14 DAY TRIAL // Acer's latest Windows Phone device, the Allegro is about to make its debut in various European countries, while the company's latest Android smartphone, the Liquid Express has just been introduced in UK.
The handset can be grabbed for free from Orange with a new 24-month agreement from £20.50 ($32.5 or 24 EUR) per month, which nets users 100 minutes, unlimited texts, 500MB data and one Orange Swapable. The smartphone is also available for £199.75 ($318 or 235 EUR) SIM free.
Acer Liquid Express is an entry-budget Android smartphone, hence it does not offer anything exceptional in terms of hardware.
On the positive side, the device is delivered with Android 2.3 Gingerbread on board and has a decent 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen that supports 262k colors and 320 x 480 pixels resolution.
Aside Gingerbread, the Liquid Express offer more customization options via Acer's proprietary user interface. Access to Android Market is provided as well, which further extends the customization options via more than 250,000 apps.
It offers social networking integration via Facebook and Twitter, but other services can be installed as well. In addition, the smartphone includes Google's full suite of apps and services, including Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Google Talk.
Design-wise, the phone looks quite stylish but a bit bulky. Acer Liquid Express measures 115 x 60.8 x 13.4 mm and weighs 135g (battery included).
Acer Liquid Express is quite far from being a mid-budget Android smartphone, as it is equipped with an 800 MHz processor and packs 256 MB of RAM.
The storage can be extended via the microSD card slot, up to 32GB. No free memory cards are offered in the sales package of the Liquid Express.
On the back, there's a 5-megapixel camera with both autofocus and LED flash, which can also record videos. The phone's battery should provide up to 480 hours of standby time or up to 7 hours of talk time.