hang up keys as well as a Home and dedicated GPS shortcut. The fingerprint sensor is a horizontal strip which requires a finger to be swiped downward to read it. This takes the place of where a directional pad is usually found on a smartphone but also performs that task as you can simply swipe up or down to scroll lists. We will discuss its ability to read fingerprints later in the Features section. 

Shortcuts are lined along the right side of the device including a camera shutter, reset, voice command key and the main power button. Turning the device on is convenient because the power button is large and easy to press. The flipside is we tended to accidentally turn it on in the pocket, which can lead to battery drain, or worse, accidental calls. 

On the left is a jog dial, mini-USB port and microSD card slot. We are glad the memory expansion slot is found here and not behind the battery cover because the M900’s battery lid is really hard to remove. This will be an issue for heavy users who carry and use spare batteries on a regular basis. The mini-USB is for charging, syncing and connecting a wired headset. There’s no dedicated audio connector, so music lovers who want to use their own headphones with 3.5mm jacks will have to purchase an adapter.

Features

There’s no faulting the M900 when it comes to wireless connectivity options. This smartphone is fully loaded with HSDPA/HSUPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS for navigation. The GPS in this device has the SiRFstar III chip. This is commonly used in dedicated personal navigation devices but has lost its popularity in mobile phones ever since manufacturers started to increasingly use the integrated solution provided by Qualcomm.

One of the key features on the M900 should rightly be the Acer Shell v2.0 user interface. This starts up automatically when you turn on the phone and shows an image of a physical workstation by default. On the virtual “desk” which spans three screens (you swipe horizontally to move between them), there are items like an envelope, calendar and photo frame, among others. These all represent individual apps on the device. Tapping on the envelope brings you to the email app, the photo frame to your pictures and videos, and so on. You can adjust which icons go where so all your favorite ones can be moved to the first of three pages. It takes some time to get familiar with it, and we couldn’t help but feel it was overdone. Custom UIs like TouchFlo from HTC and the third-party Spb Mobile Shell have much clear symbols and are mre user-friendly. We suspect most users will ditch Acer Shell for either the default Home screen or Spb’s application. 

The fingerprint sensor below the display requires you to first authorize a fingerprint for use as a password replacement. Setting it up was pretty straightforward and using it thereafter proved to be a simple affair. For those who use a four-digit PIN code to keep casual snoops out of your phone, the fingerprint sensor is actually quite handy. 

Aside from authenticating users, this sensor can work as an optical directional pad. This part is where it fails miserably. The small size of the sensor makes it unsuitable for moving cursors in various directions. Even in mouse mode, where you use it as an optical trackpad to control an onscreen mouse cursor, it was cumbersome and often led to unintentional selections. 

Even though it has a physical keypad, Acer also provides some custom onscreen text input solutions for times when you want to use the smartphone in portrait mode. These worked well for the most part when tapping with fingertips and are definitely better than the default Windows Mobile text input solutions. Without sliding out the keyboard, you can still switch the screen to landscape format, thanks to a built-in accelerometer. 

Other features of the M900 include an FM radio and applications such as a backup utility and a handy task manager which resides on the top right of the screen. This lets you see which applications are running in the background so you can quickly terminate them to free up memory.

The 5-megapixel camera on the back comes with autofocus and an LED for lighting up dark subjects. We found the camera interface quite snappy and shots taken of average quality. Pictures were mostly underexposed though sharpness was acceptable.

Performance

Equipped with a 533MHz Samsung processor, the M900 chugged along fine during our use. It may have only 128MB of RAM, but we did not experience lags in the operation of standard WM functions and common applications such as Google Maps and Opera Mobile. 

Battery life was pretty weak, lasting just one day on a single full charge of the 1,530mAh battery. Heavy users will need an extra battery if they are to last a whole day with the M900. 

Reception for voice calls worked fine on the M900. We did not experience any dropped calls, though in some cases the other party reported that our voice was a bit muffled. Video calls weren’t good at all. The front camera, like the one of the back, made colors look washed-out. Movement on our end made the video image viewed by the other party break up and our voice turned out soft and muffled.

Conclusion

On paper, the Acer M900 looks like it contains all you need in a mobile device, but features do not a great phone make. Basics such as battery life and call quality are not implemented perfectly, while other important factors like ease of use are lacking. The Acer M900 retails for S$1,098, less with operator subsidies. We recommend topping up that amount by a few hundred to go for the HTC Touch Pro2 instead. 

To be fair, it is Acer’s first attempt. One might argue that E-Ten doesn’t lack experience at all, but acquisition transitions can be difficult sometimes. Our worry for Acer is that someone may look at this phone and write off the brand altogether. We have seen some of Acer’s upcoming models and they seem far more promising than what the M900 suggests the company is capable of. Looking at it positively, product-wise, at least things can only get better.

[by John Chan]