Acer occupies the middle ground in the smartphone wars
Some in the smartphone business have worked out that not everyone is prepared to spend £500 or more on a phone or sign up for a £40-per-month contract. But equally most of these same people don't want a slow device with a rubbish camera.
As a result, we're seeing a new stratum of £125-£225 phones that have generally good specifications that won't blow tumbleweeds through your current account.
The Acer Jade Liquid fits this slot exactly, being a fully featured KitKit Android phone with a 5" 720p display, 13MP camera and a quad-core CPU.
I've reviewed a few phones like this that failed to live up to their specs, but the Liquid Jade is actually better than most of those and better than its price might suggest.
The centrepiece of this design is a remarkably thin and light chassis that when combined with the screen and internals only weighs an astonishing 110g.
After minimal weight, the next stand-out feature is the terrific IPS display. Protected by curved Gorilla Glass 3, it delivers punchy colours, excellent viewing angles and is wonderfully crisp. The display immediately makes web pages and maps very readable, and email management easier for those with aged-impaired vision.
If the hardware has a weakness, it's probably the MediaTek MT6582 ARM Cortex-A7 processor and ARM Mali-400 GPU. While generally good, compared with the latest ARM designs, this one is a little behind the curve. In benchmarks, these parts perform much like the processor that Google put in its old Nexus 4.
That said, compared with many cheaper Android devices, the Liquid Jade has tons of power and can play even 3D titles with some aplomb. The wi-fi also doesn't work in 802.11 ac mode and there's no LTE support, unlike the latest version of the Motorola Moto G. However, it does support USB OTG.
I'd like to think that some of these omissions are tradeoffs against features that more people are likely to use, like the impressive 13MP, F1.8 lens camera.
Another is the clever SIM tray that can take either a single nano SIM and a micro-SD card (32GB max) or two nano SIMs. Multi-SIM phones are huge in Asia but have been frowned on by contract sellers in Europe. If you have a business and personal mobile, then this phone could allow you to merge them into a single device.
Acer also threw in Dolby DTS-HD audio, emitted through a special speaker output on the phone's rear.
So what's not to like? A few things, but thankfully none of them are deal breakers. My first complaint is the shiny plastic back that Acer applied to this design, which on the black model corners the market for visible fingerprints. I suspect the white model is superior in this respect, but a textured non-gloss surface would have looked much smarter.
The second is a common complaint with Android phones: phone makers’ insistence on putting their own twist on Google's Android OS. As per HTC and Samsung, Acer just couldn't resist messing with the interface in a rather slapdash way that will annoy Android purists intensely. While it isn't entirely awful, I just wish they'd accept that most people like Android the way Google made it.
Among these customisations are dumbed-down modes for children and old folks that are patronising in the extreme. I'd hoped these things had gone with feature phones, but they keep returning. If a person is too old or young to understand Android, then they don't need a smartphone.
And finally, I would have liked a removable and replaceable battery, but the back doesn't come off. The battery life isn't amazing, though Acer did add a nice OS-level feature, where the phone will automatically power itself off at certain times of the day if you wish.
If you can ignore those aspects, this is an exceptionally impressive phone for an incredibly competitive price. Those wanting these things even cheaper might be able to find a 1GB RAM and 8GB storage model it released previously, which sells for about £25 less.
Personally, I'd plump for the 16GB model reviewed here, because you're less likely to need the micro-SD, opening up the possibility of using dual SIMs instead.
Even if Acer's interface vandals have been busy, they can't obscure that this is an excellent design with many features that I'd class as 'premium' even by modern standards. If Acer did a Nexus uncluttered edition, then I'd be tempted to get one myself.
If you want something physically bigger but lighter to carry than the great Moto G, then the Liquid Jade is an excellent choice and fantastic value for money. Mark Pickavance
A KitKat phone that could easily be mistaken for a premium device.
Specifications:
• Android OS: KitKat 4.4.2.
• CPU: Mediatek MT6572M quad-core 1.30 GHz ARM-V7.
• Display: IPS 12.7 cm (5M) (1280 x 700).
• Cameras: 13 megapixel (rear camera), 2 megapixel (front camera).
• Memory: 2GB RAM.
• Storage: 16GB.
• SIM: Nano (dual).
• Battery capacity: 2100mAh.
• Wi-fi standards supported: 802.11 b/ g/ n.
• Connectivity: GPS, Bluetooth, 3.5mm headphone jack, micro-usb, compass, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor.