Looks like quite a few folks have got their hands on the Acer Liquid as of late, and lucky for us they've been rather loose-lipped with their thoughts on the subject. As suspected, the handset is running a 1GHz Snapdragon that's been under-clocked to 768MHz. And it looks like Acer didn't go crazy with the User Experience either, pretty much staying true to its Google Android 1.6 roots, albeit with a number of additions, including: social networking integration (Facebook and Flickr contacts and photo sharing), nemoPlayer for multimedia files, DataViz for Microsoft Exchange support, and the Spinlets music streaming service. In addition, Acer has redesigned some of the widgets, including the clock and the task manager, which now includes a preview of open apps. All-in-all, it seems to be a pretty solid Android handset with a few useful additions -- but as always, the verdict is out until we get our hands on one. In the meantime, hit up the read links below for a generous helping of screenshots, hands-on pics, and impressions.
Ugh. Just weeks after we figured that Acer's first Android-based handset would indeed ship with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a new slide over at an international Liquid presentation is suggesting otherwise. As you can clearly see above, it looks as if the Qualcomm-sourced CPU will be underclocked to just 768MHz, which makes little to no sense on the surface. Granted, most average consumers couldn't care less about the CPU in their next smartphone, but it seems reasonable to think that the Liquid will lag behind its 1GHz contemporaries when used side-by-side. Who knows though -- maybe this is just the thing necessary to squeeze a full week of battery life out of this thing. Or not.
After what seemed like a full lifetime of waiting, Acer's recently-launched neoTouch S200 is finally making its way into some reviewing hands. The fine young cannibals over at Phone Arena have just given it the head to toe treatment, and we have to say, we're glad they've done the dirty work for us. This WinMo 6.5 handset, according to their impressions, seems to be a not fully baked affair -- sluggishness and random crashing are both reported, as is a rather serious sounding call quality issue. The battery also seems to be inadequate for a workday, coming in at around five hours. Overall, the phone suffers from software optimization problems more than hardware issues. The one ray of light in all this is of course that 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, which can multitask and handle several things at once without flinching -- but it's rather hard to get pumped about it in the face of all that sadness. Hit the read link for the full, exhaustive review.
It feels like these phones have been on sale for a solid six months for some weird reason, but in reality, Acer's 2009 line of WinMo 6.5 devices -- including the range-topping F1 -- are finally out and about with shiny new names to boot. As we'd previously heard, the Snapdraon-powered F1 is actually going to market as the S200 and will sit in the high-end neoTouch range, while the E100, E101, and E200 will slum it down in the beTouch series. All four are touch-equipped and range in price from £159 to £295 ($259 to $481) at retail, and when you consider that they're all fully unlocked and unbranded, that may not be so bad of a deal -- particularly for that sexy S200 up there.
Generic form factor? Check. Default Android skin? Check. Sure, that's nothing exciting, but the real draw of Acer Liquid's gonna be its large, 800 x 480 resolution screen (the exact size of which we still don't know) and its 1GHz Snapdragon chipset. Unfortunately for the guys at Pocket-Lint, they didn't get to play with the Donut-powered handset long enough to really push those two selling points, but on the bright side they did discover a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and some ISO adjustment options, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and what appears to be a 3.5mm headphone jack. Perhaps more importantly, they nabbed some pictures of the thing powered on and in action. Jealous? Yes, yes we are.
Update: We finally have the first images (above) showing Acer's customized Android UI and social networking integration (after the break) courtesy of HDBlog.it. It not quite the full-blown replacement a la HTC Sense, but they've clearly brought a new bag of tricks in an attempt to make the vanilla OS experience Acer-unique.
Hey, what do you know, Acer just kicked out its first Android handset into the mystical kingdom of donuts and Snapdragons. Liquid, a rebranded (and slightly restyled) A1, brings a 800 x 480 WVGA capacitive touchscreen upon which you'll watch Android 1.6 ride that peppy Snapdragon processor. It's presumably tuned to 1GHz (or higher) and not 768MHz as listed on the eXpansys Germany spec-sheet -- a trick that'll make this the fastest Android handset on the planet. Of course, what would Android be without some tweaking? Acer promises a bevy of unique features such as improved power management, a new UI with tight entertainment and web integration, geo-tagging, a "Spinlets" application for access to streaming video and music, and full address book integration with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other social media houses. Unfortunately, that's all the detail that Acer's willing to spill at the moment; dates, real specs, and prices when we get 'em.
Had the device you're peering at above come out just a few months later, it would've taken two full years to go from introduction to on sale. Thankfully, the good folks over at Garmin and ASUS (and Garmin-Asus, as it were) were able to get the nüvifone G60 out to AT&T before the holiday shopping season of 2009, but were they still too late? There's no doubt that this very smartphone had a lot of folks drooling in early 2007, but to say a lot has happened in the mobile realm between then and now would be doing the truth a grave injustice. The iPhone 3G has fallen to $99, a slew of Android handsets have hit the market and dedicated PND (portable navigation devices) have found themselves in the bargain bin. Oh, and some pretty fantastic GPS software has managed to land within Apple's App Store and the Android Market. In other words, competition couldn't possibly be hotter, and considering that the specifications haven't been updated on this $299 device since it was originally announced, you're probably wondering if it even deserves a chance. Read on to find out the answer.
There are a number of ways to clearly convey that your products rely heavily on touch operation, perhaps none clearer than simply straight-up putting "touch" somewhere in the name (see TouchWiz, TouchFLO, Touch, TouchSmart, UltraTouch, the list goes on). Enter Acer, which has been preparing a number of new WinMo sets this year including the buzz-generating F1 backed by a speedy Snapdragon core -- except don't call it an F1 anymore, because it's taken on the far more trademarkable "neoTouch" name as it steamrolls toward an official release in coordination with Microsoft's global launch of WinMo 6.5 next week. Filling out the range will be three members of the "beTouch" line -- the E100, E101, and E200 -- all of which should give you that warm fuzzy feeling that you'll be able to use your finger to navigate around (if they'd been called "beKeyboard," for example, you'd have to be more skeptical).
We'd been hearing that Acer's Android-based A1 smartphone would be hitting this month, and while we still haven't heard anything official, it's just gone up for pre-order at Expansys. The spec sheet is rather intriguing, since it lists Android 2.0 Donut and a 768MHz Qualcomm 8250 processor, which is a 240MHz bump over every other Android set on the market right now. Pre-orders aren't insane at €389 ($571), but we'll see what official pricing and carrier support look like before we reach for our wallets.
Just because you can't buy Acer's mighty F1 yet doesn't mean you can't do a whole lot of learning about it now that the company has officially posted the beastly handset's user manual online. Actually, if you want to get technical about it, they've posted a manual for an "S200" -- but browsing it quickly reveals that they're talking about the F1 judging by the diagrams and specs, which leads us to wonder whether S200 is the official go-to-market name, a regional variant, or something even more sinister. No bother -- at any rate, the manual is a good opportunity to learn about Windows Mobile 6.5, which the F1 will be shipping with; you're also reminded of that totally bangin' Qualcomm 8250 (that's Snapdragon to the lay folk) running at 1GHz, the 3.8-inch WVGA display, the full HSPA, and the 5 megapixel autofocus camera. Americans will be bummed to see the lack of HSPA 850, though they should be able to cling to 1900MHz in many markets -- and it's not like North America has gotten a lot of mobile love from Acer in the past, so it certainly comes as no surprise. [Warning: PDF link]
Here's some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of mobile for Friday, August 7th, 2009:
In addition to the BL40 and BL42, it looks like LG's upcoming Chocolate series is also going to include a lower-end BL20 according to a newly-uncovered user agent profile. Whatever it is, it's got a QVGA display -- a far cry from the epic 21:9 unit on the BL40. [Via PhoneArena]
Motorola's W562 candybar for China has broken cover, and needless to say, you won't find any Android here. CDMA and a 2 megapixel camera, yes, but no Android.
More baby steps are being taken in states' fights to jam phone signals in and around prisons. This time around, a Senate subcommittee has sent a bill to the full Senate that would allow individual states to plead their jamming case to the FCC, which -- as of right now, anyway -- seems pretty lukewarm to the idea in general. [Via Phone Scoop]
Acer -- like Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, RIM, Palm, Google, LG, Samsung, and your cousin Ralph -- is opening an app store. It expects the store to be ready in the next few months as it ramps up the barrage of new WinMo devices it's been pimping over the course of the year. [Via PHONE Magazine]
South Korea's KT has confirmed that it'll carry the iPhone at some point, though it's refusing to spill details on exactly when or how that'll go down. SKT's apparently still in the mix, too, so we could end up without carrier exclusivity here. [Via Unwired View]
Ah DigiTimes, what would a morning be without your rumors sourced from within Taiwan's component suppliers? Today's tattle has Acer launching its A1, C1/E1, F1, and L1 smartphones "at the end of September and in the fourth quarter" -- that a four-month spread. Of these, the F1 running WinMo 6.5 (pictured above) on Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform and A1 running Android are undoubtedly the most interesting. It's just rumor but it does corroborate the hushed Septemberwhispers already heard.
As Windows Mobile devices go, it's virtually impossible for an entrant in the game not to be compared to HTC, and Acer's M900 is a prime example -- the specs look great on paper, but it's pretty much got to stand toe-to-toe with the Touch Pro2 to get any time in the limelight. Pocketnow did the honors with the landscape QWERTY slider, finding that the screen's great -- what's not to love about a 3.8-inch WVGA display, after all -- and the Samsung processor blazes, but the firmware load is buggy (not to mention downright crappy-looking compared to TouchFLO), free RAM's hard to come by, and virtually everything about the hardware feels cheap. At over $600 unlocked, it's a tough pill to swallow, particularly in the US where you've got to find an importer you know, trust, love, and play canasta with on Thursday evenings.
If you've a proven track record of delivering solid products to consumers (much like Garmin has), we'll cut you some slack for awhile if you happen to hit a snag or two along the way while bringing a completely new device to market. But after more delays than we care to count and a 1.5 year gap between announcement and right now, the benefit of the doubt vanishes. To that end, we couldn't be happier to report that Garmin's president and COO Cliff Pemble feels that it's "getting very close" to a carrier launch (AT&T, perhaps?) in the US. Said statement was given at a shareholders meeting today, and he also mentioned that the Asian market would see the Nuvifone "this month or in early July." We appreciate the update, but at this point, the burden of proof is squarely on you, Garmin.
We've already seen dormant F1s resting comfortably from the confines of display stands at MWC earlier this year, but Acer's now ready to flip the power switch and show off its WinMo 6.5 superphone's capabilities in the flesh at Computex this week. Our own Engadget Chinese spent some quality time shooting the Snapdragon-powered beast, running what could very well be the gold shipping build of 6.5 considering that it's now been released to manufacturers in final form for inclusion in their devices. As you might expect for the Tegra-fighting Snapdragon silicon, animations and transitions seems to be totally dead-on smooth and movement between applications is faster than anything this side of a Toshiba TG01, so we're excited to see this one find its way into retail later this year; in the meantime, though, follow the link for some glorious footage.
Here's some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of mobile for Friday, August 7th, 2009:
