The Acer beTouch E130 is that rare beast -- an Android phone with a BlackBerry-styleQwerty keyboard. Fortunately, this doesn't mark it out as a naffnovelty, rather a unique take on what is fast becoming Planet Earth's favouritemobile OS. It's available for £192.04 without a SIM, but hasn't yet beentagged with a pay as you go or contract price here in the UK.
Acer beTouch E130
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Qwerty cutie
Novelty it might be, butthat doesn't mean you should treat the Acer beTouch E130 with the same disdainas you would dual-screen laptops or square clamshell cells. This is thekind of treatment Android has been crying out for, having found itself predominantlyon touchscreen-only devices. The beTouch E130 has atouchscreen as well as a Qwerty keyboard, but we'll touch more on that later (see what we've done there).
The Qwerty keyboard is thecentral focus here and makes the beTouch E130 a dream to use when tapping outlengthy emails. Its bobbled, well-spaced buttons are straight from the NokiaE-series school of design, and that's no bad thing. They're softer than thosefound on equivalent BlackBerrys, too, which means your digits don't tire whilefiring off important missives to your minions (or just texting your Mum).
Behold the beTouchscreen
Slipping through menus ishandled by the trackball, which recalls BlackBerrys of old. While RIM hassince renounced the trackball for the optical trackpad, Acer's choice to use thisageing tech is questionable. It's definitely responsive, but its predilectionfor picking up dust and dirt means you won't want to use it too often to flickthrough emails and Facebook messages. Luckily, you can use the touchscreento fulfil those functions, too.
The touch panel is prettyresponsive and handy for tapping icons, although it's not as assured as thetrackball when it comes to doing more fiddly work, such as scrolling throughmessages and diving deep into Android's menu systems. The touchscreen should beregarded as a secondary input method, rather than the main means of making your wayaround the phone. Viewed as such, it's a handy addition and puts the Acer beTouch E130 ahead of rivals such as the Nokia E5 and BlackBerry Curve 3G.
Dead as a donut
However, while Acer hasfound a way to battle with those at the top of the Qwerty pile, it's let the side down massively by sticking with Android 1.6, Donut. Frankly, it destroys the beTouch E130's claims to be a workaholic's dream machine. Without Android 2.0 or higher,there's no way of loading up multiple email accounts and no Exchange support,making this a much less practical blower than it should be. It alsomeans killer features, like Google Goggles, are missing.
When budget Android phoneslike the HTC Wildfire are kicking it with Android 2.1, it's hard to see whyAcer has made this decision. It hamstrings the phone and stops it deliveringthe same edge as the basic hardware.
Sad snapper
Fortunately, this can befixed with a software upgrade, although Acer is yet to confirm when or if thiswill happen. What can't be fixed by a software bump is the frankly woeful 3-megapixel camera. The 66mm (2.6-inch) screen means you'll have no problem sizing up pictures,but shots appear grainy and lacking in definition even when you're inabsolutely optimum light. There's no flash, either, which means you may as wellkeep it in your pocket on a night out and take a compact camera with youinstead. Here, the beTouch E130 really falls behind the Nokia E5 and itsability to mix messaging nous with snapping skills.
While the sizable panel mightwork well as a viewfinder, it doesn't stand up to closer inspection when itcomes to watching videos or handling music playback. The latter is donethrough Android's terminally average music player, while video looks jumpy andlacks any sort of definition. Likewise, icons look blocky and less thanimpressive. The 320x240-pixel screen is obviously a price to pay for the beTouchE130 being cheap.
Got the connections
Where the Acer beTouch E130does stand out, though, is connectivity. This is a phone that is spec'd to thehilt, with Wi-Fi, HSDPA and Bluetooth. This might not seem remarkable, butstack it up against rivals from BlackBerry and this phone looks the business.It also continues Google's good work in getting even the most standard ofAndroid phones kitted out with optimum tech for any intensive task. It meansusing the integrated Facebook and Flickr apps is swift and satisfying.
Conclusion
The Acer bBeTouch E130 couldbe a real BlackBerry destroyer. We're willing to forgive its camera crimes, butif it wants to be a proper workhorse, Acer must update the Android softwareimmediately.
Edited by Emma Bayly