This is a global GSM phone, it can be used with AT&T's 3G and T-Mobile USA's 2G network.
Introduction:
Acer is the world’s second largest computer manufacturer after HP, but its smartphone department clearly wasn’t the company’s focus. Now that everybody is giving it a try, Acer decided it is high time to nail it.
It was obviously not going to happen with the half-baked effort to out a budget Android handset that was the Acer beTouch 110, and not even with the Acer Stream, which offered specs and design, as well the intriguing Breeze UI, but was overpriced, and had some camera quality issues.
Good things come to those who try hard, so when the Acer Liquid Metal was leaked back in September, it looked quite promising, and all we wished then was for the price to be right. Well, we can check this one out of the way, as we’ve seen it for less than $400 unlocked in the US, and EUR 320 in Europe.
Very decent price for an Android 2.2 handset with second generation Snapdragon chipset – the same one that is in the T-Mobile G2 and its HTC Desire Z version – as well as 512MB RAM/ROM, and some perks like Dolby Mobile, LED notification icons and dual mikes for noise-cancellation.
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What’s in the box:
Keeping up with the tradition after acquiring the smartphone maker Eten, Acer provides a cool looking box with magnetic strips in one corner that hold it together, plus some additional accessories in it, like a pouch for the handset.
- Acer Liquid Metal smartphone
- Battery
- Charger
- Stereo headset with microphone
- Leather pouch
- microUSB data cable
- 2GB microSD card
- Quick user guide
- Warranty card
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The Acer Liquid Metal in the provided pouch | ||
Design:
The Acer Liquid Metal has a curved chassis throughout, and we mean both the back and the front. There is a slightly curved glass over the top of the 3.6” LCD screen as well, so when looking at the top or the bottom, the phone looks elliptical. Very ergonomic shape, which makes it very easy to hold and operate with one hand.
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The Acer Liquid Metal has a curved chassis | |
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You can compare the Acer Liquid Metal with many other phones.
If Acer had provided some space to pour liquor in it, the handset would have made the perfect flask – more so since there is a chrome-plated band surrounding the phone, which turns into two ellipses at the top and the bottom, where the microUSB port is.
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The 3.6” capacitive display has a resolution of 480x800 pixels |
The volume rocker and the two-steps camera key on the right, as well as the power/lock button at the top are tactile, and easy to find and press without looking. To start the camera, you need to hold the shutter key long enough, so accidental presses don’t count.
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The sides of the Acer Liquid Metal | ||
These chrome-plated sides, and the battery cover, are where the naming of the Acer Liquid Metal comes from. Liquid obviously comes from the title of Acer’s high-end Android series, but the “Metal” part is brought on by the stainless steel battery cover, which comes in either mocca, or silver coloring. The back cover is opened by pushing it up, which slides away the openings for the 5MP autofocus camera and the LED flash as well.
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The stainless steel battery cover comes in either mocca, or silver coloring | |
One of the coolest features of the Acer Liquid Metal is that you actually don’t need to turn on the screen in order to start interacting with the device. There are three LED-lit notification icons at the top of the handset, which glow white under the chrome plating. They are illuminated when there is a missed call, unread message, and when the battery falls below a certain level or is charging. Thus you can keep the phone in the provided pouch, or just barely take it out of your pocket, and immediately glimpse if something is going on. Pretty svelte idea - we would like it to be expanded with showing the date/time there as well, and we’ll be completely sold.
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Overall the heft, relative thickness, and the curved chassis all make the Acer Liquid Metal a solid handset to hold, and very ergonomical to operate. Plus, the stainless steel back cover, chrome accents, and cool LED notifications scheme are making it a looker too. The one thing we didn’t like is the lack of oleophobic coating on the screen, which makes finger smudges stick all over it, to the extent that you have to wipe the handset pretty often.
Interface and functionality:
Now off from the outer appearances of the Acer Liquid Metal, to the inner beauty. First off, it is powered by the same Snapdragon chipset found in the T-Mobile G2 and the HTC Desire Z, clocked at 800MHz. Made with the 45nm technology, it has been already overclocked to 1.9GHz by a few enthusiasts. Together with a new Adreno 205 GPU, the processor provides performance that is comparable to the best-in-class Samsung Hummingbird, so don’t let the 800MHz clock frequency fool you. Couple the MSM7230 chipset with 512MB RAM/ROM, and you will rarely feel the interface lagging, or apps slowing the phone down, although it happens. The Quadrant benchmark test consistently scored 1300+, which is a very good result. On the flip side, the Acer Liquid Metal heats up at the bottom significantly with graphics-intensive tasks, such as running the said Quadrant test.
The interface is Acer’s own brainchild, called Breeze, and you can turn it off any time you want, which leaves you with the stock Android 2.2 interface. We examined the layered Breeze UI thoroughly on its first incarnation in the Acer Stream, so we won’t go into details here, since it is basically the same on the Acer Liquid Metal as well. Suffice it to say it is unlike any other Android overlay, and once you get a hold on it, it is pretty functional.
For example, the notification bar is often found at the bottom instead of the top, and you sometimes press on it by accident, but the connectivity switches are even more and handier than those in Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0, for instance. Let’s just say it takes one less step to switch from 3G to 2G mode in Breeze UI. In terms of appearance and functionality we would rate Breeze UI somewhere above TouchWiz 3.0 and below the new HTC Sense user interface. Our only complaint is that we couldn’t find a way to place shortcuts or folders on the five homescreens, which appear when the phone is locked, just widgets.
The dialpad layout is comfy, the call log is easily accessible and detailed, and there is smart dial to predict who you are trying to call, without typing the whole name. If the number on the screen is not in your contacts list, Breeze UI shows the country you are being called from, which is a nice touch.
The Contacts app has the obligatory social networking integration, but if you want to lookup your friends’ profiles in Facebook from there, for example, you will be directed to the Facebook app. The Twitter contacts sync option didn't work at the time we tried. Speaking of social networking, the Social Jogger application is a new thing to Breeze UI, with a cool jog wheel on the right to flip between Facebook and Twitter posts, feeds, photos and updates.
Internet and Connectivity:
Being a Google device, the obligatory Gmail app is here, but there is also Acer’s own email client for easy setup of popular online services, with a combined inbox. For your corporate email needs, Acer has includedRoadSync, which to us is one of the best solutions to sync and carry your work Outlook account on an Android device.
The text messaging app, on the other hand, is stock Android 2.2, and so is the virtual keyboard. The screen registers touch quickly, while the slight haptic feedback makes typing a breeze (pun not intended).
The browser is stock Froyo, with all the added benefits of Adobe Flash 10.1 it brings. Interestingly, we had to download the Flash component separately from Android Market, otherwise the phone won’t display websites with Adobe’s plugin properly.
One of the notable features of the Acer Liquid Metal is its 3G chip, capable of 14.4Mbps downloads, provided that your network offers such speeds, since most 3G handsets support a maximum of 7.2Mbps. Qualcomm is the undisputed leader in baseband integration, so support for such speeds is embedded courtesy of the Snapdragon system-on-a-chip inside the Acer Liquid Metal – the same one humming inside the “4G” T-Mobile G2. For now only versions with the Europe and Asia 900/2100MHz 3G bands are sold, so don’t get any ideas that you can buy the Acer Liquid Metal, and use it as a “4G” phone on T-Mobile or AT&T, although these two carriers have been in talks with Acer about the handset. Besides, if US carriers get the phone, it is likely to sport a more affordable price tag than your premium smartphone.
Other than the 14.4Mbps 3G, the phone supports the usual suspects, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and A-GPS. The GPS software is Google Maps (of course), and it took 4-5 minutes for the phone to lock our whereabouts on cold start, but afterwards it takes seconds, as usual. An added bonus is the DLNA support to stream multimedia from the phone via Wi-Fi to enabled devices.
