Acer Iconia Smart...Upcoming !!

The Acer Iconia Smart may have been delayed on its way to launch, the phone with a rather unique form factor was on hand at Computex. It’s still very much the same device we first saw at Mobile World Congress, but spent a bit more time getting to know the device in its current state. Acer is touting the device as “100 percent smartphone, 100% tablet,” a reference the device’s 4.8-inch widescreen display. The handset isn’t a small one, but it does manage to maintain a manageable footprint.


It wasn’t too long ago Phandroid got some hands-on time with Acer’s unique, 4.8 inch smartphone/tablet, the Iconia Smart. Acer promised we would see the phone hit stateside April, 2011 but the month is nearly over and some are left wondering exactly what happened? Well, it looks like the Iconia Smart has just passed FCC and while I don’t think we will be seeing an April launch, I do think we can expect the phone very, very soon.

In case you needed a little reminder, the phone comes equipped with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB or ROM/RAM, 2MP front facing camera, 8MP rear facing camera and all the usual fixin’s. Oh, and who could forget the oddly long 4.8 inch, 1024×480 resolution display. It also appears the U.S. version of the Iconia Smart might be heading to AT&T seeing how its the only carrier who’s 3G bands support the phone’s 850, 1900 and 2100MHz frequencies.

Anyone interested in what Acer’s cooking or do you think the’ve had a little too much of what Kyocera might have been smoking?

Acer Iconia Smart Runs 2.3 On Huge 4.8-inch Screen

Double take. That’s exactly what I did when I saw the Acer Iconia Smart The screen size alone didn’t get me, after all it seems we’ve got 10-inch tablets in bulk, but the shape of the Acer Iconia Smart caught my eye and I was immediately intrigued:

I like the concept of the 4.8-inch screen. If you take your typical 4-inch or 4.3-inch smartphone and scale it evenly, you would likely have a fatty phone that looked pretty awkward in your skinny jeans. By keeping the width of the screen more fixed and extending the phone’s screen area vertically, you keep a pocketable nature while expanding the real estate for browsing the web and other media.

The issue, in my opinion, is with “other media”. The resoultion of the Acer Iconia Smart screen is an awkward 1024 x 480 pixel resolution with an aspect ratio of 21:9. That’s great when, like the web, the dimensions are non-defined. For videos and games it likely means you’ll see black bars on either side… aka wasted space.



I rather liked Acer’s adaptation of the app tray, swiping up on the bottom panel and allowing the main launch icons in the bottom bar to be interchanged with other apps. And I especially liked that it was running Android 2.3 Gingerbread – yum. Other nice specs included an 8MP camera, 2MP front camera, HDMI-out, 720p video recording/playback, 1GHz Snapdragon processor and a 3.5mm headset jack.


The Acer Iconia Smart should cost about $499 and be available in Europe in April and the United States in June or July. Below you’ll find the full press release and specs: