The latest smartphone from newish kid on the block Acer has the fresh Windows Mobile 6.5, a large touchscreen and a nifty scroll wheel. But with no WiFi, no 3G, and a camera that harks back to years gone by, is the Acer beTouch E101 just too cheap to cut it as a proper grown-up smartphone?

Handset

The Acer beTouch E101 is a sizeable chap at 113mm x 56mm x 12.8mm, if comparatively lightweight at 118g, though this is due in part to the rather plasticky case and flimsy back panel, which had a tendency to detach itself on our test sample. The large 3.2in screen dominates the front, and beneath it is a large circular D-pad with an outer scroll wheel and inner button. It's a real scroll wheel too, not just a circle with four pressure points under it, and you can use it to flick through menus and playlists with ease. It's flanked by hard buttons for call start and stop buttons, plus back and home.

On the sides are a volume rocker and audio mute switch, a mini USB socket, microSD card slot (none supplied) and camera shutter button plus a power button on top and a slot for the sturdy metal stylus.

Screen

The screen is a good size at 3.2in but we found it a bit of a nightmare to use. Resolutely unresponsive, there were many times when we gave up hope of finding sufficient accuracy to be able to input with our thumb and resorted to the stylus – and when that happens on the largish numeric keypad, you know you're in trouble.

Resolution is only and promises 240x400 pixels so it doesn't even have the advantage of looking good – certainly not in the company of other Windows Mobile smartphones which typically offer significantly greater resolution. Colours look drab and screen movement often appears delayed, especially when scrolling through the icon-laden Windows menu.

Interface and operating system

We're fast getting used to this new Windows Mobile 6.5 OS and we certainly like it a lot more than 6.1, with it's big, finger-friendly buttons and the long-overdue Windows Marketplace. Acer has taken a baby step towards its own user interface by including its own Today page, which allows you to add up to nine app shortcuts, including social networking apps such as Facebook and Twitter. It's a long way behind HTC's all-encompassing Sense UI but at least it's practical.

Browser

It's all very well being the cheapest WinMo smartphone on the block, but if that means you have to do without WiFi or even 3G connectivity, just GPRS or EDGE, it does rather beg the question 'what's the point?' The low connectivity means that the large screen rather goes to waste when browsing, since download speeds are typically so slow that you just end up getting frustrated.

Internet Explorer is the default browser though you can also download Opera from Windows Marketplace. Either way though there's no accelerometer on board so you'll probably want to set the screen to landscape mode in the settings menu to get the best view of web pages. There's a YouTube app preloaded but after trying to watch a video without delays for buffering proved to be beyond the E101's capabilities.

GPS is nominally on board but we had a similar feeling as the sinking one we had when trying to use the browser – what's the point? It consistently took ages to lock on to satellites and spent such an eternity rendering new map pages that eventually we gave up.

Camera

The two-megapixel camera offers a maximum resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels but there's no autofocus, no flash and not much else to recommend it except that it starts up relatively quickly with a three-second push on the shutter button.

Media

The large screen does its best with video but with that relatively low pixel count it's always going to be found wanting. With no accelerometer you'll need to take the full-screen option in Windows Media Player if you want to view movies in landscape mode, which is a nuisance, and you'll need the stylus to navigate WMP's non-finger-friendly menu.

Windows is the preferred audio player too, and it's such a shame it retains that fiddly interface from Windows Mobile 6.1 – it really doesn't fit at all with the more modern look of the rest of 6.5. Sound quality via the supplied headphones is tinny and harsh, with no easy option to upgrade since there's no 3.5mm jack plug.

Battery

Battery life failed to impress though it wasn't way behind other smartphones, giving us a little over a day of moderate to heavy use, though you can probably stretch it a bit by dimming the screen brightness and shortening the time before the screensaver kicks in.

The Acer beTouch E101 is certainly cheap, but it's far from cheerful, with a shockingly poor screen and such limited connectivity that you begin to wonder whether it's really worth your while having a smartphone that seems to be constantly struggling to live up to the name.