The meter runs Android. Acer wants a piece of the pie. We add the two together. Yesterday, Acer does not know the first thing on their phones (if one can say that for a household name in laptops), today they are in Paris on two horses racing mobile OS. After NeoTouch Windows Mobile 6.5, Acer has decided to dip their feet in a different form of water – the free open source Android world. This focus on the time spent on the liquid – the other side of society Snapdragon-powered device.

We must admit that we are not as impressed as we wanted and are nearly naked by NeoTouch Windows Mobile OS. It was less the price and increased competition that really attracted our attention away from him.

We are convinced that this is not how it is planned Acer and their response was immediate – the sexy liquid powered by Android 1.6. Like NeoTouch a Snapdragon kernel runs in the liquid and is committed to the operating system to perform flawlessly despite the slightly lower clock speed.

Key Facts :

* Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE
* 3G HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps
* Android OS v1.6 with Acer IE 3.0
* 3.5 “capacitive touchscreen with WVGA resolution
Qualcomm Snap Dragon * 8250 768 MHz processor, 256 MB RAM
* 5 megapixel autofocus camera with video capture
* Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g and a GPS receiver
* Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and turn-to-mute
* Digital compass
* Standard miniUSB for charging and data port
* Bluetooth stereo (A2DP)
* MicroSD card slot supporting up to 16GB cards (including 2 GB)
* Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
* Direct access to the official Android Market

Major drawbacks :

* Camera has no flash or lens cover, surpassed features
* Smart Dialing No, no voice dialing, no video calls
* No support for Flash web
* Acer IE 3.0 has only minor changes to the original interface
* Somewhat limited availability of third party software
* No DivX or XviD video support or a third party application to play this
* The poor performance of the MP4 playback – all videos are barely watchable thing QVGA
* Not a good file manager box
* No TV-out port
* No FM radio

The two lists give us a sense of déjà vu. It was a similar case with NeoTouch, but this time the situation is somewhat different. Some of the weaknesses inherent in the liquid Android operating system (especially the first iteration, the donut). Not that they are not deducted, but it’s less fair to note that most of them not blame Acer.

Anyway, the liquid will be measured against the will of Magic HTC, HTC Galaxy and Galaxy Hero Samsung Samsung Spica and it’s really few things to offer, they will not. WVGA resolution and processing rates are exorbitant enough of an advantage over competitors. The capacitive screen and an excellent all-round connectivity may not be new species for Android.

As Acer are newcomers, but they are willing to value. Let’s see how Android fits into their plan.