Taiwan’s leading computer maker Acer introduces the world’s first Android 1.6 (Donut) smartphone – the Acer Liquid A1. It is also the world’s first Android smartphone to run on the powerful Qualcomm 8250 Snapdragon engine clocked at 768 MHz. There’s the HTC HD2 using the same engine but it runs on the Windows Mobile platform and it is certain HTC is currently busy with the HTC Dragon on a similar Android Snapdragon path that should become available early next year.
Officially announced a few days back, the new Acer smartphone is targeted to hit the world markets by November in time for the holidays. There is no pricing information but knowing Acer makes competitively affordable handsets, we don’t expect the Liquid A1 to be anywhere near upscale smartphones from the leading makers.
As Liquid as It Gets
The new Acer Liquid A1 does look very fluid in its sleek curvaceous design sporting the candybar touchscreen form factor. Its 3.5” 256k color WVGA TFT LCD capacitive screen dominates the façade with a relatively narrow bezel surrounding it to make it small enough to fit anyone’s grip. The finish is exceptionally smooth to give the name more credibility. It measures a fashionably petite 15 x 62.5 x 12.5 mm with 135g on the scale. Acer adds personalization to its body by giving the Liquid handset three cover colors that users can choose from when it arrives – black, white and red.
Its fluid design is complemented with an open flexible Android 1.6 operating system that holds much of its promise in providing a rich and versatile mobile phone experience. With the Snapdragon behind it, you get the most powerful smartphone besides the Sony Ericsson Xperia 3 that has yet to be officially launched.
Unique Features
Talk is cheap when it comes to 3D graphics on the mobile phone but with the Snapdragon, this gets increasingly more real. In addition, Acer and its business partners have bundled with the phone new set of apps that capitalize on the engine power and OS flexibility to allow the following benefits unique to the Android platform for now.
You get a more intelligent power management feature for longer battery life for extensive users. There’s a new proprietary user interface with instant one-touch access to your favorite internet sites, entertainment apps and files right form the homescreen.
Exclusive Spinlets, as Acers trademarks their Android apps, provide free streaming of audio and video content from internet sites that the phone can share with friends and family through posting on your frequently visited social networking sites or through email as attachments.
The platform also allows intelligent integration with those social sites like Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube and Twitter in the phonebook with realtime updates on status and content. Last but not the least, there’s a software optimized camera that allows GPS-assisted geo-tagging and accelerated auto-focusing.
Competitive Hardware Features
The Acer Liquid A1 is a 3G phone with HSDPA/HSUPA data connectivity for a no-wait internet surfing and downloading. There’s WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR as well as high speed USB port. Sensors galore for ambient light, accelerometer and a proximity sensor. There’s a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash. There are the usual media players that can play the popular audio and video content formats, Bluetooth 2 with A2DP, a stereo FM radio and 3.5mm headphone sockets. Internal memory has 256 MB of RAM and 512 MB of ROM with microSDHC support for up to 32 GB. Its 1350 mAh battery allows 5 hours of talk time and 400 hours or 14 days of standby time. Not bad for an affordable Acer smartphone said to be the most powerful in the world.