Acer Liquid A1

Editor's Review of the Liquid A1

The Acer Liquid A1 is a sophisticated handset, boasting rounded edges and white, red and black colour variants, although it does feel a little bit cheap to touch. It's a pocket friendly handset, measuring in at just of 115 ? 64 x 12.43mm, and weighting just 135g with its battery in place. It offers a capacitive WVGA touch screen that measures 88.9 millimetres that displays images and graphics in 256,000 vibrant colours on 800 x 480 resolution. This mobile phone comes with capacitive buttons, providing each access to the handset's Home, Search, Back and Menu functions.

This handset is quad band, supporting GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800 and GSM 1900, as well as HSDPA networks. It is an ideal companion for frequent travellers for its global roaming capacity, but its coverage may be dependent on the user's network provider.

Thanks to the Liquid 1's 7.2Mpbs HSDPA speeds and WiFi connectivity, browsing the web is quick and painless, and you can sync your handset to your personal computer without any fuss. Through the Acer Liquid A1's integrated Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP technology, users are also able to wirelessly transfer data to or from other handsets, personal computers, scanners, printers or laptops within a 10-metre distance.

Running on Android v.1.6 operating system, more commonly recognized as the Donut, this handset utilises the 1GHz Snapdragon Processor that supports 3D graphics. This mobile phone sports a familiar user interface that supports quick and easy access to frequently used and bookmarked applications or web sites. It is also reputed for its social network integration prowess, allowing easy access to Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and YouTube. The Acer Liquid A1 also exclusively offers Spinlets, which is a selection of media content widgets that make streaming or sharing of videos online a breeze. This handset supports standard text and multimedia messaging features. It also offers built-in GPS support to assist users as they tread certain unfamiliar spots. An accelerometer and light sensor is also packed in this modern mobile phone.

Users who enjoy taking photos will appreciate this handsets onboard 5 megapixel camera, which comes complete with optical zoom, autofocus and photo editing tools. This camera also shoots videos and allows users to stream their footages in WMV, MP4, H.263 and H.264 video formats and enjoy them on the QVGA display. Music loving users will also appreciate this handset's music player that supports WAV, MP3, AAC and WMA formats. Alongside the Android media player, this handset also sports the nemoPlayer, which comes with a widget for users to easily flick through and access their video, photo or music albums.

The Acer Liquid A1 offers 256 Megabytes of Random Access Memory and 512 Megabytes Read Only Memory, which is expandable to up to 32 Gigabytes using the Micro SDHC memory card. Powered by a rechargeable 1.350 mAh Lithium Polymer battery, this mobile phone enables users to communicate with their contacts for a maximum talk time of 6 hours or an equivalent of 300 minutes. This handset offers standby time of up to 400 hours. An ambient LED sensor helps preserve battery life, as it supports automatic adjustment of the QVGA screen's brightness.