Acer Stream (2011)

Don't waste your money – I had one of these and sold it only yesterday. The Stream had the potential to be a great phone but it has a few shortcomings, the worst of which is the pathetic battery life. Yes, I know that most smartphones have poor battery life but the Stream is in a league of its own. With very light use, I was barely getting a day's worth of battery. The phone just sat idle most of the time and things like wi-fi were turned off. I even bought a higher capacity battery for it but it made no difference.

If you're in the market for an Android touchscreen smartphone, I would recommend looking elsewhere.

Poor battery life.

Good phone – I had an acer for over 6 months. this is a major accomplishment for me as my phones usually break after three. The phone is still in tact and working however the problem is the server network. The only reason I am not using it now is telstra won't support this phone. Optus however do. Just be aware though, I had been with optus for several months and after a heated discussion with them on an internet issue, which was no fault of the phone, they sent a virus and disabled the the phone. (this can be verified by a tech). This phone is not just a phone, it's a mini laptop. I could run a small business with this phone with the assistance of the right apps, and did. I connected the phone without talking with optus first and the reception was as good as telstra's. As soon as optus sent the settings for the phone however I lost 40% of reception.This phone has been preloaded with android 3.8 but will work on every latest system until that one comes available. good phone, but shame about our networks.Battery life was roughly 5.5 hours when used constantly. And I mean constantly. Very easy to use once I learnt to think of it as a laptop not a phone. I dropped it regularly (by accident) and had no probs Not a lot of retailer knowledge for service and warranty on this phone.

Almost – As this is not a popular phone for retail or consumer alike I will try to be as detailed in my review/experience as possible because I doubt there will be many other reviews to back me up on this one. I purchased my phone off ebay for $300 and it came unlocked. This was prefereable to me because I prefer pre-paid although there were no retail stores stocking the Acer as far as I bothered to look, and nor was it prefereable to spend full retail on it outright. I had researched quite a bit into the Acer Stream vs iPhone vs Samsung Galaxy as at the time the galaxy s2 was not available.

For price I think I'll come out on top considering I pay $30/month pre-paid and expect a maximum of 2-3 years out of my phone with todays almost daily leaps in technology and considering anyone would had to of paid roughly $80/month in a 2 year contract for either of the other phones.

For specs the acer held firm with the galaxy, both being android, etc but a few points had to be made for the acer ie: the AMOLED capacitive touchscreen and the 1GHz Scorpion processor. I have owned an iPod touch for about a year and a half now, so I felt quite comfortable with the apple's user interface as it does not differ much from iPod touch to Iphone, yet I wanted to change things up and researched into the android user interfaces. As far as I can tell from the three phones, the Galaxy was the most static, the iPhone was the most smooth and flowing and the acer fits fairly well in the middle. Prefering smooth to static yet specifically not an iPhone, I chose the Acer.

However...

A big let down was that while I can change my ringing tone to mp3 songs and the like, I am yet to find a way to change my sms ringtone to mp3, nor my alarm ringtone.

Another big let down was the apparent inability to send data via bluetooth. I THINK I can recieve data from bluetooth yet even that was difficult to achieve.

Another smaller let down was the Dolby speakers. Lots of hype but not the best speakers out. The sound quality is fairly brilliant, very deep and thick and crisp sounds, but no where near as loud as I had expected and hoped. Don't get me wrong they aren't quiet, in fact not noticeably different to any other smart phone out at the moment. But when one hears Dolby Digital speakers, one thinks of the vrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa noise at the start of a Dolby dvd. I may have been optimistic but it would have been a cool selling pitch at least.

Build quality for the Acer, being a first generation product, was not as good especially when comparing to the other 2 phones. although it's a very comfortable phone to hold, the rubber flap on the side that conceals the mini usb port (for battery charging/data storage) and the mini hdmi port feels quite delicate in the sense that I'm always constantly aware of not to break it during the phones almost daily charge or data transfer.

Additionally, whilst I have dropped my phone only a few times, and certainly less then that of my friends in their world of cracked iPhone 4 screens, the occasional jitter in my pocket can cause it to turn off without my realising it. A few good charges though and it seems to have fixed itself in that department. However, one night with what the phone beleived itself to have about 50% battery power it would turn itself off in my hand because I tried to press something on the touchscreen. I would have to turn it on, wait quite some time for the boot up, and then unlock it and try to access the messaging feature only to have it turn off again at the first thing I pressed, quite infuriating actually. Although once again after a few good charges it has seemed to fix itself of this issue as well, so far at least.

In conclusion I think I got what I paid for. A cheaper alternative to the established smart phone options through a company yet to truly immerse itself within the mobile phone technology. With limited local repair otions a clumsy person might think twice about this one and head straight for the retail phone plan with additional "no questions asked" warranty. Otherwise, if you're after a cheap alternative to the popular options that is much less then common (6 months and I haven't seen another one yet) and you are happy to be realistic with it, then I'm sure you will enjoy the user interface coupled with competative specs.

Unobjectively, I love this phone even with it's few quirks. The user interface is brilliant, well thought out, easy, simple, yet classy and at times surpisingly ingeniuous. I can't wait until the next Acer answer to the Apple question and hopefully like most Acer products, the 1st gen bugs will be replaced with 2nd gen genious! User Interface is second to none, can be inexpensive, very uncommon phone = no one else has it 1st generation bugs are occasionally annoying, very uncommon phone = limited repairs and retail options