Acer launched the Acer Allegro Windows Phone 7 smartphone in France in October 2011. That made it the company's first foray into the the world of the popular Microsoft mobile OS and now there seems to be a decent chance that it will be arriving elsewhere after it was shown off to the public at CES 2012.

The tech specs aren't spectacular, but then they rarely are on WP7 handsets. The Allegro has a 3.6-inch WVGA (480 x 800) screen, a Qualcomm MSM8255 1GHz processor powering the device, 8GB of on-board storage memory and a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash for your photos.

The interesting feature, though, is the introduction of Fast Charge technology which apparently charges the device's 1300mAh battery 2.5x faster than other tablets and phones. Now, obviously, that's not to say that the battery life will be any longer. It won't. What it does mean is that, if you forget to charge it over night and only have time for a quick blast in the morning before you leave for work, you still might have just about enough juice to make it to the middle of the afternoon.

The Acer Allegro measures 11.6 x 5.9 x 13mm and weighs in at 126g. It's not particularly thin nor light but it does still manage to capture a certain amount of charm with a nice curved back surface. The screen is bright and clear and has a decent pixel density as a result of the small screen size into which that standard WP7 resolution is squeezed.

The phone costs €299 in France in black or white and, although there are no specifics about release dates or prices elsewhere, you can expect a similar swing tag if it does arrive in the UK.