Acer NeoTouch P300

The Acer neoTouch P300 is one of the few new phones that comes with Windows Mobile 6.5.3, the last version of Microsoft's mobile OS before the new version, Windows Phone 7, launches this Christmas. If you're on a Microsoft Exchange company network, Windows Mobile offers many features to make accessing your work contacts, emails and calendars easier.

Size and weight:

The phone itself is not as unorthodox, with its clean, simple, businesslike lines. The design by no means stands out but it looks smart and understated, and it would probably go well with your suit and briefcase. It feels pretty solid in the hand too, weighing in at 130g. It's not particularly thin either, thanks to its slide out qwerty keyboard, but at a touch over 15mm thick, it's a comfortable phone to hold. It measures 15.1 X 55 X 15.1 mm.

Network and connectivity:

It’s a 3G Capable handset. The networking features are GSM Quad-band phone capable of global roaming (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), UMTS European/Asian 3G (2100 MHz). And the connectivity features are EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA 7.2 Mbit/s/HSUPA 2.0 Mbit/s.

Memory and Display:

The display on the main face is more of a mixed bag however. It's a 3.2" resistive LCD with a 240x400 resolution, identical to its non qwerty brother, the neoTouch F400. On the upside, it's bright and sensitive (for a resistive) display, roughly matching the iPhone but on the downside, it's very glossy. Not only does this attract fingerprints, but it's extremely difficult to read in direct sunlight. Even when I cranked it up to full brightness, all I could see was my own face like a mirror! This seems to be quite common on phones nowadays probably because it looks good, but I would swap looks for usability in an instant. Another welcome alteration would be a larger, higher res screen. The Acer neoTouch P300 is a budget Windows Mobile 6.5.3 slider device that was announced at MWC. It's got a Qualcomm 528MHz CPU with 256MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM.

Camera and Video:

The camera is pretty basic at 3.2MP. Luckily, it has autofocus, but lacks a flash or self-portrait mirror. The picture quality was reasonable in daylight, although to get a decent non-blurry photo, I had to keep my hands very steady even though it was a bright sunny day. You can pretty much forget low light pictures though - they're very dark and grainy but then this is to be expected from a camera with no flash. For video, it wasn't too bad but fast movements of both the camera or subject caused a fair amount of blockiness - fine for the occasional snaps, but it's definitely not a replacement for your point-and-shoot.

Entertainment Features:

You get a full set of office apps, including Office Mobile, Adobe's Reader software and MSN Money, as well as Google Maps, Facebook and Windows Live messenger. Microsoft's new Marketplace doesn't have as many apps as Android's Market or Apple's App Store, but the few apps there are of a higher standard than in the Symbian, BlackBerry or Palm app stores. Prepare yourself for a whole new level of instant communication with Acer connected contacts. Simply add your friends’ Facebook, Flickr and Blogger accounts to their contact details and whenever they update anything about themselves or any other information on these pages, you’ll know almost instantly. Also on the P300 is a 3.5mm audio jack, so you can listen to music through your preferred headphones, having said this the speaker quality on the device itself wasn’t bad.

The Acer neoTouch P300 will be among the last devices to run the Windows Mobile operating system, and it isn't a particularly impressive way to bid farewell to the much-maligned OS. There are some neat ideas here, but the resistive touchscreen, slow CPU and awkward software conspire to overshadow the few positives that exist.