Big review of Acer n300

Acer has lately been trying to rid of a label of a producer of low-end or entry-level Pocket PCs. The first such attempt was Acer n50 and now, the manufacturer ventured to the high society of Pocket PC devices with a VGA display. Do not expect an orgy of innovation; on the other hand, the design and some other features make the Acer N300 stand out from the crowd. There are going to be two models. I managed to get hold the more powerful one, Acer n311, for this review. I should stress that it was a pre-production model and the final version may bring some changes (for the better, hopefully:).

I would like to thank Sunnysoft, a prospective vendor of the device, for lending me the specimen for review purpose.

PLEASE NOTE :: This review dates from before Christmas 2005. Unfortunately, I has not been authorised for publishing before the official introduction of the device to the market. I apologise for any time-related inconsistencies in the review but they should not be very significant...

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What is in the box?

The box is tiny. I dare say it is the smallest Pocket PC packaging I have ever seen. The more surprising is how much the manufacturer managed to squeeze in:

• Acer n300
• replaceable battery
• cradle (Acer n311 only)
• USB cable
• AC adpater
• pouch
• CD-ROM with applications
• CD-ROM with localisation from Sunnysoft
• leaflet with basic instructions for use
• warranty information and other minor items

Apart from the device and battery, which we shall deal with later, the most interesting item in the box is a black cradle. It immediately caught my attention by its asymmetric shape that makes it different from any cradle I have seen before. Fortunately, it is not an arbitrary creation of an unacknowledged ingenious industrial designer but a highly practical design. Acer was first to realise that some users may prefer the landscape mode even in the cradle, and has come up with this solution. When you attach a transparent plastic holder to the cradle, you can lay it on the side. See images below to get the idea.

That is not everything, though. A large base and rubber lining of the bottom give the cradle extreme stability and it won't move a bit on the desktop. One of the sides is rubber-lined, too, so the foregoing applies also to the horizontal position. Another convenient feature is a slot for charging a spare battery, which is a must, as we will see later. At the rear, there is no fixed cable but three connectors: one for the power cable, one for the USB synchronisation cable (miniUSB) and one for an external USB device. Yes, this Acer supports the USB Host technology, which extends the expandability options. Add a green LED indicator on the front and one must come to a conclusion that someone did use brain when designing the cradle.

The synchronisation USB cable and AC adapter are ordinary pieces of hardware. The USB cable sports a miniUSB connector on one end and a standard USB connector on the other. If someone finds its 120 centimetres too short, it can be easily extended. The AC adapter (5 V / 2.6 A) offers a longer cable - 150 centimetres should be sufficient to reach from the desktop to the nearest mains outlet.

In order to prevent scratches, the manufacturer bundles a soft grey plush pouch whose opening can be tightened up with a string. It serves the purpose but if you mean to protect your device against heavier damage than scratches, get a more rugged case.

The rest of the items in the box include a CD-ROM with bonus applications, a CD-ROM with localisation software from Sunnysoft (if you buy the deice in the Czech Republic), a leaflet with basic instructions for absolute beginners (a more detailed manual is available on the CD in the electronic form), and a few information leaflets and warranty details.

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Design

A display is a dominant part of every Pocket PC. This applies to the Acer more than in other cases. Partly due to the elegant black and silver colour combination, the device looks as if it were all a huge display. A closer inspection will reveal that this is not true. Nevertheless, I was amazed when I first saw the Acer with its activated 3.7-inch (94-millimetre) display. This was not the only surprise. Pocket PCs with VGA displays I had seen before were powerful, feature-packed devices, which made them rather bulky and heavy. However, the Acer n300 can easily compare not only with VGA Pocket PCs but also QVGA devices! The dimensions are 4.33 x 2.76 x 0.54 inches / 110 x 70 x 13,7 millimetres and weight 4.59 ounces / 130 grams, which is excellent. You can hardly feel it in the hand.

The display aside, the overall design of the device is humble and modest. The corners and edges are rounded. The body is made of several types of plastic, all of which seem reasonably durable, with the exception of the silver edges that I failed to protect against scratches even though I handled it with great care. The device is assembled very well, all parts fit perfectly, and there is no leeway anywhere. It is hard to guess what it will be like after half a year of everyday use but with the exception of the silver plastic, I am quite optimistic.

