Acer Liquid E1 Review

Introduction

We got a brief hands-on time with the Acer Liquid E1 at the MWC expo not long ago, but now the retail deal made its way into the office, and it marks a foray into the affordable lower mid-range market for Acer.

The Android 4.1 Jelly Bean phone has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it stand out, like stereo speakers with DTS output, as well as a dual SIM version for emerging markets, which is the one we have for review, so read on for all the details...



Design

The Acer Liquid E1 is a fairly light and compact phone, that feels pretty well in the hand, thanks to the soapy shape with tapered back and the rounded corners. It still leaves a tad chunky impression, and the back cover is made of patterned plastic, but is a bit slippery nonetheless.



The rounded frontal shape and red speaker grills remind of HTC's unibody designs, but the Acer Liquid E1 actually sports a removable back cover that reveals a swappable 1760 mAh battery, microSD card slot, and in our unit – two SIM card slots.


The power/lock key up top is painted in red as well, but not the metallic volume rocker on the right, whose tactile feedback leaves something to be desired.


Display

A 540 x 960 pixels 4.5” display of the LCD variety ensures a decent 245ppi pixel density. Colors are well represented, but the TFT panel doesn't have the best viewing angles, and brightness plus contrast diminish quite a bit after the 45 degree mark.

The screen could use a bit more brightness outside under direct sunlight, too, yet it's still on the average side, so you don't have to shade the screen with your palm to see what's going on in broad daylight.



Interface and functionality

Acer hasn't coated the Android interface too much, providing an almost stock imagery, complete with on-screen navigational buttons.

Besides the connectivity toggles in the notification bar, a couple of weather widgets, and a few specific apps for the AcerCloud service, the stock Android feeling runs uninterrupted on the Liquid E1. Acer also didn't bother reinventing the wheel, and is just using Swype as the default keyboard on the phone.


AcerCloud deserves a separate mention here, as it is the company's effort for a storage and syncing service, and spans from docs through pics, to music and video files. You can, for instance, set your home computer as a “Cloud PC”, and access its contents on your phone from everywhere, AcerCloud will uyftfuwake it up for you. Acer's Docs app syncs your edited documents from your PC to your phone and back. You can also create music and video playlists, and stream them down to your phone via AcerCloud, or browse pictures stored elsewhere.


Processor and memory

The 1 GHz dual-core MediaTek processor that is so popular in entry level Androids these days is running the show on the Acer Liquid E1, with interface and app performance that is usable for your everyday tasks, yet feels sluggish compared to most modern chipsets, which is confirmed with the unremarkable benchmarks below.

The handset has the staple for a mid-ranger nowadays 1 GB of RAM, ensuring the possibility for a decent number of simultaneously open apps. Acer provides just 4 GB of internal storage, but you can always expand it via the microSD slot.

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu	GLBenchmark 2.5	Vellamo (HTML5 / Metal)
Acer Liquid E1	2854	6647	420	1372/379
Google Nexus 4	4757	16749	4917	1375/600
HTC One	12481	23308	3551	2395 / 781
Sony Xperia Z	8221	20835	3382	2198/626

Internet and connectivity

The stock browser is a bit slow to redraw the page upon zooming in or out, but scrolling and panning around feel sufficiently quick. Acer has supplied Chrome, too, but it doesn't support Adobe Flash, whereas the other browser can take advantage of sideloaded Flash from Adobe's archives.


The Acer Liquid E1 sports 14.4 Mbps 3G modems, as well as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS radios, without any fancier stuff like DLNA or NFC. In the Duo version two regular SIM cards are supported, which let you hook up to two carrier networks at once, and receive incoming call on one, while talking on the other line, or use the data connection of the one you choose with a simple tap on the notification bar switch.

Camera

The phone boasts a 5 MP camera with LED flash on the back, as well as a front-facing shooter for video chat. The camera interface is simple, with large and easy to press buttons, and a huge virtual shutter key. The camera app sports an impressive array of capture modes, including HDR, Panorama and Continuous shots, many scene modes, and a few color effects.


The pictures themselves, however, turned out soft to the point of blurry, and white balance measurements were off in high contrast areas, making the sky appear purple. Color representation is a tad colder than reality, and the phone captures detail more akin to a 2MP camera instead of the 5MP shooter it boasts.


Video is captured in HD 720p definition with 30fps, but these are about its only virtues – the footage appears as blurry and lacking detail as the stills, and there are skipped frames and artifacts appearing throughout.

Acer Liquid E1 Sample Video:



Acer Liquid E1 Indoor Sample Video:



Multimedia

The gallery is pretty simple, with grid-like thumbnail previews of your photos, and no editing options from within the interface. Acer has done a little trick with zooming, where you need to double-tap on the photo to enlarge it, while pinching with two fingers actually rotates it around.


We get a basic music player, too, with the ability to categorize your songs by artists, albums, and even genres, and switch for a nice transparent overlay list of all songs in an album on top of your currently played one. There are no equalizer presets, but the dual stereo speakers can pump out DTS sound format, which is an alternative to the Dolby Mobile or Beats Audio that other Android makers use.


The sound from the dual speaker system Acer is touting with the Liquid E1 is a tad fuller, and, well, stereo, compared to your average smartphone speaker, but the output is rather quiet, even at maximum volume.

There is a versatile video player on the phone that runs every popular format thrown at it, including DivX/Xvid/MKV files, and up to 1080p definitions at that, although the Full HD clips run choppy compared to the HD ones.



Call quality

Voice quality is pretty decent on both ends with the Acer Liquid E1. Sound in the earpiece is loud and clear, though somewhat hollow, but with no parasite or hissing noises. On the other end they could hear us well, too, without any distortion, or voice alteration.

Battery

Acer has supplied a 1760 mAh battery unit inside the Liquid E1, which it lists as enough for eight hours of talk time and two weeks of standby, which is below the average, and in reality the battery can be drawn out within the daily usage with a heavier workload. Maintaining connection for two SIM cards also takes its toll on the battery life.

Conclusion

The Acer Liquid E1 delivers fine in a lot of aspects for its sub-$300 price – it has decent design and screen panel, and has good call quality, as well as stereo speakers. The drawbacks are the subpar camera results, weakling processor, and the quiet sound output from the dual speaker system for a phone that brags an extra speaker.

The dual SIM version we had is worth a try as it lets you hook up to two carrier networks at once, and delivers the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean experience as well as the rest of the dual SIM competition here. Competitors are Galaxy S Duos or the HTC Desire V, which, however, have smaller screens, as well as for a more direct clash the LG Optimus L7 Dual is arriving, with higher camera resolution and better processor.

As for the basic single SIM Acer Liquid E1, the competition in this $200 and change segment is vast and furious – the LG Optimus L9 comes to mind, with IPS screen and larger battery, or the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Express, with the same screen size, but AMOLED technology and more internal memory.

Software version: 1.007.00_WW_GEN1

Acer Liquid E1 Video Review: