Acer DX900 / E-TEN Glofiish DX900
Discontinued 4th February 2009
The E-TEN Glofiish DX900 was announced last
summer, but so far has failed to materialise.. and since
the takeover of E-TEN by Acer, it perhaps looked like
the handset had been cancelled.
Well, according to Clove
Technology, the DX900 is shortly to be released
as the Acer DX900.. and it's about time too.
What makes the Acer DX900 interesting is that it's
a dual-SIM 3G Windows Mobile device with a VGA resolution
touchscreen, which probably makes it the most advanced
dual-SIM phone that you are likely to come across.
It is perhaps easier to think of the Acer DX900 as
having two completely separate mobile phones built in.
The first one (controlled by "SIM 1") is a
tri-band UMTS / HSDPA device with quad-band GSM support.
The second one (controlled by "SIM 2") is
a tri-band GSM device with no 3G support.
Having 3G on only one SIM is an odd arrangement,
but there are two possible reasons for this. One is
power drain - having two radios in the handset significantly
shortens battery life, even with the DX900's impressive
1530 mAh cell. Presumably the second one is simplicity
- phones like the Samsung DuoS are primarily designed
for phone calls, the Acer DX900 is a fully featured
smartphone which can run a lot of data intensive applications,
and we suppose these are set to use SIM 1 by default.
So, think of SIM 1 as being the main SIM (and main phone),
with the second SIM performing a strictly secondary
role.
This
is a big phone, weighing 147 grams and measuring 106
x 61 x 17mm. The screen is a 2.8" 640 x 480 pixel
touchscreen, and the DX900 also has built-in GPS, WiFi,
microSD expandable memory and Bluetooth. Inside is a
533 MHz Samsung S3C 6400 processor and 128 MB of RAM
- we would like to see more RAM in a device like this
though.
The operating system on the DX900 is Windows Mobile
Professional 6.1, enhanced with some Acer / E-TEN additions
to make it easier to use. The combination of Windows
and the high resolution display should make this a formidable
business smartphone.
There's no exact word on availability, but Clove
Technology are pricing the DX900 at a fairly steep £395
(€500) before tax, and it's available to pre-order
now. You do get quite a lot of phone for the money
though, but there are much cheaper and simpler dual-SIM
solutions out there.
We very much hope that the DX900 makes the impact
it deserves - E-TEN's products have been very good in
the past, and the company has given HTC some much-needed
competition. And hopefully we will see Acer come up
with some new "Glofiish" designs later in
the month at Mobile World Congress.
Hat
Tip
|
Acer
DX900 / E-TEN Glofiish
DX900 at a glance
|
Available:
|
Q1
2009
|
Network:
|
GSM
850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
+ UMTS 850 / 1900 /
2100 (SIM 1) GSM 900
/ 1800 / 1900 (SIM 2)
|
Data:
|
GPRS
+ EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSDPA
+ WiFi
|
Screen:
|
468
x 640 pixels
|
Camera:
|
3
megapixels
|
Size:
|
PDA-style
device 106 x 61 x 17mm
/ 147 grams
|
Bluetooth:
|
Yes
|
Memory
card:
|
microSD
|
Infra-red:
|
No
|
Polyphonic:
|
Yes
|
Java:
|
Limited
|
GPS:
|
Yes
|
Battery
life:
|
Not
specified
|
|
|