Competing Pocket PC	Dimensions (in / mm)	Weight (oz / g)
Acer n300	4.33 x 2.76 x 0.54 110 x 70 x 13.7	4.59 130
Acer n50	4.72 x 2.76 x 0.69 120 x 70 x 17.4	5.29 150
Asus MyPal A730	4.65 x 2.87 x 0.67 118 x 73 x 17	6.0 170
Dell Axim X50v	4.68 x 2.87 x 0.67 119 x 73 x 17	6.3 179
FSC Pocket LOOX 720	4.80 x 2.83 x 0.59 122 x 72 x 15	6.0 170 (approx.)
HP iPAQ rx1950	4.47 x 2.78 x 0.5 70 x 113 x 13.5	4.4 125
HP iPAQ hx4700	5.16 x 3.03 x 0.59 131 x 77 x 15	6.6 187
i-mate JASJAR	5.00 x 3.19 x 0.98 127 x 81 x 25	10.0 285
T-Mobile MDA Compact	4.25 x 2.28 x 0.70 108 x 58 x 18	5.3 150

I may be repeating myself but the display is just wonderful. If you manage to detach your eyes from it, you will discover a few more elements on the front panel, including two status indicators above the display (the left-hand one shines blue and indicates wireless activity, the other shines green to notify of system events), and four user-definable buttons and a miniature joystick below the display. The buttons can be assigned one action each. A mini-joystick and four buttons - what a gamer can wish for! Unfortunately, the solution is not ideal, on the contrary. Besides the fact that the joystick is not very sensitive, it does not support diagonal directions that are required in many games. You do not need to regret that considered the not very impressive graphics performance of the device but more on that later. The buttons are OK, though.

The sides and the back do carry few elements of interest. On the back, it is a large battery compartment door and several pinholes over a built-in loudspeaker. The left-hand side carries the main switch and a "Hold" switch that deactivates the display, the touch layer and all buttons to prevent accidental activation of the device when you carry it in the pocket, for instance. The right-hand side is completely bare.

On the top side is an SD card slot, a standard 3.5-mm headphones output, and a stylus shaft. The opposite side carries a data connector and a submerged reset button. The stylus is 97 millimetres long, very thin and light. It consists of a metal body and plastic ends and looks quite sturdy. I did not encounter anything that would hamper comfortable use.

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Parameters

Pocket PCs from Acer usually do not rank among the top performers. The same applies to the Acer n300. The two models in the latest series, the n310 and n311, differ slightly from each other but none of them stands out of the crowd in either negative or positive way.

The processor is an absolutely acceptable Samsung S3C2440 running at 400 MHz (300 MHz in the n310). It is true that this is a VGA Pocket PC with the least powerful processor to date, however, the overall performance is sufficient for the vast majority of everyday tasks. ON the contrary, an option to lower the clock speed would come handy, because the 400 MHz is a waste of power for some applications. The Acer n311 features 128 MB of FlashROM (the other model only 64 MB) and 64 MB of SDRAM (both models), which is a standard in the given price category. After the first start, the user can access less than the full capacity: some 82 MB of FlashROM for data and installed applications and 35 MB of RAM for their execution, which is perfectly enough.

The display that I have extolled above is a TFT one with a resolution of 480 x 640 pixels and support for 65 thousand colours. The diagonal is 3.7 inches (94 millimetres), which is less than in many of the device's competitors. On the other hand, it has negligible black margins, so the real display area is fine. One of the main reasons why I like the display so much is its snow-white backlight that can be adjusted at 20 levels separately for battery and mains operation. I am convinced that it is the same display as that in Dell Axim X50v and X51v; I could compare them and the resemblance is unmistakeable. The Acer even seemed a bit brighter. I tried evaluating display colours in the Acer, Axim X51v and iMate JASJAR using Pocket LCD and discovered significant differences in colour temperature. The JASJAR offered slightly more saturated colours, which was particularly apparent in yellows and browns. This can be attributed also to the brightness (the Acer as well as the Dell are brighter than the JASJAR). It is up to personal taste - I prefer pure white at the expense of colour saturation. It seemed to me that the display was better readable in direct sunlight than most other Pocket PCs and was less reflective. The touch-sensitive layer was perfectly and evenly responsive. The only improvement I can think of as regards the display could be an intelligent automatic backlight adjustment.

