Acer Liquid A1 Review

Camera:

None of the Android-based cell phones on the market today delivers snapshot quality that is something to write home about and the Acer Liquid A1 isn´t exception to the rule (the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, however, looks promising indeed). It´s equipped with 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, but without flash and its interface is ultra-simplified. You can fiddle with picture resolution, white balance and ISO sensitivity, add several effects and set the shooting timer. The camera itself is sluggish and needs about 3-4 seconds to focus properly and another 4-5 seconds to save the picture you´ve just taken.



As a whole the results are acceptable and at par with the other smartphones in the same class. The images lack proper details and their colors are slightly thin. Sadly, the lack of flash means you better forget about snapshots in low lighting conditions.




The Acer Liquid A1 captures videos at VGA resolution and 20 frames per second and they play relatively smoothly. The overall quality is good, but the sound is mediocre and you can hardly hear what a person that was just several feet away while you were shooting the video was trying to say.

Acer Liquid A1 sample video at 640x480 pixels resolution


Multimedia:

As we have already mentioned, the phone is equipped with cool multimedia player and 3.5mm jack. So, is there anything that prevents you from using the Acer Liquid A1 as a personal audio player? Well, no... provided you get yourself a proper pair of headphones, because the boxed set is mediocre. It offers such a sharp sound, that you won´t be able to stand it if the loudness is anywhere near the mid setting or higher. Things get much better the second you plug in a decent set.

The only video format you can watch videos in, meaning without any issues, is MPEG4. We managed to play content with resolution of 1,280x720 pixels and the quality was pretty good. Unfortunately, MPEG4/H.264 files played without sound and only at low resolution (say 320x480 pixels). DivX and Xvid files are not supported at all.