Acer Liquid A1 Review

Acer may not be the first manufacturer that springs to mind when you think about leading manufacturers of mobile phones, but that hasn’t stopped them coming to market with a handset that currently boasts the best spec on any officially confirmed device running on the Android operating system.

For fear of repeating ourselves, it is worth stating once again, that the Android OS is going to be big news, as 2009 comes to a close and we look forward to 2010. The coming 12 – 18 months are going to be important times for the mobile industry, as traditionally popular manufacturers and established systems are being challenged by a smart, upstart system that brings a new level of power and flexibility to the way we use our mobile phones for communication. We really have reached the point in the evolution of the mobile phone that to continue to call it such really does little service to recognise just how powerful these communication products are. These days telephony is but one basic element on offer, as we are starting to see a range of handsets that offer superb integration with a wide range of web based services, whilst continuing to push the boundaries on entertainment and media.

We’re going to hear a lot in the coming months about integration, content access, socially mobile communication and so on, as manufacturers and networks look to offer an even wider range of products and services to tempt us to part with our hard earned cash. And right at the centre of this we find Android, and the trickle of handsets is threatening to become a flood as week by week, almost day by day, rumours of up coming handsets keep on coming.

The Acer Liquid is one such handset that has been doing the rounds of the rumour mill recently, and now we can confirm the specification of this much anticipated product. Measuring a comfortable 115 x 62.5 x 12.5 mm and weighing in at 135g, the Acer Liquid has a huge, 3.5 inch TFT capacitive touchscreen, supporting up to 256,000 colours and with a pixel resolution of 480 x 800, making the Liquid the first Android device to come with a WVGA display. Acer has placed their own proprietary user interface on the Liquid, Acer UI 3.0, which promises to deliver an intuitive end user experience.

Running on Android OS version 1.6, commonly known as Donut, the Acer Liquid comes with a high spec feature list; one of the stand out features is the inclusion of a high quality 5.0 Megapixel camera, with autofocus, LED Flash and a Geotagging option, thanks to the built in GPS receiver. Video recording is also enabled, with clips being captured at up to QVGA resolution.

Media is well represented on the Liquid; we find a 3.5mm audio output jack for music playback, as well as Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, allowing for easy connection to a Bluetooth stereo headset. The media player itself is well featured, with support for MP3, AAC, WMA, plus WMV, MP4, H.264 and H.263 included. There is ample room for storing all music, images and videos, with the Liquid supporting MicroSD memory cards, with the possibility of a 32GB memory card being used on the device.

The Liquid offers full integration with all the Google services, plus we find native support for Flickr and Facebook, allowing you to easily maintain your online presence straight from the handset. All of this online connectivity needs strong connection options, and the Liquid delivers big here, offering HSDPA up to 7.2Mbps, plus HSUPA at up to 2.0Mbps. WiFi is also there, and there is also the inclusion of GPRS and EDGE. One of the more impressive features is something that is not usually noted on a mobile device – The Acer Liquid will ship with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 768 MHz processor, which should help deliver in even the most demanding of multi tasking situations.

Pretty impressive, I’m sure you will agree. If this is a hint of the devices that are to come, I for one cannot wait to enjoy the fun as manufacturers look to outdo each other in the feature list stakes over the coming months. As yet there is no confirmed release date for the Acer Liquid, although it will be a surprise if it is not in the shops by Christmas, with mid to late November a strong possibility. Time to get that Christmas wish list updated, I think.