The GSM’s Best Friend; the Acer BeTouch E101
For quite some time now, 2G mobile phone users have been getting the bad end of the stick in terms of mobile phone choices. Most of the better hardware and capabilities are found in fully dedicated 3G smart phones.
With the advancements in HSDPA technology, more web applications and web integrated features are made specifically for 3G smart phones. Fortunately for GSM users, Acer has now made a mobile phone that delivers smart phone functionality to a full GSM device. The Acer BeTouch E101 is a 2G smart phone that has all the features you would expect from a high end mobile phone but made exclusively for 2G networks.
The BeTouch E101 is actually a 2G clone of the 3G BeTouch E100. With all the same features and hardware sans 3G technology (no HSDPA, of course), the E101 is providing GSM users an excellent mobile phone upgrade option without having to subscribe to a 3G line.
Not only does the BeTouch 101 have great hardware, but it is also running Windows Mobile 6.5. It is one of the few GSM devices to use this operating system.
The New Windows Mobile Operating System
New is not really the word we are looking for. Re-skinning might be a better term since the new 6.5 operating system is practically 6.1 with a few size adjustments and yes, faster performance. At least it's faster, because everything else too similar and sadly too old.
Window Mobile 7 is still far from seeing a viable release date, and while the E101 is a great mobile phone, if the only reason you want it is for the new Windows OS, do not even bother. Despite having a lot of touch screen functionality, the design of the 6.5 OS fails to take into account the average size of the human finger.
If you are not using a stylus, prepare to be utterly frustrated trying to use the media player and its incredibly small buttons. Thankfully, the BeTouch E101 has a resistive touch screen so you will always be using a stylus.
Hardware Specifications
The Acer BeTouch E101 is a medium sized mobile phone. Medium, in terms of when you compare it to the current average size, but physically, at a little under 120mm, this is a rather small device. Light and handy, you can easily carry it with you in your bag or your pocket.
It all runs on a Qualcomm MSM 7225 processor at 528 MHz, for a GSM device with WinMo 6.5 that's pretty fast and more than enough for most mobile applications. The 3.2 inch resistive TFT touch screen display has a resolution of 240 x 400 pixels and can display up to 65k colours. It works perfectly as a media player as it supports various file formats. The 2 mega pixel camera also takes amazing quality images and even videos.
Final Words
If you have been dying to upgrade your GSM mobile phone, then the BeTouch E101 is definitely the way to go. It's the closest you can get to a 3G smart phone without having to sacrifice budget.
