Acer branded DX900 smartphone on its way

Acer, best known for its PCs and laptops will be releasing its first smartphone at the end of February, coinciding with Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Full details of the handset of available at UK eTailer Clove Technology, which lists a price of 395 excluding VAT.

The DX900 will be a dual-sim phone, enabling users to run, for example, both a business and a personal number in the same handset and switch between them on the fly.

Acer does have experience with Window based PDAs and the DX900 will be a Windows powered device. it will support quad-band GSM and HSDPA, and feature Wi-Fi and GPS. The display will be full VGA and a 3-megapixel auto focussing camera will be present too.

There will also be a microSD card slot for adding memory and TV-out capability. It's to be powered by a 500MHz processor, half the clock speed on offer inside Toshiba's forthcoming handset.

Many internet observers have noted its similarity to Eten's Glofish DX900, suggesting that Acer will be just rebranding the lesser known manufacturer's handset in order to grab some smartphone market share.

Benny Har-Even is a twenty-year stalwart of technology journalism who is passionate about all areas of the industry, but telecoms and mobile and home entertainment are among his chief interests. He has written for many of the leading tech publications in the UK, such as PC Pro and Wired, and previously held the position of technology editor at ITPro before regularly contributing as a freelancer.

Known affectionately as a ‘geek’ to his friends, his passion has seen him land opportunities to speak about technology on BBC television broadcasts, as well as a number of speaking engagements at industry events.