Acer Liquid mobile phone: ALMOST the perfect Android
Acer may be best known for its reasonably priced PCs, but it’s no slouch when it comes to mobiles. Earlier this year, it launched the Liquid series, debuting with the A1 — a tasty smartphone packing the Android OS.
With the new Liquid E coming around the corner, it’s never too late for a refresher course on the series. So this is a two-fer review. I’ve looked at it from a purely technical point of view, but we also gave the A1 to the GoMo News Business Development Manager, Niamh Owens. With no previous hands-on experience with a smartphone, she’s the perfect person to give an unsullied consumer view on just how easy the device is to use.
Niamh’s Review:
Finally I get to play with the big boys and test the Acer Liquid phone. While I’m usually shouting orders in the background, Cian and Sinead decided it was time to give me something to do! I’m not technically minded. I’m doing a PhD in Business, which also means I have no common sense so I was testing this phone to see if even I could use it.
acer_liquid_a1_white2First impressions: the phone is sophisticated, what every business person and young professional needs. Already I like it. I only have a pre-pay SIM, so I wasn’t sure if it would even work. But it went perfectly from the first try, so I was off on my Acer Liquid adventure. There are so many great functions to this phone: music player, 5 mega pixel camera, camcorder and most importantly the internet — the phone connects to my gmail account and Google chat — FANTASTIC. I love reading BBC headlines on Gordon Brown and the «big R» (picture quality on this phone is brilliant by the way, really clear)
Actually, a major problem I have with this phone is that I can only connect to the internet through Wi-Fi and not using my SIM. I contacted customer service to check why, and I was told is because my SIM does not support it or some gobbledygook. But we will muster on. The Wi-Fi access is excellent, by the way, and the download speed is fantastic!
I was examining the internet function the other day, when Cian came up to me and said two words: «download Nimbuzz». Now, remember that I said I was not technical minded! I’d never downloaded an app before. But going to the Market application on the phone was simple. I just clicked downloads and there was Nimbuzz in front of me! I can connect to Facebook and Skype from this, no hassle. While I was on the Market, I downloaded some games as well… it is truly an all in one phone! However, to use the majority of these applications you have to be connected to the internet which for me is not really convenient seen as I don’t have a constant connection. But that is only a minor bleep in the Acer’s make-up.
The touch screen takes a little while to get used to, so if you have shaky hands you are in trouble. My boyfriend was getting called «Marr» instead of «Matt», but once your trigger finger is up to speed it’s easy. The great thing is that you can adjust the touch screen sensitivity if you need.
The phone also doubles up as a music player. All you have to do is drop the files over. Basically it’s an iPod! I am in heave. I swapped over some songs and I can listen to music while typing up the data analysis for my thesis. I can make play lists and catergorize the songs. What more could a girl want?
What else?
android-opera-mobile-browserI hit the storage limit on my poor 2GB SD card — after downloading an application for speech synthesis, there is not enough space for both it and my songs. I may have to purchase a bigger card. I didn’t realize music took up so much space!
The phone calendar is also linked to my Google calendar, so I can keep it up to date online as well. My god, my life is now sorted through my phone. Now, I know people are probably going to say what is the difference between the Liquid and and iPhone. Cian can tell you that one! He is the technical minded one — I’m the business brain behind the GoMo!
By the way if you want Cian or I to test your mobile device please email us at cian@gomonews.com and niamhowens@yahoo.com and we can arrange it all.
If only we were a blog about cars…
Cian’s Review:
My primary device is a Nexus One… so I was expecting to find the move down to be a bit jarring. But it wasn’t like that at all.
The A1 is a genuinely nice phone. It’s packing a very chunky Snapdragon processor, so phone functions work very snappily. One thing I was really interested in was how easy it would be to transfer the phone from Niamh to myself. After all, Android does a lot of syncing with on-line services if you like, and I was wondering if that would be an issue. Not in the slightest: you just hit the «restore factory settings» button and sync the device to your own SIM and accounts.
In terms of UI, it impressed on me how little things have changed between 1,6 and 2.0. The look and feel of the phone are incredibly familiar to me having used a Nexus One — particularly the four «soft» buttons along the bottom of the screen. These are pretty much identical to the Nexus, giving you an ever-present anchor to Search, Menu, Home and Back functions no matter what is on the screen. There are surface differences, yes, but ultimately there are no big surprises. The screen on the A1 is big, and at 800×480 EVGA it’s higher quality than most others on the market. The resolution is beautiful.
But for me the important thing here is the phrase «no big surprises». I was able to switch incredibly easily from using one Android phone to another! The different in functionality between the Nexus One and the A1 is not significant — if you’re a tech-head, you’ll spot the differences. But from a consumer point of view? They both do everything you’d want from a smartphone, including downloading and running applications.
I do have some minor gripes with the phone, though.
First, it’s just a little too chunky to be quite comfortable. Overall, the Nexus One is quite a bit heavier than the A1, but it’s very slim and curved. The A1 is thick and chunky, with defined edges. It’s a small thing, I know — but we’re talking about a device that you’ll be slipping into and out of your pocket tens of times every day. It makes a difference.
Second, the price. Look, this is a great phone. But it’s not especially cheaper than anything else on the market, especially as you’re not going to be getting an operator subsidies with this. So it begs the questions — if this phone is the same as any high-spec Android on the market, why buy it? It suffers from the exact same lack of operator customer support as the Nexus One (see Niamhs report above). In other respects it’s pretty much the same, just NOT QUITE as good.
If this device were a good bit cheaper than other high-end Androids like it, I would be advising everyone to go out and get one. It’s performance is lower than the top of the range Androids, but by such a small margin that you’d be hard pressed to notice. This device comes so close to being the perfect Android that it kind of hurts — it has allowed a PC manufacturer to jump into the smartphone market thanks to its open source operating system. Ideally, Acer could have manufactured any phone it wanted. A cheaper device with awesome usability is possible, but what we’ve got is another in a line of almost faceless high-end smartphones.
The only question to ask yourself is which companies branding do you like the most? Because that’s the biggest difference between the Liquid, Nexus One, DROID, etc….
