Acer Liquid e

Acer is still very much a newcomer to the smartphone arena, but it has been quickly gaining the same reputation it has with computers: cheap but powerful devices for those who like the speed but not the usual price tag. The Liquid E is perhaps the most tempting example: Android 2.1 plus a Snapdragon chip in one of the cheapest contract smartphones should be a promise of success. We'll learn in our Liquid E review if it proves to be a potent cocktail for challenging rivals or if it's sacrificing too much to reach its goals.

Size and weight:

First and foremost, let’s get one thing out of the way. This isn’t a phone that’s intended to be a flagship or hero device, and that’s immediately evident when you pick it up. Made entirely out of plastic and measuring out at 115mm x 64mm x 12.75mm and weighing 135g, the phones does feel quite cheap in the hands. Not poorly built; just cheap.

Network and connectivity:

The networking feature of this phone are 2G Network (GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900), 3G Network (HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100). And the connectivity features are GPRS (Class 10, 32 - 48 kbps), EDGE (Class 10, 236.8 kbps), 3G (HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2.0 Mbps), WLAN Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g), Bluetooth (v2.0 with A2DP), USB (miniUSB).

Memory and Display:

The Liquid’s 3.5in screen is also impressive. Not only is it relatively large, but its crisp WVGA (800 x 480) resolution and multi-touch support means it’s a pleasure to use for web browsing, or even just catching up on your emails. Colours look ace too and it produces surprisingly deep black levels for a non-AMOLED display. Internally, the ROM is 512MB (with a microSD slot), RAM is 256MB. Card slot type microSD, can be expand up to 32GB.

Camera and Video:

It has a 5 megapixel sensor with autofocus. In ideal lighting, the camera does a good job with pictures with fairly accurate colors, if not a bit heavy on the red. The autofocus is fairly fast and you won’t need to wait a lot of time between pictures. If you find yourself in a lot of low-light environments, you might as well bring a pencil and sketch book because the photos the Liquid e produces without an abundance of light is quite horriffic. The Liquid e also has video capture capabilities. The resolution of the videos is only VGA, though they’re pretty decent.

Entertainment Features:

Powered by the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Acer Liquid e provides instant access to web pages, smooth streaming of videos or music, and instant response from popular mail, maps and search applications. The high-speed processing capabilities and high-speed internet access (HSPA) of Snapdragon brings to life the Android experience: no idle-time, almost instant uploads of web pages and downloads of rich multimedia content. The developer community can now take full advantage of these capabilities to bring to market innovative applications that demand raw computing power and superior handling of 3D graphics. And the media player supports MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ , MP4/WMV/H.264/H.263.