Acer showed off the Acer CloudMobile S500 at IFA 2012 and although it's not the first time the handset has been revealed to the world, it does mean it's finally ready for a European launch.
Acer is pushing its upcoming smartphone as being one of the most cloud-friendly around. This is because Acer is priming the S500 with its AcerCloud app, which allows you to synch up content to a number of other Acer devices.
Yes, it's very similar to iCloud but this seems much more skewed to a business user. So, if you are tapping up missives on your phone then you will be able to access this content on your PC when you boot the thing up.
This inter-connectivity is so ingrained within the S500 that the company has decided to brand the handet the Acer CloudMobile.
Looks-wise, the S500 has an air of functionality about it – which is a nice way to say that it isn't the most stylish device we have seen.
It's not ugly, though, there's a silver trim that accentuates the look of the S500 nicely and this is backed by a curved bottom and top.
And even though it's a touch thick at 9mm, it felt comfortable in the hand because of the curved back and sharp edging.
The screen comes packing a 4.3-inch display (720 x 1280 pixels) and there's a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.5GHz chip inside powering the thing. This is supported by 1GB of RAM and Android 4.0.3 was on board.
The camera functionality on the phone looked to be decent. Flip the handset over and there's an 8MP camera on board which comes with an LED flash, face detection, image stabilisation and Full HD recording. It will also detect your smile if you ask it nice enough.
In the hand the Acer CloudMobile S500 felt sturdy, though the complete lack of a home button on the phone did put us off a little.
When it came to speed, the Acer S500 felt very fast, almost up there with the Galaxy S3 when powering up apps and web surfing and certainly holding its own with the likes of the HTC One X.
Considering we first set eyes on the Acer CloudMobile S500 at MWC, it's been a long wait for Acer's smartphone to come to Europe but with the added bonus of AcerCloud, the S500 is definitely a promising and powerful phone.
The Acer CloudMobile S500 release date is set for September.
