Mobile heaven is in the clouds

Acer CloudMobile S500 is a new smart phone that provides access to cloud storage service from Acer, allowing you to retrieve your document and multimedia files on the go.

The S500 also comes in a sleek, slim and light body and is a powerful smart phone. It is only 9.9mm thin and weighs 125 grams. 

It uses a 4-3-inch IPS HD display with 1280 x 720 pixels in 342 pixels per inch resolution depth. The screen uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology, which provides realistic colours and reduces glare as well as being very responsive and good for watching videos.

The S500 is powered by dual-core Snapdragon S4 1.5 GHz processor and has 1 gigabyte of RAM. It provides 8 GB internal storage, upgradable with a microSD card of up to 32 GB. It runs on Google’s Android 4.04 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS.

The S500 uses 3G connection of HSPA 21-Mbps protocol of 900, 1900 and 2100 MHz frequencies.

Unfortunately, it does not support my TrueMove H’s 850MHz 3G network so the smart phone functions were mostly tested on a Wi-Fi connection. The handset supports 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connections.

The S500 had good performance during the test. The touch screen and menus were very responsive. The scrollable screens scrolled fast. Video clips and YouTube clips played beautifully and smoothly.

The S500 also features crystal-clear voice call, using noise cancellation and WB-AMR+ (Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate) technologies.

The S500 can also function as a high quality MP3 player thanks to the provided Dolby Mobile 3 technology. The provided stereo headset delivered good quality sound. When I tested it with my Sony premium in-ear earphones, the quality was very impressive. The Dolby Mobile 3 comes with several useful equaliser settings for choosing, including Rock, Jazz, Pop, Classical, R&B, Blues, Electronic, Metal and Dance.

The S500 comes with an 8 megapixel camera, which takes good quality snapshots for a mobile phone for sharing and uploading to social network sites, such as Facebook. The camera has good performance with no shutter lag. It also has a continuous shooting mode for firing ten shots in just one second.

The cloud storage function makes the S500 outstanding and that’s why it is called a Cloud Mobile device.

You can use AcerCloud app to register for an account of AcerCloud by providing an email as a username and set a password. AcerCloud server will then send an email to your email and you need to activate the account.

After you have registered for an account, you can link up to 32 devices, including up to 8 non-Acer devices to your account. You can then use the S500 for accessing your AcerCloud account and files from a computer that you have set as your Cloud PC.

You need to download an AcerCloud Installer to your Cloud PC and then you can set which folders which function as your cloud storages for music files, pictures, and video clips. 

The AcerCloud software sets the pictures, music and video folders in the Document folder as well as public music, video and pictures folders as the default cloud storage folders. You can add more folders to your cloud storage system.

You need to leave your cloud PC on or at least in a sleep mode for your S500 or other devices that are linked to your AcerCloud account to access the video, music and photos stored on your cloud PC.

During the test, I had no problem viewing photos stored on my cloud PC from the S500. I could also play music files on my cloud PC on the S500 but it took several seconds to download the first part of the music before playing.

And the AcerCloud app on the S500 can automatically upload all pictures taken with the phone to your personal PicStream storage of the AcerCloud server for accessing by your computer or other devices linked to your AcerCloud account.

Another useful feature is that when you edit and save Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel files on any PC with AcerCloud software installed, copies of the files will be automatically saved to your personal cloud storage on Acer server for you to access by the S500 or other Android mobile devices.

Acer CloudMobile S500 retails for Bt13,990.

 

       Key specs

_ OS: Android 4.04

_ Processor: Dual Core, 1.5 GHz

_ Networks: 2G 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz; HSPA 3G 900, 1900, 2100 MHz 

_ RAM: 1 GB

_ Storage: 8GB, expandable with microSD up to 32GB

_ Screen Display: 4.3-inch HD720 (1280x720), IPS Touch Capacitive Multi-touch

_ Camera: 8MP + 0.9MP front, recording 1080p video @ 30fps

_ Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n; Bluetooth Class 4.0, A-GPS, NFC

_ Battery: Li-ion Battery 1460 mAh

_ Dimensions: 127 x 65.8 x 9.9 mm

_ Weight: 125g