The device's audio capabilities are very good. The best performer of the classic three audio features is the standard 3.5-mm headphones output. I tested the output with Koss Porta Pro headphones as usual, as well as with new Sennheiser HD600 (the Boxing Day was early this year:) and I liked the sound very much. Some may be disappointed at the impossibility to adjust anything but the volume but if you refer undistorted sound, the Acer won't disappoint you. The maximum volume is sufficient even for noisy environment and the sound remains clear and noise-free. In short, audio playback over the headphones is really good. One cannot expect miracles of an integrated loudspeaker. Its main disadvantage is that it is located on the back of the device, so it plays into your hand. However, this is not a major problem due to sufficient loudness. Perhaps the weakest link in the audio chain is the microphone. Sound quality is good at a close range but it falls sharply with growing distance - check a test recording here [97KB]. It is worse than other Pocket PCs despite the option to adjust microphone sensitivity either manually or leave it to the device to take care of it automatically.

Now, onto communication features. First of all, there is no infrared port. This once indispensable part of any mobile device first started disappearing from laptops and it seems that this trend has now hit the Pocket PC world. I looked twice but could not find it. It is just not there:) I wonder what the response from users will be... Instead, the Acer offers a classic USB Client version 1.1 as well as USB Host version 1.1, which significantly broadens the range of connectable devices. More on that in the next chapter. As a minor bonus, there is a virtual port feature that can be used for access to any GPS, so data from it can be processed by several applications simultaneously.

The Bluetooth is version 1.2, and to much surprise, the driver is a good old one from Broadcomm (formerly known as Widcomm), although there were reports that there would not be other Bluetooth drivers in Windows Mobile 5 than that from Microsoft. This is therefore very good news. The Broadcomm driver supports a wider range of profiles i.e. provides a broader range of application. Most importantly, it is more sophisticated in all aspects, featuring various wizards that help with the settings, including easy connection to a BT keyboard in the latest version of the driver. It took less than 15 seconds to set up ActiveSync over Bluetooth with a Dell Latitude X1 laptop, and even less with a Navilock BT-338 GPS receiver. I tested navigation and the connection was stable all the way home from work (a 60- minute drive). Finally, I tried pairing with MDA Compact over Bluetooth. Although initially unsuccessful, I did eventually succeed in connecting to the internet this way. Hadn't it been for two low-memory warnings (I had 16 MB free RAM), I would have considered the Acer as a device with the best Bluetooth implementation ever...

Finally, the WiFi. According to the specifications, it a WLAN module from Samsung (SWL-2455). It supports the most common WiFi protocol, IEEE 802.11b, with data transmission speed of up to 11 Mbps, roaming between access points as well as a power saving mode. Supported standards include WPA, WPA-PSK, WEP and TKIP. The application includes a handy configuration utility, as you can see in the screenshots below. I successfully connected the device to my home AP Asus WL-530g (WPA-PSK and TKIP); the signal was sufficient everywhere in the flat. I also conducted a five-minute Skype call without the slightest problem.

Time on battery is the Achilles' heel of the device. The results of four tests are rather unsatisfactory considered the fact that the operating system is WM5, which can drain the 1200-mAh Li-Ion battery completely. Fortunately, the Acer can be charged over USB - it is slow, especially with maximum display backlights, but it works. A solution at hand is to have a spare battery that you can charge in the extra slot in the cradle. Also, a battery with a greater capacity should be available in the near future.

• Standard test of common usage, maximum backlight - 2h39m
• Video playback, maximum backlight - 3h21m
• MP3 playback, inactive display - 12h05m
• Active WiFi, no workload - 2h13m

Note: The standard test utilises the full capacity of the processor by opening a huge Word document due to a bug in Spb Benchmark. The result should not therefore be taken for granted - this is not the standard way PDAs are used.

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USB Host

The presence of the USB Host technology in a Pocket PC is hardly surprising these days yet it has not become a standard yet. That is why Acer deserves praise for its inclusion ion its latest model. It is implemented only in the cradle, a cable is not included in the package but is available as optional accessory (for Acer n311). I had the time and mood to experiment with the technology and tried plugging in various USB devices. Here are my findings.

First of all, I connected different types of devices one ata a time. The first successful attempt was a USB flash drive Pretec iDrive Tiny 512 MB - the system detected it immediately and could read from it and write to it without any problems. Then I tried a BenQ keyboard. It worked at the first attempt, too, and I was able to type the first sentence in a little while. I had to install a localisation from Sunnysoft in order to be able to type accented characters. What I found positive was support for function keys and shortcuts - for instance, when I pressed Ctrl + R and Ctrl + L while working in Pocket Word, the text aligned to the right or left, respectively. The system did recognise a BenQ mouse but with partial success only. The cursor did not display, so I could only try clicking blindly, which is of no use, obviously. (I then found appropriate software but it did not work under WM5). There was more fun with my wife's new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX9 digital camera. It took just a few seconds before it was accessible from the device. The system automatically discovered photos in it and offered to preview them. In combination with the VGA display, this can be priceless on travels. You just always need to bear in mind power consumption of USB devices because the current is limited to 0.5 A in one cable, I think. I could connect a flash drive and keyboard over a USB Hub without any additional power source, or the keyboard and the digital camera (which has its own battery), but it is still a factor to consider.

