Is it a tablet? Is it a phone? No, it’s giganto-phone. Meet the Acer Iconia Smart, a phone so big that, if you had pockets deep enough, it would reach almost to your knee; so tall that two would make a decent pair of shinpads for a very tiny man.

You must be getting the message: it’s big. And that size is principally due to its enormous 4.8in screen, which boasts an equally huge resolution of 480 x 1,024. That’s almost as many pixels as a netbook, and enough to lend the Iconia tablet-like browsability.

But smartphone this most certainly is and, as if to prove that point, it’s running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). The big question is, would you want as your main phone? We’re not sure about that, but for our money it edges in front of the Dell Streak for practicality.

Although absolutely massive, it feels more phone-like in the hand, and you won’t feel quite as much of a loon holding it to your ear on the bus. It’s longer and narrower than the Streak, measuring 64.5 x 13.6 x 141.7mm, and 35g lighter too, tipping the scales at 185g.

It’s not all about the size, though. The screen doesn’t scale the heights of the Samsung Galaxy SII’s Super AMOLED Plus display, but its LED-backlit and still looks darned good: bright, colourful and with sharp contrast.

The processor powering the Iconia is a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255, and it seems to have enough juice to keep Android running smoothly on that high-resolution screen. In our quick hands-on session with the phone in the Acer booth at Mobile World Congress, we didn’t notice any lag, slow down or stutter when scrolling through menus or sweeping from desktop to desktop.

On the rear is an 8-megapixel camera with a single LED flash, capable of shooting 720p video, while on the front is a 2-megapixel shooter for video calls. The phone also sports Dolby sound technology, a gyroscope and accelerometer for more accurate game control, and Acer’s clear.fi media streaming software is preinstalled. Rounding off the specifications are 14.4Mbits/sec HSDPA, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR and an HDMI port allowing you to pipe 720p video to your HD TV.

The one thing likely to knock the stuffing from the Iconia Smart’s hulking frame is, as usual, its potential stamina. With a screen so large you could plate-up a lunch-sized serving of sushi on it, we’d hoped for something a little more capacious. Alas, the 1,500mAh battery is no bigger than that found in most standard-sized smartphones.

That’s a shame as otherwise the big, brash Iconia Smart is a very exciting-looking device.