Now off from the outer appearances of the Acer Liquid Metal, to the inner beauty. First off, it is powered by the same Snapdragon chipset found in the T-Mobile G2 and the HTC Desire Z, clocked at 800MHz. Made with the 45nm technology, it has been already overclocked to 1.9GHz by a few enthusiasts. Together with a new Adreno 205 GPU, the processor provides performance that is comparable to the best-in-class Samsung Hummingbird, so don’t let the 800MHz clock frequency fool you. Couple the MSM7230 chipset with 512MB RAM/ROM, and you will rarely feel the interface lagging, or apps slowing the phone down, although it happens. The Quadrant benchmark test consistently scored 1300+, which is a very good result. On the flip side, the Acer Liquid Metal heats up at the bottom significantly with graphics-intensive tasks, such as running the said Quadrant test.
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The Quadrant benchmark |
The interface is Acer’s own brainchild, called Breeze, and you can turn it off any time you want, which leaves you with the stock Android 2.2 interface. We examined the layered Breeze UI thoroughly on its first incarnation in the Acer Stream, so we won’t go into details here, since it is basically the same on the Acer Liquid Metal as well. Suffice it to say it is unlike any other Android overlay, and once you get a hold on it, it is pretty functional.
For example, the notification bar is often found at the bottom instead of the top, and you sometimes press on it by accident, but the connectivity switches are even more and handier than those in Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0, for instance. Let’s just say it takes one less step to switch from 3G to 2G mode in Breeze UI. In terms of appearance and functionality we would rate Breeze UI somewhere above TouchWiz 3.0 and below the new HTC Sense user interface. Our only complaint is that we couldn’t find a way to place shortcuts or folders on the five homescreens, which appear when the phone is locked, just widgets.
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The Acer Breeze UI of the Acer Liquid Metal | |||
The dialpad layout is comfy, the call log is easily accessible and detailed, and there is smart dial to predict who you are trying to call, without typing the whole name. If the number on the screen is not in your contacts list, Breeze UI shows the country you are being called from, which is a nice touch.
The Contacts app has the obligatory social networking integration, but if you want to lookup your friends’ profiles in Facebook from there, for example, you will be directed to the Facebook app. The Twitter contacts sync option didn't work at the time we tried. Speaking of social networking, the Social Jogger application is a new thing to Breeze UI, with a cool jog wheel on the right to flip between Facebook and Twitter posts, feeds, photos and updates.
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Dialpad | |||
The Contacts app has the obligatory social networking integration | |||
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The Social Jogger app presents you with a cool jog wheel to flip between Facebook and Twitter posts | |||
Internet and Connectivity:
Being a Google device, the obligatory Gmail app is here, but there is also Acer’s own email client for easy setup of popular online services, with a combined inbox. For your corporate email needs, Acer has includedRoadSync, which to us is one of the best solutions to sync and carry your work Outlook account on an Android device.
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The text messaging app, on the other hand, is stock Android 2.2, and so is the virtual keyboard. The screen registers touch quickly, while the slight haptic feedback makes typing a breeze (pun not intended).
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QWERTY keyboard | |
The browser is stock Froyo, with all the added benefits of Adobe Flash 10.1 it brings. Interestingly, we had to download the Flash component separately from Android Market, otherwise the phone won’t display websites with Adobe’s plugin properly.
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The stock Froyo browser of the Acer Liquid Metal | ||
One of the notable features of the Acer Liquid Metal is its 3G chip, capable of 14.4Mbps downloads, provided that your network offers such speeds, since most 3G handsets support a maximum of 7.2Mbps. Qualcomm is the undisputed leader in baseband integration, so support for such speeds is embedded courtesy of the Snapdragon system-on-a-chip inside the Acer Liquid Metal – the same one humming inside the “4G” T-Mobile G2. For now only versions with the Europe and Asia 900/2100MHz 3G bands are sold, so don’t get any ideas that you can buy the Acer Liquid Metal, and use it as a “4G” phone on T-Mobile or AT&T, although these two carriers have been in talks with Acer about the handset. Besides, if US carriers get the phone, it is likely to sport a more affordable price tag than your premium smartphone.
