Acer Liquid or why I changed apple

About a month ago, I moved from the Apple phone to the flagship device manufactured by Acer, which is widely known in Russia for its netbooks, Liquid (S100). Since I was satisfied with the result, I decided to write a short review of this device and what I got after changing the platform. At once I will make a reservation that I used it for business tasks and therefore I did not particularly consider the functionality of the series and toys.


In general, the desire to change the annoying iPhone appeared a long time ago, as I used it, I became more and more convinced that this model was less suitable for business than I would like. Considering the various options, I decided to turn my eye on the Android platform, the benefit of it was much rustled and talked about its rapid growth.

Of all the devices available at the time of purchase, the choice fell on Acer Liquid , for several reasons.
Firstly, the price that lay within 17 tr., Secondly, the design of the device is moderately strict and at the same time glossy and three color options (I chose white), in the third characteristics:
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Capacitive screen 480x800, glass substrate.
CPU: Snapdragon 1GHz (reduced to 768)
RAM (MB): 256
ROM (MB): 512
Sensors and communications: Bluetooth, Wifi, A-GPS, 3G, HSDPA, Digital compass, light sensors and accelerometer
5 Mpx camera with autofocus
MicroSD slot, microSDHC slot, 3.5 mm jack
OS: Android 1.6 (there is already a test 2.1)

Appearance and iron

Acer designers managed to create a thing that stood out against the general background; the device turned out to be pretty glossy and pleasant to the touch.



Unlike the iPhone, the volume rocker is located on the right, below on the same side is the camera button, which I often lacked. At the top on the right side there is a button for turning off the screen and power. For this reason, at first I was confused, old reflexes had their effect. Below is a mini USB connector which is much more common than the apple standard.



The headphone jack is located on the upper end on the right and as it turned out, the device perfectly understands the headphones from the apple and responds to pressing the headset button, both on playing music and on calls. But the most interesting is the decoration of the butt with useful LEDs with various statuses - charging, message, missed call. It looks fresh and interesting, and the main thing in a quiet mode attracts attention.



Under the screen on the front side are located the touch buttons - Main screen, Search, return and Menu are nicely highlighted with white light. As you can see, compared with the minimalist apple, there are enough buttons.

I was very pleased with the clear and bright screen, after the iPhone 320x480, it simply amazes with the clarity of the picture, and by the way there was a protective film that I immediately hurried to stick. Headphones that came in with a medium-quality phone, so I advise you to buy separately, well, as a bonus, Liquid already comes with a 2GB MicroSD.

From Donut to Eclair

At the time of purchase, the Android version 1.6 donut was on the “liquid” one, but just a week later the test firmware 2.1 Eclair was released and I will talk about it.

When working with the system, there are two things that Apple praise and scold for - this is the usual multitouch and unusual multitasking. Multitasking is used everywhere here and practically does not affect the speed of applications, but the program’s launch speed is more than pleasing.

Interface and system

Lockscreen, here, in contrast to an apple, there is not only an unlock slider, but also a very convenient slider on / off the sound of the phone, which is convenient at the meeting, in the apple it was implemented using a hardware switch.



After unlocking, the desktop literally floats on us, in general, the effects of manifestation and fading are everywhere in Android, so for those accustomed to Apple everything will be natural. Unlike the Applephone, not only program icons, but also various widgets and folders can be brought to the desktop and you can arrange screens as you like. There are only five screens on the desktop (I will make a reservation that there are many third-party desktops that can “emulate” the iPhone interface or something else).



When you click on the menu button, we submit to the menu with the programs so much loved by me since the days of Windows Mobile, all the programs that we have installed are collected. When scrolling, they fly away into the distance like in star warriors :)



The Android also, like the iPhone, displays the messages of the programs, only does it in a special area that can be pushed apart by swiping from top to bottom along the taxbar at the top of the screen. This is in my opinion more convenient than the ever interfering popup.



Phone settings as well as on the iPhone are divided into groups:



I also had a handy utility from Acer that gathered the most popular settings together, and MySettings, which displays popular actions in the form of translucent icons, was also very popular.



By the way, localization changes in the same settings, by default the system is already multilingual. In general, many complained about the keyboard, so I did not have any problems with it, the standard keyboard successfully understood Russian and even adequately prompted word variations. In general, I did not feel much difference with the Apple.

I really liked it after a long sitting on Apple, that you can freely choose wallpaper on your desktop? and not just loxcrin.


And especially such a piece of Eclair as Animated "live" wallpaper. These are essentially programmed visualization modules. The oscillograph, which shows the current music that is playing in the player, or the effect of circles on the water when touched, looks very nice.



Applications in the device are put in two ways from the Android Market or as in the old good WM from a memory card. In general, unlike the iPhone, I did not need to install any utilities in order to throw music, documents or video onto the phone, everything is native — you plug it in and see the USB flash drive. Finally, you do not need any monstrous and slow iTunes, long-term synchronization, adding to playlists and other dances with a tambourine. Connected - copied - listened!

About Android Market it should be said separately, I liked the speed of work, a lot of applications, unfortunately so far only free, and therefore often the Lite version, the most important feature is multitasking, which manifests itself even here. You can safely select multiple applications and they are a miracle! They will be downloaded in the background, without throwing you out of the application as it was with the AppStore.



Another handy thing is download history and check for updates. Going to one screen, I immediately see what I have, what I downloaded and which programs have been updated.

Soft, soft

One of the strengths of the iPhone for me were convenient programs with a user-friendly interface that performed all the functions I needed. As in this regard, the situation on Android below.

Photo album
The standard program is notable for its simply indescribable beauty, here you can change the background a la Ambilight on Philips telfisors, and animate stacking and reposition in space by tilting, in general, you need to see it! The standard apple glleray cannot be compared. Both photo and video are shown and plus Google Picasa albums are loaded.



