Acer A1 Liquid

The Google Nexus One may have yet to reach these shores (officially, at least), but there are still other Android smartphones to choose from. The A1 Liquid is Acer’s first attempt, but it isn’t the first time we’ve seen this particular handset — unless the near-identical design of the Acer neoTouch Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone was a mere coincidence, that is.

Nevertheless, the A1 Liquid is a slender and good-looking device. It’s just about the same size as an iPhone 3GS and our model was wrapped in a clean white plastic shell with black plastic top and bottom edges — red and black models are also available. There’s a bit of creak in the case if you squeeze it gently, but the whole thing feels sturdy enough.

The A1 Liquid’s front is finished with a single sheet of toughened glass that blends smoothly with the case. It’s a real fingerprint magnet (no oleophobic coating here), but it completely hides the display when it’s off to create a sheer, black face that looks rather stylish.

Unlike on other Android smartphones, there’s no trackball on the A1 Liquid; just four ‘soft’ buttons below the screen. These have no tactile identification nor tactile response, and only light up for a few seconds when pressed, not before. This makes using the A1 Liquid in the dark a tricky proposition — particularly when you have to press one of the buttons to unlock the device.

A captive plastic cap hides a Mini USB port on the A1 Liquid’s bottom and there’s a 3.5mm stereo headset socket on the top. The volume and camera shutter release buttons are well-placed on the right of the case, but the position of the power button on the left could be better — it’s quite sensitive and easy to press accidentally when using the device.

We couldn’t figure out an elegant way to remove the A1 Liquid’s battery compartment cover and so resorted to using a fingernail to prise it apart from the case until it popped free — clumsy, but at least it’s unlikely to drop off inadvertently. The 1350mAh battery blocks the microSD and SIM card slots, but this isn’t much of an issue unless you’re in the habit of swapping popping these in and out on a regular basis.

The Acer A1 Liquid runs Android 1.6 (‘Donut’) rather than the more recent Android 2.0 and so lacks some of the features found on the Motorola Milestone and Google Nexus One (a 2.0 update is rumoured, but there’s no confirmation from Acer). Unlike other Android smartphone makers, Acer hasn’t opted for any kind of fancy skin and so the A1 Liquid makes do with the relatively simple default UI with just three Home screens for app shortcuts and widgets.

Although the A1 Liquid uses the same 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor as other Android and Windows Mobile smartphones, Acer has underclocked it to 768Mhz. This is a usual tactic for prolonging battery life, but the A1 Liquid seems to suffer as a result and the UI has none of the ‘snap’ that typifies other smartphones with capacitive displays.

The problem is most noticeable in the web browser, where dragging pages around with a fingertip involves is jerky, while zooming in and out results in an animation that’s missing too many frames to look smooth. We also had a few problems with the on-screen keyboard — accurate typing required far greater fingertip precision that on the iPhone’s keyboard and multiple key presses sometime failed to register.

That the A1 Liquid isn’t more responsive is a pity as the 3.5” screen is lovely to look at. The 480 x 800 resolution means that even tiny text is crisp and easy to read — although this is just as well considering that Android 1.6’s web browser doesn’t handle text reflowing on a zoomed-in page anywhere near as well as the iPhone’s browser.

The A1 Liquid also compares badly to the iPhone when it comes to camera performance. It outclasses the iPhone 3GS’ camera by a couple of megapixels, but this doesn’t equate to a corresponding increase in quality. If anything, picture quality is actually worse, particularly in less than ideal lighting conditions — as the two pairs of snaps below clearly illustrate. Shutter lag also makes taking a quick snap and it takes around for seconds for the A1 Liquid to take a photo after you press the camera button.

Acer A1 Liquid sample photos (click to enlarge)

Apple iPhone 3GS sample photos (click to enlarge)

So, while the Acer A1 Liquid may look like a tempting Android proposition on paper, it just doesn’t hand together well and there are just too many annoyances to make it anything more than a so-so smartphone. At £ 345 for an unlocked model from Expansys, it isn’t that much cheaper than the more capable — and Android 2.0-powered — Motorola Milestone either.