Acer today took the wraps off a trio of smartphones from their Liquid series – the Liquid Jade Z, the Liquid Z520 and the Liquid Z220 – in addition to the latest incarnation of their E series laptops. The new smartphones and new Aspire E all sport Acer’s new thatch textured polycarbonate casing that offers better grip and tactility.
The new Jade Z comes with a 5-inch HD display, runs Android Kit Kat 4.4 on a 64-bit 1.5GHz quad-core Media Tek 6732 processor and packs 2GB RAM with 16GB of expandable onboard storage on top of dual SIM card slots. The Liquid Z is optimised as a selfie phone with a rear 13-MP camera with an F/1.8 aperture with auto focus and an LED flash while the front has a 5-MP camera with a similar f/1.8 aperture. The Jade Z is the only model out of the current Liquid range with LTE connectivity. A 2300mAh battery keeps the phone charged for quite awhile.
The Liquid Z520 is the midrange model out of the lot with a 5-inch FWVGA display with 854 x 480 pixel resolution. The Z520 comes with a 1.3GHz quad-core Media Tek MT6582M processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB of expandable storage though it only has 3G support on its dual SIM card slots. The rear camera is an 8-MP model with an LED flash while the front is a 2-MP model. The Z520 is surprisingly light at 154g even though it packs a 2000mAh nonremovable battery.
The Liquid Z220 sports a 4-inch WVGA display, dual SIM slots with 3G support and runs a Qualcomm Dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 200 processor with Android Lollipop 5.0 running the show with 1GB RAM and 8GB of expandable storage. A rear 5-Mp camera and a front 2-MP camera round out its offerings. The phone is 9.6mm thin and has a swappable 1300mAh battery. The Liquid Z and Z520 will receive over the air updates later on to Android Lollipop.
The new Liquid series all come with the latest incarnation of Acer’s user interface that goes by the same name. Standout additions to the Liquid UI include a Quick Mode that lets you tweak the user interface to make it easier to use for novices and kids as needed. Another addition are what Acer calls Float apps that offer a series of easily accessible stock apps baked into the phone like a calculator, map or dialer that hovers on top of the screen overlaying other apps to offer a modicum of multitasking. Another interesting addition is Acer Extend mode that pairs up your phone to your PC so you can use your PC’s keyboard to write texts, drag and drop files back and forth as well as copying and pasting links. The Liquid Jade Z retails for RM799, the Liquid Z520 retails for RM499, the Liquid Z220 retails for RM299 while the Acer Aspire E series ranges from RM1,899 to RM2,999 depending on configuration.
The new Acer Aspire E series comes in two different denominations – the Aspire E14 and the Aspire E15 with both available in four different colours. The Aspire E14 comes with a 14-inch HD display, runs Windows 8.1 on an Intel Core i5-5200U 2.2GHz processor paired with 4GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 940M discrete graphics and either a half terabyte or 1TB hard disk with the former retailing for RM1,899 and the latter for RM2,099. The Aspire E15 comes in two different variants. The lower level variant comes with a 15.6-inch 1080P display, runs Windows 8.1 on an Intel Core i5-5200U processor, has 4GB RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 940M discrete graphics along with 1TB storage for RM2,299. The highest end model has a 15.6-inch HD display and has a nippy Intel Core i7-5500U 2.4GHz processor with 8GB RAM, an Nvidia GeForce 940M discrete graphics solution and a 1TB hard disk. This rig retails for RM2,999.
Acer unleashes new range of Liquid series phones and Aspire E laptops
