Acer beTouch E400

The beTouch E400 from Acer looks just like the manufacturer's NewTouch P400 which runs Windows Mobile 6.5, but this time, the OS is Android 2.1, which includes support for multitouch gestures.  Despite a very affordable price tag, the handset has plenty of features in common with other successful smartphones, like a touchscreen interface, integrated social networking and support for e-mails, photos and video.

But at this price, you'll have to make do with a resistive touchscreen (so in reality, no multitouch), no flash on the camera and a 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor that can't rival more recent 1 GHz CPUs for speed.  So can Acer pull it off?

Customisability

The beTouch E400 looks like its close cousin, the NewTouch P400.  With a refined, classic look, it should suit anybody.  Or to put it another way, it's more of the same and yet another iPhone clone.  A few more exciting elements do shine through though, including the white trim around the outside of the handset and the three interchangeable covers (in black, red or white) with a rubbery texture that's easy to grip and good at resisting scratches.


Acer also includes a black case for carrying your phone, something that so few manufacturers bother with but that we're very glad to see.  It's a shame that it's a little too tight and, as a result, very frustrating when you need to get your phone out in a hurry.


There's nothing in particular to mention about the build quality, which is perfectly reasonable.  One thing that spoils it is the location of the power button, which is hard to reach up on the top left of the case.


At first sight, the E400 reminds you of its competitor, the iPhone 3G S, except here the screen takes up much less space.  We would happily have moved Acer's logo out of the way to add a little bit of extra room to the display for example.

And the 320 x 480 pixel screen doesn't use capacitative technology, which is of course more expensive.  But these days, you can get smartphones with capacitative screens that work with a simple tap of the finger for next to nothing.  What's the beTouch's actually like?  Well, the display quality is miles behind recent phones like the HTC Desire and Legend, the Samsung Wave and Motorola Milestone or even the iPhone 3G S for that matter.   The beTouch is lacking in contrast and has very narrow viewing angles.  We weren't particularly impressed by its accuracy or responsiveness either: the screen still struggles with fine details.


To complete our look at the outside, we should mention the four touch-sensitive buttons underneath the screen.  They're a little too sensitive and it's not difficult to activate them by accident as you brush your finger over them.  One nice touch is that the ring around the homescreen icon changes colour if you have a missed call or an unread e-mail.

Interface and User Experience

Despite hoping to find itself in the pockets of a very wide range of users with its low price, the beTouch hasn't seen a lot of work to improve its interface, which, like on the Acer Liquid, is basically just two sets of homescreens with shortcuts to multimedia apps and Internet favourites.  These menus work well, but they're not enough, so you have to fall back on Google's rather plain UI.  For a slightly more lively approach that's easier to use, we prefer HTC's handsets and their customized Sense interface.


Users get five homescreens to play with (compared to three on Acer's flagship, the Liquid, which runs Android 1.6, or nine on the Samsung Wave), and you can fill them either with pre-installed apps for services like Twitter and Facebook and others that you download yourself.  There isn't, however, a single unified interface for all of your networks and messages.

Once you've learnt a few of the secrets of working with Android, then navigating the phone is pretty easy, but we were left wanting a faster, more responsive handset.  When we tested it, we sometimes had to try to launch certain apps twice before they worked.  It might not seem much but when you run into the same problem time and again it becomes very frustrating.

Multimedia

Anybody with a smartphone expects plenty of multimedia, and despite being an entry-level smartphone, the beTouch's spec includes everything you'd expect: it can take photos, record and play video, it can surf the web and stand in for your MP3 player.  But in reality, this wannabe all-rounder comes up short.


Your ears better not be too demanding.  The headphones and the speaker are both pretty dubious and do nothing to help the very quiet audio output which is missing a lot of detail.

With the camera, there's not much apart from Google's rather unattractive interface, which rather matches the photographic output, whichs lack detail and sharpness.  Plenty of phones with 3 Megapixel cameras can do better than this—proof, if ever it were needed, that adding pixels to your sensor isn't the only solution.  The same is true of video recording, which is also fairly limited.



Given that the screen isn't excellent we weren't expecting to enjoying watching video. 

When you're surfing the web, pages load pretty quickly and it's easy to flick between your favourites, history and so on, but you need to play with the zoom a lot, double-clicking on the screen to zoom in and out until you end up with some legible text.

Let's finish by looking at battery life.  About average for a smartphone, you'll need to recharge it once every day and a half or so.