Acer launches three new touchscreen phones in India, starting at Rs. 11,900

 

Mobile phones with touch-sensitive screens seem to be getting cheaper by the day. Nokia, Samsung and LG have already joined the bandwagon, and it seems that it’s Acer’s turn now, with the launch of three new phones – two in this lower segment and one premium model.

 

The company has tied up with Tata Docomo to offer initial buyers free download data of 500MB per month for the first six months.

 

The lowest end of the new series is the beTouch e101, which comes with a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen TFT (65K colours, 240×320 pixels), complete with a scroll wheel under it for easier navigation. Running on Windows Mobile 6.5, the device comes equipped with a 2-megapixel camera (albeit without flash or autofocus), 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM (expandable via microSD), and the complete Pocket Office suite. Since it doesn’t have 3G or Wi-Fi, EDGE and Bluetooth will have to suffice for connectivity. The 1140mAh battery claims to last for 5 hours of talk-time and 400 hours of standby time. 

 

The Acer beTouch e101 retails at Rs. 11,900.

 

For a little more cash, users might want to check out the beTouch e200, which sports a smaller 3-inch touchscreen (65K colours, 240×400 pixels), and comes with a 3.15-megapixel camera. The screen also slides up to reveal a full numeric keypad, which can be quite handy for those who do a lot of text messaging.

 

Apart from adding 3G and Wi-Fi to the mix, the beTouch e200 does not vary in features from the features of the beTouch e200, and is appropriately priced at Rs. 17,900.

 

Acer has also launched its premium mobile handset in India, the monstrous neoTouch. Why monstrous? Well, for starters, there’s the 1GHz Snapdragon processor that powers the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. Additionally, Acer has overlaid the operating system with its customised Acer UI 3.0 for easy touch-based navigation. And all that can be used on the large 3.8-inch resistive touchscreen (65K colours, 480×800 pixels), which comes complete with an accelerometer for auto-rotation, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor. 

 

Multimedia is a breeze with this one, as the neoTouch packs a 3.5mm headphone jack and stereo FM radio support to keep music aficionados happy, while pleasing the shutterbugs with a 5-megapixel camera (with autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging and VGA video recording). Filled with all the connectivity options you would need and enough software add-ons for work and social networking, the Acer neoTouch is now available for Rs. 35,000.