Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Acer to offer free smartphones in the US

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 6:14PM EST
BGR

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

If you followed our coverage of MWC this past week, odds are you were just as unimpressed with Acer’s showing as we were. To recap quickly, the company announced a handful of Windows Mobile handsets that were decent efforts but offered nothing in the way of innovation or even differentiation. Touchscreens, Windows Mobile, a UI band-aid, etc. According to a report from PCMag however, our interest in Acer’s new gear may have just been kicked up a notch. What did the trick? A single word — “free”. The report quotes Aymar de Lencquesaing, President of Acer’s Smartphone Unit, as stating the company is working with AT&T and T-Mobile to offer its handsets for free on contract in the US.

While it remains true that none of Acer’s newly-unveiled handsets are smartphones we would actively seek out, the free element completely changes things. As US carrier interest in netbooks continues to increase, Acer plans to use its position in the netbook market as leverage to gain carrier adoption of its smartphones. Smooth. If Acer can indeed manage to pull it off and hock its smartphone wares in the US with no upfront cost, a whole new demographic would have access to fairly well-equipped smartphones – good news all around. Of course we would expect Acer’s Windows Mobile 6.1-powered Tempo line to be the only range of handsets that might come in for free any time soon, with choices from its C1, E1, F1 and L1 possibly being introduced further down the line as Windows Mobile 6.5 handsets begin to launch. Would any of you get reeled in by a Tempo with a $0 entry fee?

[Via Unwired View]

Read

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.