Acer Liquid Z3 Review

Introduction

Acer has a stellar track record as a master in the inexpensive electronics branch, originally starting off with PCs and laptops, and more recently – tablets and smartphones. With that in mind, the Acer Liquid Z3 falls right into the very field of expertise of the Taiwanese company – at €99 (about $132) it's truly a budget-friendly offering.

But, smartphones on the cheap have ceased to be a novelty, though the traditional concerns are still present: does an affordable price tag spell low quality? Not necessarily it would appear, and the pocket-friendly 3.5-inch Liquid Z3 is a prime example. Of course, that's not to say that no trade-offs are involved, so the real question is whether the Z3, as a whole, is worth it? Let's find out.

In the box:

• User manual
• USB cable
• Wall charger
• Acer headphones

Design

Trendy as they may be, Acer hasn't gone for a variety of colors with the Liquid Z3 – it's only offered in black & white, and we've got the arguably less attractive black version. The Z3's design amounts to more than the frugal price tag suggests – it's obviously plastic, but real sturdy at that, not to mention compact. Let us emphasize that this is a very well put together piece of hardware for its price range – there are no cracks in the profile of the device and it didn't so much as creak despite a considerable amount of force being exercised on its sides.

There's no mistaking the Acer Liquid Z3 for a premium device. But it doesn't feel cheap, either. The rounded back of the device features a brushed matte plastic, making the device a pleasure to hold. Moreover, while at 0.41 inches (10.4mm) thickness, the Liquid Z3 is leaning slightly more towards the bulky category, we found that to be a good thing in terms of ergonomics. At 4.23 oz (120g), the Z3 weighs enough to make its presence known, but no more.

The Z3 features capacitive platform buttons, instead of software ones. Up on the right, there's the volume rocker, while top middle is where you'll find the power button. Both physical buttons suffer from a shared flaw – there's barely any travel to the keys, and they provide very little feedback. What's even worse, both keys require you to use some force to get them to register your press.

Display

The TFT screen on the Acer Liquid Z3 is perhaps its biggest weakness. While size preferences are certainly subjective, the Z3's 3.5-inch display is definitely far from the norm, as far as Android devices go. And while we can definitely understand that some people simply prefer compact phones, there's no denying that the 320x480 resolution (165 ppi) is edging on the sanitary minimum nowadays. But, it's not all bad – the screen is not unpleasant to look at – it won't be turning any heads, but it's adequate considering the target group that Acer is shooting for with the Z3. Viewing angles are also good, though the glass on top of the screen has made the Z3 quite reflective.

Interface and Functionality

The Acer Liquid Z3 runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, which is actually impressive. Acer has done some custom work on top of it, but the software feels and looks a lot like pure stock Android with some notable exceptions. Namely, Acer has added four so-called Quick Modes, which are essentially very simplified launchers that replace the usual way Android operates. Reminiscent of Windows Phone Tiles, these include Basic, Senior, Keypad and Classic modes, each with a considerably simplified interface, though that does come at the expense of some functionality.

Another area where the attentive among you are sure to notice Acer's touch is the Quick Toggles menu, where you have a few extra tiles added, like audio profiles, screen timeout settings and float caller – a feature that, when enabled, minimizes the context window for incoming calls, instead of hijacking your entire screen. We appreciate the thought, though we found the execution to be lacking a bit.

As is to be expected, the lock screen features a shortcut to the camera and you can add more widgets if you want, as per Android 4.2 and above. Everything else, including the Phonebook and Messaging app, has been left virtually unchanged from the stock, which is definitely a plus.

Processor and Memory

A common issue with budget devices is that performance hiccups usually lurk right behind the corner. The Acer Liquid Z3, however, handles itself excellently in day-to-day tasks, and you can actually even do some gaming on it! Sure, Real Racing 3 took its sweet time to install, but once it ran a few times, we had no annoyingly long hang-ups, and the frame-rate was certainly high enough to be considered acceptable (and very much playable), all things considered.

