Acer Liquid - The First Snapdragon Android

Acer Liquid - The First Snapdragon Android

Acer has finally released an Android smart phone running on the Snapdragon processor. Sadly, for those who have been waiting for a chance to see the Google OS run on a 1 GHz processor, that event has yet to pass. The Acer Liquid does indeed have a Snapdragon CPU, but the speed has been lowered to 768MHz.

While this Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor does a good job of running the Android (good luck getting it to slow down, many reviewers have tried but to no avail), it is more a matter of status than actual performance. It's like driving on a busy street, no matter what car you have, the speed will not matter; but people will still prefer to be stuck in traffic in a Ferrari than a regular car.

Spinlet Feature

Acer is showcasing Spinlet in the Liquid. While the Spinlet has yet to see much use on desktop computers, it is one of the first full-multimedia widgets. While this app has yet to see much use on desktop computers, it will certainly do wonders for a mobile phone. This is the primary reason why Acer has chosen to have Spinlet on the Liquid, as its multimedia functionalities will certainly get the attention of many people -especially music fans.

Phone Specifications

The Acer Liquid sports a 3.5 inch TFT capacitive touch screen with a display capability of 256 thousand colors. The resolution is a nice 480 x 800 pixels and it uses the Acer UI version 3.0 in addition to the Android 1.6. The screen also has an accelerometer sensor and a proximity sensor (so putting the screen against your face will not accidentally turn on the speaker phone).

The 5 mega pixel camera provides the complete package. It has both auto focus and LED flash, making shots easy despite cluttered backgrounds, bad lighting or shaky hands.

This quad band 2G and 3G HSDPA device supports GPS, Bluetooth, micro USB 2.0 and micro SD cards of up to 32GB. Media storage will rely heavily on the SD card since the phone only has 256MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM for programs and other functions.

Available on Clove and eXpansys

For anyone interested in getting their hands on Acer's top Android phone, the Liquid is already available online through internet retailers Clove and eXpansys. The two prices of the phone on the two companies are not too different with eXpansys offering the device at a slightly higher cost but with a little promotion for heavy shoppers with its special 20 Pound rebate coupon.

Clove has the Liquid on retail, sim-free and unlocked with a nice 328.90 price tag. eXpansys has more festive little promo; for 339.99 Pounds you get the device and (as said above) a nice 20 Pound store voucher. eXpansys is offering a wide variety of accessories that would be worth using the voucher on.

Both stores have the phone readily available for shipping; on the eXpansys website, the Liquid will ship upon receipt of payment and buyers can expect the phone to arrive within one to two working days. The average shipping cost within the UK is 6.16 Pounds.