Acer Liquid Metal Hands-on

For a handset that costs around $400 in the US, and EUR 340 in Europe, the Froyo-laden Acer Liquid Metal has a lot going for it. How do a 3.6" LCD display with 480x800 pixels of resolution, a second generation Snapdragon chipset (the same fast one that is in the T-Mobile G2 and the HTC Desire Z), 512MB RAM/ROM, 14.4Mbps HSDPA, Dolby Mobile sound, and a 5MP cam with LED flash and HD video recording sound to you in that price range? Pretty good, eh? On top of that, the Acer Liquid Metal passed the FCC with AT&T bands, and T-Mobile has also been in talks to bring it into its portfolio.

Liquid metal is, after all, what the new and improved Terminator they sent after Arnie was made of. Here the name makes a not so subtle hint that the handset's casing is partially made of cold, hard metal. To be more precise, the battery cover of our unit is made of mocca-colored steel, and all around the phone is a chrome-like band, which is just plastic, but looks very classy nonetheless. When you add its light weight to the nice choice of materials, as well as the curved surfaces of the casing, the Acer Liquid Metal is one very comfortable to hold and operate with one hand handset, not to mention attention-grabbing.



The design team even managed to come up with a rather cool idea for visual notifications. They put three LED icons on top of the handset, which get illuminated each time you miss a call, have a new message, or are charging the phone - like projectors under an ice skating rink. This way you can just glimpse at the top of the phone, without having to take it out fully or turn on the screen, and know if you had missed calls, emails, or whether it is being juiced up.

The Acer Liquid Metal runs Android 2.2 with Acer's own user interface overlay, called Breeze, which is quite innovative, and which we reviewed extensively when we had the Acer Stream paying a visit. There are a few novelties, like the social networking app Social Jogger, but the Breeze UI part is mostly the same.

We will go through the user interface, the call and sound quality, as well as test how able the camera is in our full review next week. For the time being, color us impressed with the quality craftsmanship, easy handling and cool notification system on the Acer Liquid Metal, especially for its price range. In the meantime, enjoy our unboxing video below: