Acer Liquid Metal review

Acer's latest Android 2.2 smartphone is only just making its way to the shops. Although very reasonably priced, is it worth buying over other smartphones? Read our review to find out.

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The Acer Liquid Metal

IT Pro Verdict

The Acer Liquid Metal runs Android 2.2 and on top of that sits Acer’s Breeze skin. This delivers a rather different take both on accessing widgets and how a home screen is structured. You'll either love it or hate it. You can drop it and use vanilla Android if you’d prefer, though.The screen is vibrant and sharp, and although the processor isn't the fastest available it's fast enough. Plus, the price is rather lower than other leading edge Android smartphones.

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Acer's smartphone range includes both Windows Mobile and Android handsets. While the company has yet to announce a smartphone running Windows Phone 7, it has embraced Android 2.2 and this is the operating system found on the Acer Liquid Metal. Preinstalled on top of Android 2.2 is Acer's own customised interface, the consumer-focussed Stream.

The Liquid Metal has a couple of novelties in its hardware design. The curved back is out of the ordinary. This has no effect, positive or negative, on the ergonomics of holding the Liquid Metal in the hand. When rested on a desk, however, it means that the smartphone rocks from side-to-side as you tap the screen. Not so much as to make the device unusable, but enough to be irritating.

The backplate, incidentally, is brown with the main bulk carrying an etched pattern. We rather like it, and the chrome and black of the sides and front of the chassis respectively look dull in comparison.

Acer has included three status lights on the top edge. These stay hidden until they start pulsing a white light that glows through the chrome. They indicate battery status, messaging notifications and missed calls. They're a useful visual indicator of missed communications and will be appreciated by veteran Blackberry fans.

On the top edge of the phone sits the 3.5mm headset connector and power switch. On the right is a shortcut button for the five megapixel camera and a volume rocker. The microUSB connector is found on the bottom edge.

There's nothing unexpected about the touch-sensitive Home, Search, Back and Menu buttons on the front of the chassis beneath the screen. Overall, the Acer Liquid Metal is a comfy fit in the hand and pocket.

Sandra Vogel
Sandra Vogel
Freelance journalist

Sandra Vogel is a freelance journalist with decades of experience in long-form and explainer content, research papers, case studies, white papers, blogs, books, and hardware reviews. She has contributed to ZDNet, national newspapers and many of the best known technology web sites.

At ITPro, Sandra has contributed articles on artificial intelligence (AI), measures that can be taken to cope with inflation, the telecoms industry, risk management, and C-suite strategies. In the past, Sandra also contributed handset reviews for ITPro and has written for the brand for more than 13 years in total.