Review: Acer Tempo DX900

The DX900 was originally slated for release in 2008 under the glofiish brand, but after Acer’s acquisition of E-TEN now forms part of the opening wave of Windows Mobile devices in Acer’s Tempo range.

It is also the first smartphone to support two SIM cards at once – perfect for frequent overseas travellers or anyone who wants to combine work and personal phones into a single handset.

Specs and info
Price: £399
Operating system: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Processor: Samsung 533MHz
Memory: 128MB RAM, 256MB ROM
Dimensions: 106 x 60.5 x 17mm
Weight: 147g
Display size: 2.8inches
Display resolution: 480×640 pixels
Expansion slot: 1 microSD

The dual-SIM approach works pretty well and in an impressively unfussy way. When a call comes in to one SIM while you are mid-call on the other you have the option to either take the call, cutting off the first, or to ignore it.

It’s a very simple solution, but unfortunately the dual-SIM support is not integrated into the software very well. For example, while we can accept having all incoming text messages dropping into the same inbox we would also have expected that a reply would automatically be sent via the SIM the original message came to.

It doesn’t, you have to manually choose which SIM every time. And since you cannot give them ‘friendly’ names – they are simply labelled SIM1 and SIM2 – it is very easy to send via the wrong one.

The same applies for dialling, where the hardware button enables you to dial through SIM1 only, and calls via SIM2 need to be initiated through the touch screen.

Furthermore while you can assign different ringtones for the two SIMs you cannot have the ringer turned on on one and off on the other, something that would be ideal for anyone using this to combine their work and personal phones.

For data only SIM1 supports 3.5G (SIM2 being up to GPRS speeds only) so that is automatically used for data connections.

Elsewhere the DX900 has clear good and bad points. It is not a svelte model by any means – you almost expect there to be a slide-out qwerty keyboard to account for its thickness – but it is still quite smart and the build quality seems very good. The screen sits flush to the casing so is suitable for finger use, although we did find had to press a little harder at times in order for our commands to be recognised.

Attempts to make Windows Mobile 6.1 finger friendly are, as always, a mixed success. Acer has done a sensible thing by licensing Spb’s Mobile Shell to provide an intuitive UI out of the box.

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