Of course, to achieve such a feat, the Mali 400 GPU renders games with as little fluff as possible, not to mention that the 1GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6572 chipset has to render a disproportionately low amount of pixels. Nevertheless, considering that you've got to make do with just 512MB of RAM, the results from our real-life usage tests and even benchmarks proved more than sufficient.

Unfortunately, it's not all good – the Acer Liquid Z3 may very well run Real Racing 3, though that was only possible after we freed some space from the extremely limited 4GB of internal storage before we had enough for an install. In case you're wondering, there's a little over 2GB available for use, the rest is used up by the system. Thankfully, there's a microSD slot card, so you can easily expand.

Internet and Connectivity

The Acer Liquid Z3 comes with Chrome pre-installed, so you're good to go right away. Our experience while browsing is generally neutral – it took the phone some time to render pages, though once that happened, scrolling and zooming was mostly decent, all the while keeping in mind that this is a budget device.


In terms of connectivity, you've got the usual on board – HSDPA (up to 21.1Mbit/s), Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, GPS and Bluetooth 3.0.

Camera

The price-conscious Acer Liquid Z3 comes with an expectedly frugal 3.1 MP rear camera with fixed focus and no flash. Interestingly enough, Acer has given the Z3 an option for panoramic shots, though the implementation of the feature is downright disastrous – it simply doesn't work!

Looking at the samples, we should note that, on the plus side, color fidelity is fairly good, though it does go downhill from there. Fixed focus, for example, is anything but optimal, meaning that we had quite a few partially blurred out images. Equally critical is the lack of a flash which simply means that low-light photography is out of the question and will prove to be disastrous at the very best. Overall, the camera is okay for the occasional snap, but nothing fancier than that.

Similarly, the camcorder on the Z3 is nothing to write home about – the best it can do is capture clips at a VGA (640x480) resolution.

Multimedia

As we touched on before, the Liquid Z3 runs an almost entirely stock experience. This means the music and video players, along with the gallery are all standard, but great.

In terms of audio capabilities, the speaker on the back of the Z3 performs relatively well – it's definitely loud, though that's at the expense of clarity.

Call quality

Call quality is average at best. The loud, but muffled loudspeaker outperformed the singular microphone on the bottom by a smidgen, though we're generally happy with the results, considering the phone's class.

Battery life

The user-replacable 1500mAh cell on the Liquid Z3, paired with the relatively low-powered internals packed inside, ensures a longevity that we're just not used to with flagships. It can definitely last for two full days, perhaps even more if you're really frugal with usage.

Conclusion

It may feel like we're repeating ourselves, but we made every effort to look at the Acer Liquid Z3 in perspective. The $130 odd price tag has definitely had a profound effect on how we look at the Z3, and we were definitely left impressed with the build quality of the device. Overall performance and battery life are great for its class, though these have largely come at the price of a quality display – a big minus for the Z3, even at that price.

The Acer Liquid Z3 won't win any beauty awards, but it feels refined and dependable – it's certainly capable of carrying its own weight if you're looking for a primary device on the cheap, though it would also make a perfect work/secondary phone, especially the dual-SIM version.

And as for the competition, the Liquid Z3 proves to be a worthy contender. There are, of course, devices like the Nokia Lumia 520, the LG L4 II and even the HTC Desire 200, though the latter two are still stuck in the single-core age and carry a heftier price tag in comparison. Unfortunately, at least for now, the Acer Liquid Z3 is only available in select European markets. Those include Belgium, the Netherlands, Ukraine, France, Spain, UK, Italy, Germany and Russia, and we've had no word on whether Acer is planning on expanding its reach.

Software version of the reviewed unit:
Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
Baseband version: MOLY.WR8.W1315.MD.WG.MP.V1.P6, 2013/08/24
Kernel version: 3.4.5
Build date: Sat Aug 24 18:53:48 CST 2013
Build number: Acer_AV052_Z130_1.009.00_EMEA_GEN 1