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Review: Acer Liquid Jade S

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What is it?

This phone, which has now been taken over by the Liquid Jade Z, was Acer’s last attempt at entering the medium level Android market. A thin light phone with modest specs, this packs in Acer’s partnership with TomTom into its SatNav app.

Quick Specs

A quick look at the specs:

  • 1.5GHz Processor, MediaTek, OctaCore
  • Built in memory 16GB, RAM 2GB
  • Dual Sim Support (NanoSIM)
  • Micro SD Card (up to 32 GB)
  • Android KitKat 4.4
  • 5″ Screen (1280 x 720)
  • 13MP rear camera, 5MP front camera
  • 120g
  • AcerNav brings TomTom’s navigation

Look and feel

The highlight of this phone is how light and thin it is. The plastic back is highly polished though, meaning it does feel a bit slippery in the hand. Overall, the front shows off the screen, the left side houses the SIMs and the microSD card (choose between second SIM and MicroSD card), and the right has the volume rocker key. The top has the power button.

The back has an unorthodox (for phones) round speaker panel that highlights it.

Overall Experience

The overall experience is pretty vanilla Android, just how I like it. Despite being OctaCore, the processor does have its limits, and it feels like a mid-range phone. That isn’t a problem though, as that is what you pay for it. There is a slight sluggishness to the whole experience, but nothing you wouldn’t find in the same price range.

What does make this different from rest of the clan is the fact that this comes with the TomTom’s partnership app, AcerNav.

The camera is pretty okay too, but struggles to take pictures in the dark, or even on dark cloudy days outdoors.

AcerNav

Since this is the highlight, I thought I might as well talk more about it.

The Navigation app doesn’t give you everything you expect from your TomTom, but it does give you a good range of maps, all of Europe included, and they are available for offline download. Sadly, I wasn’t able to find a way to put in post codes to navigate. You need to navigate via street names, etc. However, you do get 3D mapping of all the streets, which is surprisingly accurate to a degree.

It works best when you have a good connection though. I tried using it with no SIM/no WiFi in it, and the location services struggled to find me. This was probably because of me being inside a car, as the same worked fine when I was out and about walking.

More information

More information on this phone can be found at Acer’s website:

http://www.acer.co.uk/ac/en/GB/content/model/HM.HJXEK.001

While it isn’t available from Acer as of now, you can still find it being sold on the internet for just over £200.

Verdict

While I am still to try the Liquid Jade Z, this was a decent effort from Acer. All around modest performance, with the extra SatNav app thrown in makes it stand out from the crowd.

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