A portable 40 GB USB hard drive was the last device I tried to connect. It looked bad initially - the system could detect the drive but reported zero size. Only after a while did I realise that the system does not support the NTFS format. I wanted to reformat it with FAT32 but Windows XP does not (does not want to) support so large drives in this format. I had to create a smaller partition (30 GB), which the Acer could detect correctly. Unlike in my previous experiments with the LOOX, detection of the drive took only 5 seconds after which it was fully available. Another (greater) surprise came when I created another partition in the remaining 10 GB and the Acer automatically mapped it as Hard Disk2! I successfully copied some files between the two partitions, although the speed was rather limited due to the USB 1.1 standard.

Encouraged by the successes, I tried connecting several USB devices simultaneously, but with less success. My idea was to plug in the digital camera, hard drive and keyboard and copy photos from one device to the other in the landscape mode, proved too daring. The Acer appears to support two USB devices at a time and won't detect a third one. This is why my original plan failed but the camera and hard drive did work, so I could copy 35 MB of photos from the camera to the disk, which took around 4 minutes. Other combinations of two were equally successful to my full satisfaction (mind you, we are talking about a PDA:)

That was not enough for me and I went on experimenting. The Pocket PC platform does not support the USB Mass Storage standard, so I installed Softick Card Export II to my MDA Compact to resolve the problem. More precisely, it makes it possible to access a memory card in the Pocket PC from another device over USB. And really, the Acer suddenly detected a 1 GB memory card that was plugged in the Compact! When I connected the Compact and the hard drive to the Acer over the USB Hub and tried copying files from the disk to the memory card in the Compact, guess what the result was... Success again:) If you did not get the point, let me explain once again: the Acer n300 and software Softick Card Export II installed on the MDA Compact made it possible to copy files between a memory card in the Compact and a hard drive, both of whom were connected to the same USB Hub. What a technology!

When I was just about to plug in a washing machine, I changed my mind and stopped experimenting with the USB Host. It is a question whether there is any practical use of all that but I can imagine one could backup holiday photos while sorting them quickly.

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Expandability

Apart from the aforementioned USB Host functionality, the Acer n300 features only the most common expansion options, including a standard SD slot with SDIO support, which I tested with an SD digital camera from HP. The sophisticated Bluetooth driver makes it possible to connect a wide range of other devices and accessories. Some peripherals, such as a data projector, can be connected over WiFi. That's all.

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Software

We will be through with software quickly. The operating system is Windows Mobile 5 Premium Edition, which includes the complete software suite from Microsoft except phone-related applications. Besides that, there are only the aforementioned utilities and a data backup and restore application called simply Backup Restore. Although your data are much safer under Windows Mobile 5 than under previous versions of the system, it is a good idea to keep a backup copy on a memory card. Another bonus application is an MPEG video player called Pocket TV Pro. The bundled CD-ROM contains only the very basic software from Microsoft.

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Differences between Acer n311 and Acer n310

The Acer n300 series will include two different models. I mentioned some of the differences in the text, below is a comprehensive table:

	Acer n311	Acer n310
Synchronisation	Cradle	Cable
Procesor Samsung	400 MHz	300 MHz
FlashROM	128 MB	64 MB
WiFi	Yes	No
Price	Higher	Lower:)

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Pricing

The official prices for the Czech Republic are as follows – Acer N310 sells for CZK 9200 including VAT, Acer N311 sells for CZK 11000 including VAT (1 USD ~ 25 CZK). The price tags are extremely attractive and I tip the weaker model for a top-seller. To have a PDA with VGA display for less than CZK 10000 is a dream-come-true for many a user. As far as I can judge from discussion forums, many users would love to buy a VGA device but won’t because of the price or size. The Acer n300 has removed those barriers. We shall see:)

[POLL]

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Impressions, Benchmarks & Tests

