Acer s10

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Audio has never been a strong suit of Palm-branded handhelds. Thankfully, Palm licensees such as Sony has come up with handhelds like the CLIE PEG-N760C/G which lets music lovers listen to their MP3s on their PDA. Now, Acer has jumped into the fray with the Acer s10, a Palm-powered device that lets you play MP3s and doubles as an audio recorder.

Sticking To Memory Stick
Measuring 120 x 77 x 13mm, the 140g handheld is about 5mm longer than a Palm m505, and just as thick. The extra length is to accommodate the built-in speakers that can be found at the lower portion of the device, right below the hardware buttons.

While the color of the front casing is metallic silver, the back is black. Encased in this two-color housing is a Motorola DragonBall 33MHz processor, 8MB of flash ROM, and a whopping 16MB of RAM to store your apps and data. The Acer s10 runs on Palm OS 4.1 and displays its data on a 160x160-pixel 16-grayscale screen. Unlike a monochrome Palm's backlight where the characters are illuminated in a greenish glow, the screen on the s10 lights up with a yellow light.

Acer has also added an expansion slot to this device. But instead of going the Secure Digital/MultiMediaCard (SD/MMC) route like Palm, the Taiwanese company has decided to adopt Sony's Memory Stick. Acer has also introduced what it calls the Acer Versatile Connector for the PDA to connect to accessories such as HotSync cables and portable keyboards. As the connector is different from Palm's Universal Connector, your Palm accessories will not be able to work with the s10.

Sounds So Good
What sets this device apart from other Palm handhelds are the MP3 and audio recording features. The s10 lets you store your MP3 on a Memory Stick and includes Audio Box, an MP3 player software that lets you listen to your tunes. Transferring MP3s to the Memory Stick is quite easy, but only after you've figured out how to do it. As the documentation does not explain how to transfer MP3s to the Memory Stick, we had to called Acer's technical support for advice. Their suggestion: transfer our MP3s using an optional Memory Stick reader.

But after fiddling with the Palm Desktop software, we figured out that we could install MP3s to the Memory Stick by starting the Install Tool application, dragging and dropping the MP3 files into the opened window, then performing a HotSync. The procedure proved quite simple and Acer should have included this in the documentation; although the user guide is actually pretty comprehensive apart from that missing piece of vital information.

Transferring the 4MB Aerosmith song track, Jaded, via HotSync took us 6 minutes. Slow work, but at least you don't have to fork out extra for a separate Memory Stick reader. That aside, the s10 is pretty impressive as an MP3 player. The audio quality from the internal speakers is good. If you use the included headphones to listen to your MP3s, the music sounds as good as any other MP3 players on the market. The only gripe is you can't use other headphones with the device as the s10 headphone jack is smaller than the standard port.

The Audio Box software is also easy to use and there's even an equalizer that lets you select one of the preset settings to play Rock, Jazz, Latin or Dance. Mozart and Bach fans, however, will need to use the Normal setting since there's no Classical mode. You can also turn off the LCD display while listening to your music, but you can't switch to another application to do other things such as writing something on your Memo Pad. Since the Palm OS is not a multi-tasking OS, it's a limitation Palm users have to live with. Also, if the alarm you set in your Date Book goes off while the music is playing, you won't be able to tell unless you look out for the flashing icon at the top-left corner of the screen. We wish Acer could have written the software such that the music will pause when an alarm is activated.

The audio recording function of the Acer s10 does a pretty nifty job. By pressing the record button on the left of the device, you can activate the recording feature and store up to 30 minutes of normal quality audio on the internal RAM, if you've not already filled it up with other applications. Otherwise, you can choose to record on the Memory Stick. The quality of the recording is good, but do remember to point the microphone, found at the top of the device, towards your audio source. Acer has also provided a Voice Converter desktop software that lets you convert your recording into MP3 files, great if you want to record your karaoke sessions and turn them into MP3s.

During recording and playback, the LED on the power button will blink in red. When charging in the cradle, the status lights blinks in green and stays lit when the device is fully charged.

Software On A Palm
Since the s10 runs on Palm OS, the standard Palm apps are included in the device. Although you can use tons of other third-party software to get your job done, Acer has thrown in a few extras with the unit. The eBook Reader reads documents, while the eBook Converter which you can install on your PC helps convert text, rich text (rtf), HTML and even Microsoft Word files into Palm document format, to be read on the eBook Reader. There's also a Backup utility where you can choose to do a full or partial backup to the Memory Stick. However, a file management utility such as the the Memory Stick Gate utility, found on the CLIE, is not included in the Acer.

The clock utility on this device is also different from the one you get on the Palm. It lets you display time on an analog or digital clock with the option of selecting two other cities in another time zone. There's also a simple timer function in this app.

Another utility, called Service, acts as a launcher where you can place your oft-used apps so you can launch them with just a few taps.

Great Sound, Bare Bundle
The s10 is a competent PDA and earns brownie points for its audio capabilities. At S$599, it'll appeal to those who want audio recording and MP3 features on their handheld. Acer claims the rechargeable Lithium-ion battery can last three weeks on a single charge. Although we weren't able to test that, we did run MP3s non-stop on the device for 2 hours, and the battery meter was still 80 percent charged. Not bad for a Palm-powered device with MP3 playback.

All in, we loved the audio features but were less enamored with the software bundle. The device itself is generally well-constructed and the buttons are comfortable to use. The case that ships with the device is a top flip cover but we feel it leaves the handheld a little "bare". It would have been great if the s10 came with a case that provided better protection. Still, if you want great sound from a Palm-powered device, the Acer s10 more than meets those needs.