Acer Liquid S2 Review

Introduction

There are smartphones out there that need no introduction. The Acer Liquid S2, however, is not one of them, and so far it appears that the Taiwanese company's premier phablet device has mostly failed to gain some serious traction. But should that dissuade you from considering the Liquid S2 when you go phablet hunting some time in the foreseeable future? Absolutely not, for Acer's top-shelfer packs quite a punch under its massive hood. At a price.

Does the Liquid S2 have what it takes to make it through the testing grounds? Let's find out.

In the box:

• Wall charger
• microUSB to USB cable
• earphones

Design

The giant Liquid S2 brings fashionable design to the table, but loses points on grounds of poor overall ergonomics

As with any self-respecting phablet out there, the first thing your attention is drawn to in terms of design is the sheer size of the device. The Acer Liquid S2 is giant, even by phablet standards, and it's one of the very biggest 6-inchers out there. What's even more, at 8.15 oz. (231 g), we failed to find a heavier smartphone in this class. The volume rocker (right side) and power button (top left) are both kind of conservative with the amount of feedback they provide. Perhaps more importantly, we're seriously dumbfound at the placement of the rather essential power button, and the capacitive navigation keys don't help matters either – they're pushed at the very bottom of the device. All of this translates into poor ergonomics.

Size and comfort aside, the Liquid S2 is actually an attractive device, especially the red variant that we have at hand. The fashionable design, however, is slightly diminished by the numerous flaps, ports and styling ornaments. The front – your typical Android look – is set apart by the signature, concave Acer earpiece with a matching, red-colored grill. At the back, we instinctively focus on the rather unique camera module with quad flash – a distinctive feature of the S2. Below sits the Acer logo, masterfully etched into the plastic shell itself, followed by a pronounced Dolby Digital Plus badge. Acer has also placed a duo of speakers on the left side of the device, which should hopefully provide an adequate stereo audio experience, but more on that later.

Display

6-inches of crisp viewing goodness

We needed just one look at the 6-inch display on the Liquid S2 for our exasperation with its size to fade into nothingness. This crisp, 1920x1080 pixel resolution IPS panel leaves little to desire, as colors are faithfully rendered, and there's certainly no lack of detail at 368 pixels per inch. The display is not the brightest at 394 nits, however, so it's very well-suited for use in direct sunlight. Lastly, there are no pesky software keys to be found on the S2, so you're getting the full six inches of viewing goodness.

Safety appears to have also been on Acer's agenda for the screen, as we're treated to the third and latest iteration of Corning's Gorilla Glass. It'll be of little use if you drop this heavy phablet face-on, but it should provide protection against superficial scratches.

Interface and Functionality

The gist of pure Android, with some customization sprinkled on top

Acer has been a steadfast supporter of Google's idea of what Android should look and feel like, and its dedication didn't waver this time around either. Of course, there are limits to its unquestioning abidance, and the Liquid S2 is perhaps the most pronounced example of this. Said plainly, we are treated to a vanilla Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean look, but with some considerable additions of code. For example, you can tweak the lock screen unlock animation and set application shortcuts at will, which is functionality we always found handy.

Things like Power options also allow you to choose between high performance, balanced, and power saving modes, much alike your typical laptop. Acer hasn't really disclosed what these do, but we feel fairly certain that this is nothing more than a simple modification to the governing of the processor clock. Other options include the ability to black list battery hog apps, screen capture of particular areas of the screen of your choosing, and floating apps. Acer also hasn't missed the opportunity to load something proprietary, including Acer Docs, Print, and Cloud apps.

Processor and memory

No frills experience

Acer didn't skimp on the specs with the Liquid S2, as seen from the specs sheet. We're talking a powerful, 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor with four Krait 400 cores and an Adreno 330 GPU. Company to that are 2 gigs of RAM, which ensure that multitasking is done with finesse. The amount of internal storage sits at 16GB, but there's a slot for a microSD card.

This type of configuration usually provides a smooth, no-frills experience, no questions asked. The Liquid S2 is no exception to that rule. High-end games like Asphalt  or Modern Combat 4, for example, run smoothly, and the largely stock UI shows no signs of stutters. Unfortunately, heat dissipation is something of a problem with the S2, and the phone can get quite hot if you spend prolonged periods carrying out processor-intensive tasks.

