Monday, May 01, 2006
A few Acer n311 answers...
I have had a post from Brian looking for more information on the Acer and decided to make a post out of the answers. Please remember these are just my subjective responses to what is asked:
Ebook-reader:
Microsoft's seems to get praise, but does it support the 640x480 screen in any way, I believe to have read that it doesn't?
Microsoft reader is good in many ways but also very limited in others. I personally have not used it on the Acer as I believe it doesn’t make any real benefit of a VGA screen although there is a good discussion on it in this Pocket PC Thoughts thread.
One eBook reader that I like the look of is iSilo which has support for VGA screens, auto scroll and is quite customisable.
Aac/mp3 player:
Is there an ipod-interface like player around? (or anything else you can recommend?)
The inbuilt media player will play mp3s now although you will need to use a third party for AAC support. One such freeware alternative is Pocket Music 4 although the AAC support will cost $9.95 for the plug in on the same page. I see you have already found TCPMP which is a good alternative and I believe a little look on google might help you in tracking down an AAC plug in! ;)
Utilityprogs:
Spb Pocket Plus looks nice and powerful, but also expensive. Is there a freeware program around that does pretty much the same?
Pocket Plus does a number of tasks and I must admit to liking this software although it does like to hog a lot of resources. It depends on what aspects of Pocket Plus you see yourself using and I really do recommend reading this excellent thread by Menneisyys on Pocket PC Thoughts.
Pictureviewer:
I'm a big fan of IrfanView for XP, is something similar available for ppc?
There are numerous out there and that man Menneisyys as usual has written a very thorough article on a vast selection of viewers here.
Which divx/xvid encoding would be best for flickerfree viewing?
I'm thinking 400-700kbit/s depending on the framerate (15-25).
Will 640x480 video be too much, or overkill, if upscaled 400x300 looks decent enough?
Now this is completely down to personal preference and dependant on various factors such as source of material, viewing habits and what you want to gain from the viewing experience. I personally use the WMV format for most of my video needs since it is already on the Pocket PC and the desktop tools are freely available from MicroSoft. The one real drawback of the Acer n311 however is how well it copes with full screen motion either in video or games. I have found that VGA resolution proves too taxing for the 400Mhz processor to provide an enjoyable experience. Upscaled 400x300 would certainly be a more sensible choice although I personally stick to QVGA 320x240 with a bit rate of around the 180 – 230kbps range in WMV format with 25fps. This suits my personal requirements for video on the go. This upscales reasonably well to full screen if required and is adequate for the average user. I think the 400Mhz processor on the n311 just struggles to manipulate the full VGA resolution on all but the lowest of bit rates although scenes where only portions of the image are changing work just fine. More consideration needs to go to the content of the video being encoded than the actual bit rate being used to determine the resolution of the file you wish to create. I’ll need to try a couple of sample Xvid files to see if the Acer copes with them any better.
I recommend reading through this thread at Pocket PC Thoughts more information on real world use of the Acer n311 and solutions to any problems.
Ebook-reader:
Microsoft's seems to get praise, but does it support the 640x480 screen in any way, I believe to have read that it doesn't?
Microsoft reader is good in many ways but also very limited in others. I personally have not used it on the Acer as I believe it doesn’t make any real benefit of a VGA screen although there is a good discussion on it in this Pocket PC Thoughts thread.
One eBook reader that I like the look of is iSilo which has support for VGA screens, auto scroll and is quite customisable.
Aac/mp3 player:
Is there an ipod-interface like player around? (or anything else you can recommend?)
The inbuilt media player will play mp3s now although you will need to use a third party for AAC support. One such freeware alternative is Pocket Music 4 although the AAC support will cost $9.95 for the plug in on the same page. I see you have already found TCPMP which is a good alternative and I believe a little look on google might help you in tracking down an AAC plug in! ;)
Utilityprogs:
Spb Pocket Plus looks nice and powerful, but also expensive. Is there a freeware program around that does pretty much the same?
Pocket Plus does a number of tasks and I must admit to liking this software although it does like to hog a lot of resources. It depends on what aspects of Pocket Plus you see yourself using and I really do recommend reading this excellent thread by Menneisyys on Pocket PC Thoughts.
Pictureviewer:
I'm a big fan of IrfanView for XP, is something similar available for ppc?
There are numerous out there and that man Menneisyys as usual has written a very thorough article on a vast selection of viewers here.
Which divx/xvid encoding would be best for flickerfree viewing?
I'm thinking 400-700kbit/s depending on the framerate (15-25).
Will 640x480 video be too much, or overkill, if upscaled 400x300 looks decent enough?
Now this is completely down to personal preference and dependant on various factors such as source of material, viewing habits and what you want to gain from the viewing experience. I personally use the WMV format for most of my video needs since it is already on the Pocket PC and the desktop tools are freely available from MicroSoft. The one real drawback of the Acer n311 however is how well it copes with full screen motion either in video or games. I have found that VGA resolution proves too taxing for the 400Mhz processor to provide an enjoyable experience. Upscaled 400x300 would certainly be a more sensible choice although I personally stick to QVGA 320x240 with a bit rate of around the 180 – 230kbps range in WMV format with 25fps. This suits my personal requirements for video on the go. This upscales reasonably well to full screen if required and is adequate for the average user. I think the 400Mhz processor on the n311 just struggles to manipulate the full VGA resolution on all but the lowest of bit rates although scenes where only portions of the image are changing work just fine. More consideration needs to go to the content of the video being encoded than the actual bit rate being used to determine the resolution of the file you wish to create. I’ll need to try a couple of sample Xvid files to see if the Acer copes with them any better.
I recommend reading through this thread at Pocket PC Thoughts more information on real world use of the Acer n311 and solutions to any problems.
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Try these free, but professional apps:
Mobipocket Pro for an e-book reader
(yeah, get Wikipedia offline with this too)
XnView Pocket - it's a killer picture viewer with basic image tweaking and conversion options!
Have fun,
CaB
Mobipocket Pro for an e-book reader
(yeah, get Wikipedia offline with this too)
XnView Pocket - it's a killer picture viewer with basic image tweaking and conversion options!
Have fun,
CaB
I'm not aware of any way to disable the LED; there certainly isn't a delivered option on the Acer although it may be possible through a registry hack since it will be controlled by the OS. It can be a little confusing at first with the LED shining blue for both Bluetooth and WiFi but I like it purely for it being different.
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