I have been praising the device most of the time, let's take a closer look now at the downsides. The wonderful display is in a stark contrast with lousy graphics performance. Unlike the Dell, the Acer lacks a powerful graphics processor, which seriously affects the performance. Forget about watching video in the VGA resolution, it is far to jerky. In a benchmark in the TCPMP software (formerly known as BetaPlayer), the Dell Axim X51v scored an amazing 192 percent, whereas the Acer only 57 percent, which is too bad. Reduce the quality does not help much: a 640 x 352 video with a bitrate of 1 Mbit is still too jerky. If you downsize to QVGA (320 x 240 pixels), the video becomes watchable. However, you do not need to buy a VGA device for that. Gaming experience was equally bad. When I ran a game optimised for QVGA (ZRaid), it was not playable for excessive jerkiness (and the bad joypad). It was not any better with a VGA-optimised game (Anthelion 2) - it was far more jerky than acceptable. The graphics performance does not matter very much for everyday tasks, such as checking emails, editing documents etc. but if you require a true multimedia Pocket PC, this Acer is not the right choice. There may be a bug in the video driver and it will be sorted out by a ROM upgrade (remember, this was a pre-production unit!), but this is pure speculation.

Pocket PC	BetaPlayer Benchmark
Acer n311 (VGA)	57,87%
Dell Axim X51v (VGA)	192,85%
HP iPAQ hx4700 (VGA)	149,52%
FSC Pocket LOOX 720 (VGA)	121,43%
HTC Universal (VGA)	89,94%

The device performs significantly better in computing power. If you are concerned about the Samsung processor, there is no need to worry, I assure you. I did not encounter any processor-performance related problems during the testing period. Besides applications, I worked with GPS navigation and Skype, for instance, and everything worked fine. There should not be any problems with the memory either - this part of the device is well designed, unlike the graphics.

I have mentioned the other features and characteristics throughout. Overall, it is a well designed and balanced device boasting an excellent display, small form factor, USB Host and other great features. There are only two weaknesses - bad graphics performance and short time on battery. Whereas the former will be a concern only for some user, the latter for all. A solution at hand is a spare battery, especially if you look at the price tag;)

A few photos just for fun:) The Acer might look better in the hands of a blonde model but this is more politically correct...

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Detailed evaluation

Now, a few words to explain the evaluation criteria. The Type can be Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone edition, or Smartphone. The Class means the target group, which is key for understanding the other categories. The number of points in the other categories is relative with regard to the class. For instance, a device with a VGA display, two expansion slots, BT and WiFi modules in the high-end category will receive nine points for a certain weight, whereas a device in the "entry" class with a QVGA display, one slot and no radio module will receive three points for the same weight. The date is also important - if I am rating a 1.3-Mpix integrated camera today, it will receive 10 points because there is nothing better available. In half a year, when 2-Mpix integrated cameras will be available, this one would receive fewer points.

If you would like to comment on the evaluation, please join the discussion. I am not doing this for my own pleasure but to make it easier for you to choose a new device. If you think it is a wrong idea, just let me know:)

Rating
Name:	Acer n311
Type:	Pocket PC
Class:	For everybody
System:	Windows Mobile 5
Date:	February 9, 2005
Design, user friendliness
Design:	9,5
Dimensions:	10
Weight:	10
Buttons, user comfort:	6
Assembly quality:	9
Performance, memory
Processor:	7
RAM:	7
ROM:	8,5
Graphics:	4
Display
Resolution:	10
Size:	7
Quality (indoors):	10
Quality (outdoors):	9,5
Podsvícení:	9,5
Dotyková vrstva:	9
Audio
Microphone:	6
Loudspeaker:	8
Headphones output:	10
Communication:
USB:	9,5
Infra:	0
Bluetooth:	9,5
WiFi:	9,5
Battery, power settings
Features:	6
Battery life:	4
Expandability
General:	9
Software
System, settings:	3
Bonus apps in ROM:	2
Bonus apps in CD:	0
Accessories
Quantity:	5
Quality:	9
Other
Overall impression:	9
Manufacturer support:	8
Price/performance ratio	9,5
Total
Acer n311	7,36 out of 10

Notes :: The rating is on the scale from 1 to 10. The higher the figure, the closer to the ideal. If a device receives 10 points for "Design", it means it is beauty from heaven. On the other hand, if it receives 10 points for "Weight", it means it is extremely light.

...and that's all:) Let me stress again that the reviewed device was a pre-production unit, which means that the information herein cannot be taken for granted. If there are any significant differences in the final version, I will update this review.

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