Another nice little thing is that any photo can be shared with the world or friends, easily and in many ways.



post office
Mail is an extremely important and vital thing in work. I have several accounts on my corporate Exchnage server and mail on Gmail, it was a long-time dream to receive it on one phone, using all the features of Push and Exchnage synchronization.

Thanks to dancing with a tambourine, I managed on the iPhone, I set up only one Exchnage account (I don’t allow more than my mobile phone) and google mail via IMAP, but there were some problems with reception. As it turned out, the iPhone didn’t understand the expired SSL certificate and stopped working with corporate mail.

On Liquid everything was simple and elementary. I set up two Exchange mailboxes with only the login, password and address of the mail domain and most importantly! There is a tick Accept expired certificates. With Gmail, there were no problems at all. And most importantly, everything worked in Push mode from the server.

The mail interface is familiar to many over the Gmail mobile client. Nothing particularly outstanding, but everything is in place.



All attachments in the letter are located at the end and they can be easily downloaded or opened.



EBooks
In the market a lot of readers of different types and formats, I stopped at FBReader. Convenient with a simple and intuitive interface, it understands FB2 and txt formats, including in archives. Sorts books in the library, searches for them on a memory card, there is a day to night mode and many other options. In general, a practical and functional thing, something that reminded me of reading rooms with Win Mobile.



MS Office documents and Google Docs
To view documents in the Office and PDF formats, the developers from Acer included a light version of Document to Go in the firmware, which copes with the tasks of the viewer perfectly, those who wish can upgrade it to the full version and get editing functions.

I also use the handy Gdoc utility that allows you to edit and view documents from my online storage at Google Docs, which I occasionally lacked for an Apple.



Skype, ICQ, Gtalk, Twitter, VKontakte
Under Android written many programs that perform the functionality of connectors to the social. networks and instant messaging networks and microblogs. I chose for myself the Nimbuzz harvester, familiar with the iPhone, which more than meets my need for ICQ, Skype (including calls). I use Seesmic as a Twitter client. There is also a program Vkonakte.

But the most important thing is that all this can simultaneously work in the background and send notifications about new messages.



Internet
With this, Liquid is OK, there is Wifi, 3G, EDGE. And a very convenient and fast browser.
In general, the impressions of the work were no worse than the Apple.




Alarm clock
Here the standard functionality is simple and convenient.



Navigation and maps
The built-in version of Google Maps, unlike the iPhone, makes you happy with such additional options as Locator, Pointer (thanks to the electronic compass), Google Buzz layers, Community Transport layers and features from Google Labs. By the way, for those who need traffic jams, there are Yandex.Maps, you can also find such a useful thing as a metro map with the calculation of the Ru.Metro way



Music
The built-in player does not show such beauty in design as on an iPhone, but it copes well with its tasks. The only negative is the lack of an equalizer. But by default, the sound on the Liquid is clear, clean and loud, which cannot, not please.
There are many third-party applications in the market, but I was completely satisfied with the standard one, especially since he understood the headset key perfectly and worked perfectly with my Bluetooth stereo.



Search
Here the google phone was on top, everything is searched, everywhere and immediately, the search is very fast and convenient. And contacts and letters and music and much more.



Contacts
I haven’t had such a convenient work with contacts for a long time, and here the opportunity to store them on the phone, in Google account or on the Exchange server. And the choice of the types of synchronization and the output in the list indicating where the contact lies and filtering by groups, uploading the contact photo from the server. Personally, I keep personal contacts in Google, and corporate in Exchange and always have access to them from online, the ability to recover in case of loss of the phone. The display of the list of contacts is also convenient and each contact, unlike the iphone, is accompanied by a thumbnail.



Telephone, Call Lists and SMS
The telephone part is logical and beautiful, on business and nothing superfluous. It is possible to sort the list of calls by missed and other calls. SMS functions standard and similar to that of the iPhone.




Camera
The standard camera program can work in photo and video mode. The settings are more than enough all logically sorted. You can immediately after shooting, crop, rotate or send a photo. Autofocus works fine, the pictures are more than acceptable, especially considering the resolution of 5MPx, to which iPhone oh how far. And the presence of the hardware button allows you to quickly start shooting, something I often lacked on the iPhone.



You Tube and Videos
The built-in youtube player is no different from that in the Iphone, except that there are more options for managing your account and the ability to directly upload video to the online.



Work with content on the map
That's what I categorically lacked on the iPhone so it is free to work with content! The default Android file manager is not installed, but from the Market you can say a lot of programs, I stopped at the Astro Filemanager.

Now I can freely move any files on the map, rename and delete them. Thanks to the built-in manager, it is easy to backup the installed applications, which are then stored as APK installation files on the map, and not in an unknown folder on your computer in iTunes.

And if I want I can just send the file to a friend by mail or bluetooth, and not throw a link with the words download. And in order to download the book, you do not need to raise the wifi ftp server and to be sophisticated by downloading through the browser.

findings

So going to Liquid, I got things that I missed on the iPhone

+ flexible interface
+ free access to content
+ advanced mail handling
+ synchronization of contacts with multiple sources
+ the ability to share applications
+ more powerful iron
+ calendar synchronization
+ the ability to change the battery
+ multitasking

Of the minuses compared with the iPhone is worth noting

- not a prestigious brand
- thicker body
- lack of accessories
- while fewer applications and games

Eclair 2.1 video interface for Liquid

Ps In general, I was more than satisfied with the transition and even persuaded a friend to change his WM communicator to a google phone, showing all the features of my Liquid.

UPD. Added video Acer Liquid 2.1 with firmware Eclair + custom keyboard and wallpaper from HTC