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The Liquid A1 doesn’t have the fancy 'Sense' add-ons that are offered on the Hero, but then unlike Windows Mobile, we’ve never been that convinced that you really need them on Android in the first place. Plus the phone certainly feels a lot more sprightly to use than the Hero as it doesn’t suffer from the slight sluggishness that can creep in to that model. It’s just a shame, then, that Acer hasn’t added multi-touch and improved the build quality a bit. If it had, Acer would have a real corker on its hands. As it is though, this is still a very impressive Android handset. Read full review

Overall

8/10

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By Niall Magennis
Reviewed 23 December 2009
Updated 06 February 2011

Price as reviewed

£340.22

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Awards

Acer Liquid A1 details

Performance: 9/10
Value: 8/10
Features: 8/10
Design: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

Price as reviewed

£340.22

Manufacturer

Acer

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rav

1:56 AM on 23 December, 2009

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Only an 8 for value? Can't think of another phone as well specced available for the same money. Seems like amazing value to me.

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swift11

9:39 AM on 23 December, 2009

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Android 2 is confirmed:

http://www.frandroid.com/8537/lacer-liquid-aura-bel-et-bien-sa-mise-a-jour-android-2-0-x/

and, as a consequence, multitouch ;-)

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NicholasName

9:54 AM on 23 December, 2009

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"However, unlike those two models, Acer hasn’t added support for multi-touch so you can’t pinch to zoom in on pages in the web browser. This is a shame, but not a complete deal breaker."

Am I alone in being completely baffled by the apparent enthusiasm for multi-touch on mobile phones? The whole concept seems bizarre; not only superfluous, but entirely contrary to the way that phones are designed to be operated.

There was once a time, perhaps 30 years or so ago, when one needed two hands to operate a phone; one to hold the receiver and the other to dial the number. This was entirely acceptable, given that one was seated in one's hallway at a table to put one's cup of tea on.

However, in the eighties, the mobile phone was introduced. It revolutionised telephony, freeing people from their hallway telephone tables. When using a mobile phone, one could only use one hand, because there was no table on which to put one's cup of tea. Therefore the dialler was built into the handset.

This has been the accepted norm ever since, until Apple came along and built what became a very popular phone. Unfortunately, they couldn't work out a method of zooming in and out of screen views using only one hand, despite the fact that this feature has been available on Symbian and Winmo phones for years. Of course Apple couldn't admit to this failure and instead set about marketing this wonderful 'new' way of operating a phone. I suspect they have exploited the recent fashion for all things seventies and eighties: Yes, you can relive the days of the 3-day week and the winter of discontent by having to occupy both hands to operate your phone!

Now, it seems, everyone wants the opportunity to be unable to use their phones without stopping everything else they are doing and putting their bags and cups of coffee down. Yes, you too can transport yourself into a world of Life on Mars or Ashes to Ashes!

If you haven't worked it out already, I simply cannot understand this concept and consider it a very large step backwards for mobile telephony. I wish people would just stop and think about it, before the phone manufacturers get drawn into this madness, causing us all to suffer.

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darkspark88

11:31 AM on 23 December, 2009

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The most important question on my mind is "If im waiting for an iPhone, will I be disappointed with this phone?"

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Gordon394

12:48 PM on 23 December, 2009

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@swift11 - yep, we know ;)

http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-phones/news/2009/10/28/Google-Officially-Announces-Android-2-0/p1

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BOFH UK

12:53 PM on 23 December, 2009

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@ Nicholas: Umm, sorry, but you're wrong on the way Multi-touch works on the iPhone. You CAN zoom one handed without any problems at all, just double tap the screen and it zooms in intelligently to focus on what you tapped. Most of the time it actuall works very nicely indeed. Multi-touch for zooming gives you fine control in a brilliantly intuitive way but it's an additional capability not a complete replacement. For most basic operations I can use the iPhone interface one handed quite happily with multi-touch making things like the on-screen keyboard work that little bit better and allowing very easy and, again, intuitive editing of a document.

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NicholasName

1:27 PM on 23 December, 2009

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@BOFH: Double tap is fine, and it's not multi-touch. It's limitation is the fact that it is essentially binary - like a telephoto rather than a zoom lens. It lacks any degree of control over the zoom level. Methods like Symbian's hold-slide and winmo's circular zoom are both examples of fully flexible one-handed zooming which remove the silly requirement for two hands to operate the features of the phone. I can see that it might be fun to use multi-touch for games or wotnot, but to cripple a phone by enforcing its use in other respects is just wrong.

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swift11

2:44 PM on 23 December, 2009

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@Gordon: sorry, I meant: Android 2 is confirmed for this handset, and as a consequence, multitouch and 16 million colours ;-)

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Chris

4:26 PM on 23 December, 2009

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@Nicholas Name: Don't forget, the two-finger multi-touch zoom implementation that you're referring to does more than just zoom. It also allows the user to pan and zoom at the same time, in a single gesture. This kind of functionality isn't replicated by simple one-finger zoom mechanisms. Apple's implementation of this is particularly good, making zooming and panning around images, maps and web pages a breeze. This kind of intuitive design is key to the accessible, consumer-based nature of their products. If you don't think Apple knew exactly what they (and their competition) were doing when they decided upon this method then you're taking them for idiots.

That said, I think you're basically correct when you refer to Apple's lack of single handed gestures. The iPhone doesn't have an infinitely variable zoom gesture that can be operated with a single hand, and perhaps it needs one in addition to its multi-touch gestures. I think there's a place for both.

Overall though, I agree with Niall's perspective in that a phone that lacks multi-touch is 'a shame, but not a complete deal breaker'. It just doesn't make that much difference to the whole experience offered by the device.

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Runadumb

5:33 PM on 23 December, 2009

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Does it lack multitouch or just pinch to zoom? (2 different things) At that price its appealing especially as its getting Android 2.0 according to swift. Will wait a few more weeks for your milestone review and concrete news on the nexus before I have to make any rash decisions. This got a higher score than I was expecting

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