Smartphone Review – Acer Vs HTC Android

The HTC Wildfire certainly packs some punch, considering the price is under £300 for a Sim free handset. A 3.2 inch screen with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels delivers a crystal clear and incredibly bright image. The screen does falter slightly but for its size will do the job for most users. The obvious drawback with screens this size, is you will always struggle to view websites, in particular text, because it is just too small. Yes, you are able to zoom in, but it’s really not the same as seeing the entire screen.

The Acer beTouch E400 is a very stylish smartphone -slightly iPhone-ish, which may attract or deter potential customers. I actually prefer it to the weighty iPhone, which can be difficult to hold and use in one hand. You normally discover this whist driving, using heavy machinery, or whilst in the bath. You have been warned!

The 3.2 inches seem to be engulfed by the casing. Good for fingerprints, as you can actually grab the phone, not worrying about smearing dirty fingers across the beautiful screen. I’m all for this, as fingerprints drive me crazy and I spend all my time cleaning the damn thing.

I liked the carousel navigation on the Acer is excellent and reminded me of a Finder window on a MacBook. The only annoying thing is the presence of the ‘Acer Spinlets’ application on the home screen. I am not a fan of this type of service from manufacturers, when they just don’t have enough content to warrant it. Its never going to be more than a gimmick at best, but well done for trying. I have owned Acer laptops in the passed and easily outlived more expensive Dells and Toshibas. They are hardy phones and probably a better option if your lifestyle demands a more rugged device.

It feels less precious than the HTC and you would probably not worry too much about a few scratches.They are designed to get scratched, fall apart and stop working. It normally happens just before your contracts up!

Good news is, all the usual smartphone – Android kit as standard on both including 3G (7Mb download), Google Maps, Wi-Fi and GPS. The 5 megapixel camera (with flash) on the HTC delivers one of the best pictures for any smartphone in this price range yet the Acer lacked clarity – despite the slightly higher price Some neat tricks like sending photos straight to social media accounts will certainly appeal to a younger market, hungry for new technology, but on a budget.

The HTC standard social media app, is FriendStream, which comes pre-installed on all handsets. If you’ve ever used desktop aggregation tools like seismic you will already be familiar with this type of application. If your heavily into Facebook and twitter you may already have a preferred application of choice, but remember this is built into the phones system, so is less likely to crash. Well that’s the theory anyway! Some novelty features like Facebook caller ID is all very nice but you could probably live without it – it depends on how good looking your friends are.

HTC were actually pioneers of touch screen technology back in 2007. Their excellence in this field is written all over phone, even on the restrictive screen size. The pinch to zoom is sensitive yet easy to get used to, and makes the small screen simple to navigate.

I am a fan of both manufacturers and i really both these phones for different reasons. The Acer feels tougher, but the HTC is really slick and i think would appeal to more people. In my opinion, the fundamental problem with screens this size is that you are never going to get the best out of this technology.

Rabins Sharma Lamichhane

Rabins Sharma Lamichhane is senior ICT professional who talks about #it, #cloud, #servers, #software, and #innovation. Rabins is also the first initiator of Digital Nepal. Facebook: rabinsxp Instagram: rabinsxp

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