Internet and connectivity

You won't go back: browsing on this 6-incher is a smooth, pleasurable ride

The Liquid S2 taps the holy trinity of mobile browsing: a large, crisp display, a potent chip, and Chrome pre-loaded. This combination leaves little to desire, as load times are minimal, panning and zooming are responsive, and there's no lack of detail for the eye to feast on.

On the connectivity end, the Liquid S2 again checks pretty much all the boxes: 4G LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy, and AGPS with GLONASS support.

Camera

The poorly-optimized camera software gets in the way of great performance

Acer really tried to go the extra mile with the Liquid S2, and nothing says so as much as the camera on the back. The 13-megapixel sensor with 28mm lens is paired with a distinctive 'ring' flash, with quad LED lights. Such an arrangement is unique among smartphones, but more on it in a bit. Aperture, at f2.2, is not the largest we've seen on a smartphone, but still pretty good.

But let's talk quality of snaps. As promised by its high-end stature, the shots captured by the Liquid S2 do not disappoint – but there's something to be desired. Color reproduction is pretty spot on for the most part, though this means that shots can be a tad lifeless at times, with little to no saturation. Andwhile snaps are relatively detailed, they're also quite soft, sometimes almost as if blurred, definitely not on par with the better phone cameras out there.

As for low-light shots, this is an area we were anxiously awaiting to see how the Liquid S2 and its quad LED flash will do in. Unfortunately, the flash is not as potent as the hardware parameters would suggest, and doesn't manage to brighten up the room more than your average phone in darkness. It's also pretty prohibitive with its use – the phone won't fire it unless you have more than 30% of battery charge remaining. Moreover, the phone cranks up the ISO values all the way up to 1900 as it goes from medium to no light scenarios, massively increasing the levels of noise. Disappointing.




Anyway, it's worth pointing out that you have quite some control over the camera, as it offers a lengthy list of features. To that end, you can have your pick between a number of shooting modes, including Panorama, Continuous shooting, and Best shot, controls for white balance, and a selection of scenes among which 'Macro' and 'Backlight'. HDR mode is also available, and we'd like to take a moment to talk about it in particular. The feature failed to intelligently judge the exposures needed to capture a high dynamic range shot in many scenarios, and sometimes even introduced a greenish tinge to snaps. The camera also takes its sweet time to commit an HDR snap to its memory, further clawing away from the appeal of the otherwise useful feature. This is one of the more inadequate cracks at the format we've come across. But back to the the interface. A feature-filled list such as that usually means an encumbered UI, but this does not apply to the S2. Instead, it's minimalistic and efficient, and we liked playing around with it.

Multimedia

Multimedia on the go? You can do no wrong with the Liquid S2

We've already showered the 6-inch, 1080p display of the Liquid S2 with laurels, but its in the multimedia department where it really shines. We won't beat around the bush – the IPS panel provides an eye-feast that does not disappoint. Playback is carried out with no sweat, even with the stock gallery app. Acer did put its own version of the Music, Video and Gallery apps, of course, but these don't offer much in the way of functionality, with the exception that they're all connected to Acer Cloud, which can come in handy if you plan on switching away from your current cloud storage provider.

In terms of audio reproduction, we're not as satisfied. The stereo speakers on the right side output rich sound, one that is constantly being tweaked by the Dolby app, but you're not getting a proper stereo effect, unlike with a phone like the HTC One Max. Loudness is also not among the strongest suits of the duo of speakers, a fact that leaves us with no choice but to brand them just slightly better than the average solution out there.

Call quality

As for call quality, the Liquid S2 took a decidedly middle of the road approach – nothing fancy, but not below average either. The earpiece is definitely the weaker link, as it just doesn't isn't potent enough, but it's definitely not abysmal. On the other hand, the microphone made a better showing – voices' tonality is properly transmitted, though we wished for a little more clarity. This is especially problematic in closed-in spaces, where your voice will sound as if coming out of a tube, which is not entirely surprising, but surely not a selling point, either.

Battery

As has become customary for devices of this size, the S2 is packing quite the battery. With a capacity of 3300mAh and an efficient chip in the face of the Snapdragon 800, we feel confident that you won't be charging this devices on a daily basis, but you may have some difficulties squeezing enough juice for two days. As per Acer's numbers, the Liquid S2 should be good for up to 13 hours of talk time, though the folks at the company do not specify whether we're talking 2G, 3G, or 4G LTE here. Standby time, listed as 700 hours, is equally vague.