Acer Stream Android smartphone Typically, smartphones make less than satisfying PMPs, especially given the issue of video formats, with very few phones supporting the good old AVI container or Xvid/DivX codecs. Also, sound quality is usually a bit iffy and there is often little in the way of external controls for media navigation that you can use without …
There are probably other media players out there in addition but this http://www.arcmediasoft.com/arcMedia/index.aspx plays .avi files just fine on my HTC desire and i believe will work with Android 1.5 up. Beta so probably the odd bug but smooth as you like for me....
It's all very well having controls for play/pause, skip and previous but, after play/pause, volume controls are probably the next most important to me. I miss the days when all phones had a D-Pad. This offered all the media functions in one simple control. I'd have preferred them to miss out the "previous" button (when does anyone ever use it?) and add a fourth giving; Play/Pause, Next, Vol+, Vol-.
It does look like a really nice device, though and it is good to see someone doing something a bit "radical" and adding buttons to a device. There are many reasons to dislike the iPhone but, for me, the main one is it's kicking off the fashion for getting rid of buttons from touch-screen phones. We don't all want to stand in the middle of the street, looking a complete pillock, swishing, swiping and pinching just to do something we used to be able to manage with the click of a button.
Thanks folks, but those buttons will control the device volume. I don't want to turn down the volume on the ringer just to make my music a bit quieter. All music apps have volume controls independent of device volume. I'd like hardware buttons to control those. Maybe I am just being awkward but it IS being marketed as a PMP/Music device.
If it works anything like my Hero and Desire (and I imagine it does), the physical volume buttons are context-sensitive.
If I'm listening to music with the screen off, they do the music volume and only that. To change the ringing volume you have to be on the home screen or in an app that doesn't use the audio system.
On another note, I really like the sound of that UI skin.
If you change the volume it affects the current application. On the default home screen then it will only affect ringer volume, while in a call it will only affect the in-call volume, while on navigation it will only affect the navigation voice volume and while in a music app.... you can guess the rest!
So are you actually going to buy one now that your needs are satisfied or was it just trying to unsuccessfully nit-pick something you had no interest in anyway?
Can this thing use the full Google Apps Market? My Acer Liquid can't because Acer, or Google, or both are too lazy to add the sigs for the firmware to the permitted list.
Can you make this a standard test for all Android phones? Good apps to search for to test this are the two proper national rail ones - one from croworc and one from thales .. if these don't show, avoid the phone till they sort their crap out.
From page 2 of the review:-
"To view your directorial efforts on a telly the Stream has a micro HDMI port, which resides on the upper right hand side of the handset under a rubber cover next to the micro USB port. It's an arrangement that sadly nixes any chance of using the Stream with a desktop charger."
Why? Or does the reviewer want an iPod style dock instead of having to plug in 2 separate leads?
Er, I have a humble Tattoo and it plays flac via Meridian which was a free download via the Market, so I imagine the Acer Stream could probably do the same. Oh, & the sound quality is probably still better than you can get from one of those weird little Jobs gadgets which won't play flac anyway. Doh!
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folks, just to confirm the volume rocker on the side of the Stream works as per most Android phones - use it in standby and it alters the ringer volume, use it with the media player running and it changes the media playback volume etc. I should have said something about that seeing as media playback is the Stream's main USP.
@ AC 23.33 - thanks for the heads up re. Meridian. Nice little app.
Windows Phone 7 is bound to get better but it's widely known that the first release will be hobbled, (or more charitably) focused on certain consumer functionality. Things like cut & paste and multitasking are not implemented, which you'd think are pretty bloody important. Give it a few more iterations and it will probably give Android a run for its money. Whether that's enough to consider it right now is another matter.
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