Acer Liquid Metal

A good-looking phone that performs better than its specs sugges

The moment I took the phone out of the box, I fell in love with it. I was still to switch it on. A Sim card slipped in, the bundled 8 GB micro SD card inserted, battery popped in—and on the charger to get going—and I was surprised by what I saw.

Like every other manufacturer, Acer too has added a top layer to its user interface. But unlike other such interfaces that you want to get rid of as soon as possible, this one you will want to keep. Digging a little deeper, you find that the phone still runs Android OS 2.2, and not the 2.3. Acer has no timeline for upgrading to 2.3, but that should not be a bother as long as the phone runs fine, which it does. Compared to the new-age Android phones that have 4 inch plus screens, Liquid Metal has a meagre 3.6 inch display. But what is good about it is that it supports a resolution of 480 x 800, exactly what you get on 4 inch screens. The pictures on this screen therefore appear sharper. The 5 megapixel camera comes with an LED flash, and can take videos at 720 p. The camera also supports smile detection, image stabilisation and geo-tagging, thanks to its built in GPS. Like other such phones, an accelerometer is part of the package.

Its processor runs on an 800 MHz processor unlike the 1 GHz on most such phones. Despite that, the phone feels zippy—except when using the pinch and zoom on 5 megapixel photos. But that is an area most Android phones need to work on.

For connectivity, the Liquid Metal supports Bluetooth 3.0 (that means faster data transfer) and HSPA—so your phone can subscribe to wireless data connections of up to 14.4 Mbps on 3G. For Wi-Fi, it supports 802.11b/g/n protocols.

There is a smart little feature absent in most other smartphones. You no longer need to wake up the screen to check for messages, missed calls or battery status. All this info is revealed by three dedicated LEDs hidden under the screen.

The screen is normal glass, and hence is prone to scratches and fingerprint smudges. And given its unusual size, it is near impossible to find a screen guard that fits this phone.

I used the phone for four working days without charging it. Acer claims a talktime of 8 hours.

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