Other than the 14.4Mbps 3G, the phone supports the usual suspects, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and A-GPS. The GPS software is Google Maps (of course), and it took 4-5 minutes for the phone to lock our whereabouts on cold start, but afterwards it takes seconds, as usual. An added bonus is the DLNA support to stream multimedia from the phone via Wi-Fi to enabled devices.
Camera, Multimedia and Software:
The camera interface on the Acer Liquid Metal is touch-friendly, and offers some extra perks like sharpness and saturation settings, macro and face-tracking modes, as well as anti-shake algorithms. The 5MP autofocus cam is fairly snappy, with around three seconds shot-to-shot time. The pictures themselves turned out blurry, and the detail level is appalling, not to mention the unnatural color representation. The indoor shots were quite noisy, and with not enough detail as well, while the weak flash didn't help illuminating the scene enough.
The 5MP camera captures video in high definition at 30 frames per second, which is fairly smooth, but is plagued by the same blur and lack of details as the photos themselves.
Acer Liquid Metal Sample Video:
The media gallery is the stock Android one, with its 3D effects, but as all Acer Android handsets, this one also has Nemo Player preinstalled, which combines your pictures, music and videos under a blue interface with slick transitional animations. As with other Acer Android handsets, the free multimedia streaming service Spinlets if included, which offers a fairly decent variety of music, movies and TV shows.
Listening to music with the supplied stereo headset with microphone is an above average experience, thanks to the Dolby Mobile faux surround sound the handset is equipped with, and pretty decent through the capable loudspeaker. The Dolby option allows for a few settings like treble and natural bass, which further enhance the listening experience, as well as music equalizers.
As for the video sound equalizers, we are sure it applies different settings when set to “Comedy”, but we couldn't hear much difference from, say, “News”, or much of the other setting there, maybe it's just our ears. Still, automatically switching to the album cover for a wallpaper, while the song is playing, is a nice touch. You can also turn on gesture control, which lets you switch to the next or previous song by shaking the handset, if you are so inclined.
The Acer Liquid Metal played almost every HD resolution video we tried, with the notable exception of DivX files, but you can download some of the free players from Android Market to remedy the lack of this codec.
The camera interface on the Acer Liquid Metal is touch-friendly, and offers some extra perks like sharpness and saturation settings, macro and face-tracking modes, as well as anti-shake algorithms. The 5MP autofocus cam is fairly snappy, with around three seconds shot-to-shot time. The pictures themselves turned out blurry, and the detail level is appalling, not to mention the unnatural color representation. The indoor shots were quite noisy, and with not enough detail as well, while the weak flash didn't help illuminating the scene enough.
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Camera interface | |||
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Outdoor samples shot with the Acer Liquid Metal | |||
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Strong | Medium | Low light | Darkness with flash |
Indoor samples | |||
The 5MP camera captures video in high definition at 30 frames per second, which is fairly smooth, but is plagued by the same blur and lack of details as the photos themselves.
Acer Liquid Metal Sample Video:
The media gallery is the stock Android one, with its 3D effects, but as all Acer Android handsets, this one also has Nemo Player preinstalled, which combines your pictures, music and videos under a blue interface with slick transitional animations. As with other Acer Android handsets, the free multimedia streaming service Spinlets if included, which offers a fairly decent variety of music, movies and TV shows.
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Nemo Player | ||
Listening to music with the supplied stereo headset with microphone is an above average experience, thanks to the Dolby Mobile faux surround sound the handset is equipped with, and pretty decent through the capable loudspeaker. The Dolby option allows for a few settings like treble and natural bass, which further enhance the listening experience, as well as music equalizers.
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Listening to music on the Acer Liquid Metal | |
As for the video sound equalizers, we are sure it applies different settings when set to “Comedy”, but we couldn't hear much difference from, say, “News”, or much of the other setting there, maybe it's just our ears. Still, automatically switching to the album cover for a wallpaper, while the song is playing, is a nice touch. You can also turn on gesture control, which lets you switch to the next or previous song by shaking the handset, if you are so inclined.
