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Acer’s looking to get the Mobile World Congress 2010 party booming by supplying attendees with a Liquid e hit. It’s got three other smart phones running the Android operating system up its sleeve as well: a mysterious Ferrari handset, the beTouch E110 and the beTouch E400.
Sharing the same name as a date-rape drug, rather alarmingly, the Liquid e is the successor to last year’s surprisingly good, but not very glamorous, Liquid. The Liquid e looks very similar to its predecessor in terms of specs, sporting a capacitive, 89mm (3.5-inch) touchscreen, a Snapdragon processor running at 768MHz (rather than its full 1GHz potential), and a 5-megapixel camera.
But there are some differences. The Liquid e will ship with the latest version of Android, 2.1, and Acer says it’s given the virtual keyboard a revamp and added an extended predictive-text dictionary. The keyboard on the original Liquid was okay but nothing more, so we’ll provisionally file this in our good-news cabinet. The Liquid e will also have five home screens as standard, rather than its predecessor’s three, so there’ll be more room to store your widgets and apps, downloaded from the Android Market.
It’ll offer all the other usual smart-phone suspects too, such as HSDPA for fast downloads over 3G, Wi-Fi connectivity, GPS and Bluetooth. There’s been no word on UK availability or pricing yet, but we don’t expect it’ll set you back much more than the original Liquid.
Now on to Acer’s forthcoming Ferrari phone, which is something of a dark horse. The company has revealed that it’ll run Android 2.1, but that’s about it. We’ve mocked up a massively professional image of what we reckon it’ll look like if Acer and Ferrari replace their combined design team with a four-year-old child. But don’t fear — one of our trusty Cravers is on the Barcelona show floor hunting for a proper snap as we type, and we’ll update this story if the quest is a success.
Details may be thin on the ground, but you can expect the Ferrari handset to have all the usual high-end goodies, like HSDPA, 3G, Wi-Fi, a capacitive touchscreen and speedy processor. Maybe Acer has limited the Snapdragon processor to 768MHz in its two Liquid models to make us feel we’re getting a speed boost with a 1GHz Snapdragon chip in this phone. Then again, maybe not.
Hit ‘Continue’ to feast your mince pies on other phones in Acer’s Android line-up, and watch out for a hands-on session soon.
Acer’s beTouch E400 also runs Android 2.1, but its 81mm (3.2-inch) touchscreen is of the resistive variety, alas. It has 3G, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS support, a 600MHz processor and a 3.2-megapixel camera. It comes with three swappable back covers, in red, blue and black — a pleasing retro touch. It’ll be available from April, but prices haven’t been announced yet.
The beTouch E110 sits at the bottom of this particular Android ladder. Although prices haven’t been announced, Acer’s billing it as ‘affordable’, so it looks set to compete with the HTC Tattoo and the like. It’ll run Android 1.5, sport a 71mm (2.8-inch) touchscreen (probably of the resistive type) and host a 3-megapixel camera. 3G, HSDPA, Bluetooth and GPS are all supported, but Wi-Fi is sadly lacking. For the sake of comparison, it’ll have a 416MHz processor when it’s released in black and blue versions in March.
