Category: Acer

  • Apple Watch review (2015)

    Finally here’s the Apple Watch review. We would have posted it sooner but the reason will become clear soon.

    In terms of construction and design: The Apple watch is a very well made price of kit. It has got a nice weight to it and materials regardless of price is actually very good. The rear panel looks much better than the front which is a design flaw in our opinion. The two screen sizes is an interesting design choice but the square look and lower screen resolution tech is simply old. Speaking of the front design it is a disappointment as it is too thick and not very stylish to look at. Changing the bands on the Apple watch does lift the appearance but not enough to make it look like a designer watch. The best thing about the Apple watch is that it does have a small speaker and microphone which most other smart watches do not have.

    In terms of use the Apple watch interface is a little awkward as the icons are on the small side and enlarging them using one finger is annoying but the additional crown functionally does help. The apps work fast enough and mostly smoothy but it’s no iPhone.  The display it’s self is nice but some information displayed can be confusing to look at. It is as good as say the LG G watch in terms use but certainly not better.

    Having more sensors on the Apple watch would have made it better at health monitoring functions rather than just basic heart rate and measuring steps. The Microsoft band is the leader in this area. In terms of battery life the Apple Watch does last a full day time aka 12-18 hours. It really does need charging every night – unless you have disabled every notification or only use it to tell the time which defeats the purpose of a smart watch.

    Biggest problems with the apple Watch are:

    Blacked out screen most of the time.
    Interface that is difficult to use.
    No features that other smart watches don’t have.
    Lacking tech like a thermometer or even a GPS.
    It really isn’t anything special to look at.

    The Apple watch is not for those who value fashion or even those aspiring to be fashionable. Let’s face it in 2015 a Casio digital watch especially those from the 1980’s are more fashionable than the Apple watch. For health fanatics it an alternative to any Fitbit model or example and those who simply want the next Apple device. The Apple Watch is not a geek accessory it’s for people who rather not take their phone out to check stuff  – we’re guessing. We really felt that Apple Watch simply copied the features of Android Wear interface but made it worse like the menu system which really does seem tacked on. The Apple watch does not lead the class in anything but marketing and PR spend to be completely honest.

    In the end the Apple watch does work really well as a notification device and tells time along with the various basic health monitoring but so does any other current smart watch. Until they work out how to make the Apple watch unique or to do something really special it is just like the Apple Newton.

    Key Apple Watch specifications: 

    • Digital Crown
    • Retina display with Force Touch
    • Heart rate sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope
    • Ambient light sensor
    • Speaker and microphone
    • Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz) and Bluetooth 4.0
    • 205mha Battery
    • At least 1 day
    • Water resistant
    • Height: 38.6 mm or 42.0 mm
    • Width: 33.3 mm or 35.9 mm
    • Depth: 10.5 mm
    • Case weight : 25 g  or 30 g
    • Band weight : 47 g  or 51 g

     

  • Acer Liquid Metal Review

    hyp4mhz
    Welcome to the 2011 Acer Liquid Metal quick review.  Initial released in 2010 the Liquid Metal was not until late 2011 when it was priced under $200 outright. As an Android OS based phone it comes with everything you need for your connected lifestyle.  It has a strange name that implies its made of liquid metal but clearly it isn't. Besides that there are a few other things that Acer have done to Android which are a bit dubious in terms of functionality. Read on if your still interested... In terms of construction the Liquid Metal is pretty good. It is made mostly of metal except for the front display which is a glass like material for a the capacitive touch screen. The back is split into two which is fine considering it has a replaceable battery - yay. It is smooth touch but we came away thinking it was a bit on the chunky side like the original Compaq iPaq (is you can remember what that was). However for the price and of course the hardware its packing on the inside it is forgivable. Although the phone runs Android OS, although Acer has installed it's Breeze UI on top of the the standard interface.  While Breeze UI is impressive to look and play with we think it just reverses the standard screen.  In fact we found the reversal of the touch buttons on the bottom of the screen very annoying. Although you can turn off Breeze you can't change the button order which is a pity. So if you can live with it then this, the Liquid Metal  could be for you. Overall it was stable and fast during during the test period and more impressive than the Huawei Sonic or the HTC Wildfire S. The Liquid Metal has a good CPU that runs at 800Mhz and a separate GPU so it will run any game or app better than most. Most mid range Android mobile phones of late 2010 only have a single CPU which makes this Acer quite a bit better than the rest. The only problem the Liquid Metal has is on the 3G hardware side of things, namely is that it won't work on the Telstra 850Mhz network, but Optus or Vodaphone networks will work just fine! Overall the Acer Liquid Metal is a very good mobile phone for the price, in fact it worked better than the equally price Huawei Sonic we recently tested. (The Sonic is noticeably slower) Regardless we are finding it difficult to write anything new about Android OS based phones as they can basically do anything you want. The only differences are the novel Acer developed interface 'enhancements' and physical design which none to date are standouts. The only other thing we can think of is branding or company history. Acer makes decent hardware so by association the Liquid Metal should be a decent phone until the next round of models releases. Taking all that into account, if you want cheapest and one of the best Android phones then the Acer Liquid metal is a great choice. Specifications
    • Acer Liquid Metal
    • Network Quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 Dual-band 3G 850/1900/2100 HSDPA 14.4 Mbits data speed (download) 2.2 MBits data speed (upload)
    • Design Touch screen
    • L115 x W63 x D13.5 mm Weight 135 grams
    • Display/s External 3.6 Inch TFT 480 x 800
    • Camera 5MP LED Flash
    • Video Camera 720p video camera 30FPS
    • Connectivity Wi-Fi Bluetooth V2.1
    • CPU 800Mhz Separate GPU Adreno 205 running up to 600Mhz
    • Memory Up to 512MB available to user MicroSD up to 32Gig
    • Ring tones MIDI, MP3, Video, vibration and others
    • Features A-GPS Proximity Compass Accelerometer (G-Sensor) Light Sensor Music and Media player Organiser/Calender SMS, MMS, IM, Email Speaker Phone/Hands free Li-Po 1500mAh battery Up to 550 hours Standby Up to 11 hours Talk Time
    • Price history Under $199 AUS 2011 (Approx outright)