The Acer Liquid Metal played almost every HD resolution video we tried, with the notable exception of DivX files, but you can download some of the free players from Android Market to remedy the lack of this codec.
Performance and Conclusion:
As a phone the Acer Liquid Metal performed very well. The voices in the earpiece were loud and clear sounding, without hissing. Thanks to the dual noise-cancelling microphones the other party said they could hear our voices clearly, and the traffic noise seems to have been filtered out of the equation. The loudspeaker is punchy as well. The 1500mAh is rated for 8 hours of talk time with 3G connectivity turned on, and 23 days of standby. In reality, you'll be able to eke a day out of the handset, unless you do some heavy lifting.
To wrap it all up, we have to say that with the Acer Liquid Metal is the best handset the Taiwanese have made so far. We really wanted to give it a higher score because of its curved ergonomic design, which makes it comfortable to operate, the slick metallic battery cover, the cool LED notification system, and the great specs for the price.
A few issues, however, chipped away at the initial impressions. The screen we hear is not scratch-resistant (not that we tried that one, but from the looks of it, it appears true), and doesn't have the smudge-repelling coating of many high-end handsets, so you end up with smears all over the screen pretty soon, and have to wipe it often. We can live with that, though, considering the specs and the price point.
What irked us most, though, was the sub-par quality of the camera. A 5MP shooter, capable of HD video at 30 fps is nothing to sniff at in terms of specs, but the lens quality is below average, and that is visible both in the pictures, and the video samples. We had the same experience with the Acer Stream, so we guess the company hasn't splurged on a more expensive camera module, but preferred to add an LED flash instead, which is weak anyway.
Still, if none of the issues above would bother you on a daily basis, and you don't do much snapping with your smartphone camera, the Acer Liquid Metal will be a very good value for the money. If finger smudges and lousy camera sound like nuisances for you, then we'd say that the price is spot on.
Other alternatives to the Acer Liquid Metal could be the Samsung Wave, or you can pay some more for the Nokia N8. In Android land, you might want to go for the HTC Desire Z or T-Mobile G2, which have the same chipset, plus a physical keyboard, but are more expensive.
Acer Liquid Metal Review:
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To wrap it all up, we have to say that with the Acer Liquid Metal is the best handset the Taiwanese have made so far. We really wanted to give it a higher score because of its curved ergonomic design, which makes it comfortable to operate, the slick metallic battery cover, the cool LED notification system, and the great specs for the price.
A few issues, however, chipped away at the initial impressions. The screen we hear is not scratch-resistant (not that we tried that one, but from the looks of it, it appears true), and doesn't have the smudge-repelling coating of many high-end handsets, so you end up with smears all over the screen pretty soon, and have to wipe it often. We can live with that, though, considering the specs and the price point.
What irked us most, though, was the sub-par quality of the camera. A 5MP shooter, capable of HD video at 30 fps is nothing to sniff at in terms of specs, but the lens quality is below average, and that is visible both in the pictures, and the video samples. We had the same experience with the Acer Stream, so we guess the company hasn't splurged on a more expensive camera module, but preferred to add an LED flash instead, which is weak anyway.
Still, if none of the issues above would bother you on a daily basis, and you don't do much snapping with your smartphone camera, the Acer Liquid Metal will be a very good value for the money. If finger smudges and lousy camera sound like nuisances for you, then we'd say that the price is spot on.
Other alternatives to the Acer Liquid Metal could be the Samsung Wave, or you can pay some more for the Nokia N8. In Android land, you might want to go for the HTC Desire Z or T-Mobile G2, which have the same chipset, plus a physical keyboard, but are more expensive.
Acer Liquid Metal Review:
PROS
- Speedy second generation Snapdragon chipset
- Very good call quality
- Ergonomic curved design with metallic accents
- Innovative Breeze UI
CONS
- Subpar camera
- Easy to smudge screen
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