Acer’s F900 smartphone coming to the UK

Acer's new Tempo F900 smartphone is tipped for imminent arrival on UK shores.

The device was first showcased back in February at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona and, as its UK launch draws near, it's gathering more admiring looks at this week's Computex show in Taiwan.

Some expected the handset to be available from last month. Acer has remained pretty tight lipped about confirming the official UK launch, but a note on retailer Clove's website suggests stock has been delayed until the middle of this month, hinting at a possible and not too far away arrival date.

The handset, which has a suggested retail price tag of 429 including VAT, is claimed to "make mobile internet attractive and accessible."

It features a 3.8 inch VGA screen, Internet Explorer 6, with JavaScript and Adobe Flash Lite, in addition to high-speed HSDPA connectivity.

A widgets-based Acer 2.0 user interface is also onboard to aid navigation and desktop' customisation, in addition to Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube.

Acer announced its smartphone strategy back at MWC, hinting at its ambitious future plans to become a top five player.

"The smartphone market is the natural direction of our long-term mobile strategy as our ambition is to offer compelling solutions to all the needs of mobile users. Our experience has given us the ability to listen to the market, but also the capacity to anticipate it. We're not only spectators of consumers lives; we're active participants in their desires and choices," Gianfranco Lanci, president and chief executive of Acer, said in a statement at MWC.

"This proactive approach of listening and responding will make our mission of breaking barriers between people and technology more real than ever. We're just taking on another dimension."