Acer announces nameless 4.8-inch Android smartphone; April 2011 launch

Acer announced Tuesday that it will launch an Android smartphone in the second quarter of 2011. The massive device will feature a 4.8-inch 1024 x 480-pixel touchscreen display, a 1GHz processor, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, HSDPA 14.4, DLNA, Dolby sound and more. According to Acer, the device will be “100% phone and 100% tablet.” No pricing was announced for this tall drink of water but more details should trickle in over the next few months. Hit the break for Acer’s press release.

Nokia: some N8 units have a ‘power management’ issue

Following widespread reports, Nokia confirmed on Thursday that some of its N8 smartphones are faulty. The response comes following reports from N8 owners around the world claiming that their devices inexplicably died. Users all complained of similar symptoms — the device wouldn’t reboot, take a charge or even power on after the failure. As some speculated, Nokia confirmed that the issue is related to power management. Thankfully, the issue does not affect all N8 handsets and as Nokia’s statement points out, faulty units will be replaced under warranty.

ViewSonic ViewPad 7 hits Amazon for $120

In a peculiar turn of events, Amazon has made ViewSonic’s upcoming ViewPad 7 tablet available for pre-order. Amazon — an online retailer known for retail prices so low that countless brick and mortar retailers have been forced out of business — is charging $120 over MSRP for the upcoming Android tablet. A 7-inch touchscreen display, cellular data connectivity with support for voice calling, a 3-megapixel rear camera, a 0.3-megapixel front camera for video chat, 512MB of RAM, microSDHC support (up to 32GB) and up to 10 hours of battery life all sound great, but definitely not great enough to warrant $120 above retail. The ViewSonic ViewPad 7 is set to launch some time before the end of the year.

Blackberry Torch (Bold 9800)

The BlackBerry Torch or Bold 9800 is a great device that gives other phones a run for their money. What makes it so exciting is that it maintains its Blackberry heritage while running on better software. Under the hood, we get a 624 MHz Marvell processor, 512 MB internal memory, 4 GB internal storage, the BlackBerry 6 OS, a 3.2-inch high-resolution display, a 5.0MP camera, and a heck of a lot more. Sounds
great, but then there is also the free Instant Messaging, Internet Browsing, Facebook, Twitter and E-mail that you get when you subscribe to the Blackberry Service every month.

But no iPhone Killer for the Blackberry yet!