Acer Stream review

Acer’s attempts at carving out a niche for itself in the smartphone world are broad ranging. The company has feet in both the Android and Windows Mobile camps, and it even sells a special Ferrari edition of its Liquid E Android handset to complement its association with the Italian supercar manufacturer in the notebook area.

The Acer Stream is a high end Android-equipped handset that sits at the top of the company’s smartphone range. Its top notch specifications will appeal as much to consumers as to businesspeople. The hardware design feels impressively well-built. Like many other Android manufacturers, Acer has come up with its own interface skin which will probably please some users as much as it annoys others.

The Acer Stream is not an inexpensive smartphone. An exclusive with online specialist Expansys, it currently sells for £399.99 inc. VAT. For that kind of money you have a right to expect top-notch specifications, and you get them.

As one would expect, GPS, Wi-Fi and HSDPA are all present. The Wi-Fi includes support for the b, g, and n standards. The latter is currently a rarity in smartphones and it should help when using apps that benefit from high network bandwidth, such as UPnP media streaming apps. The HSPA 3G cellular support means that, on paper, downloads can reach 7.2Mbps and uploads up to 2Mbps. The speeds you'll actually encounter will depend on numerous factors including your mobile network and your location.

The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon running at 1GHz and we didn't experience any lag or delays in the user interface. The stunning 3.7in AMOLED display has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. The large screen also increases the overall size of the Stream. It measures 119.5 x 63 x 11.2mm, so it could be difficult for many people to reach across the screen to make full one-handed use of it.

Like Motorola’s new XT720 Android smartphone, the Acer Stream has HDMI-out support. A standard micro-HDMI connector sits on the right side of the phone and the cable is included in the box. You can use this to send video and photo content to a larger screen, but it only works in conjunction with the included Nemo media player. This means you can’t display Web pages, PowerPoint presentations or content from other apps on an external display.

Another feature shared with the Motorola XT720 is the ability to record video at a resolution of 720p. The quality of recorded video left us rather disappointed though. Video is shot at 24 frames a second, but our test footage looked very jerky. They are watchable, but it is not a very pleasant experience.

There are three physical playback buttons below the main screen that let you pause, play, rewind or fast forward video. The buttons also work for controlling music playback when you are using another application. It's a feature we're more used to seeing on feature phones than smartphones.

The Stream is good at video playback, supporting Xvid and DivX AVI files as well as MP4 video. Sound quality is good, but if you want to adjust the audio there's a Dolby Mobile equaliser with a range of separate settings for video and music playback.

Stills shot with the 5-megapixel camera look reasonably good, but we found the screen to be quite reflective which sometimes made framing shots outdoors a challenge. We were also disappointed to find that the camera doesn't have a flash and the range of settings isn't especially vast. Still, there is a macro mode, an anti-shake system, and you can set the white balance and ISO (between 100 and 800). Still shots looked average rather than outstanding, but are perfectly passable for everyday use.