Hands On with Acer's Liquid M220

The new Acer Phone has received a preliminary bashing in the press and comments section, but lets find out how it really handles in person. First off, the device is a straight up Android port and so features software buttons, as opposed to capacitative buttons and lacks the camera button previously mandated by Microsoft.

It’s not heavy at all, its rather light and feels great in the hand. The Chinese silk back plate providing grippiness and a different feel from plastic, not bad for such a low-end device.

I’ll go over the specs here:

• 4-inch, 480×800 resolution display
• 1.2Ghz dual-core CPU
• 5MP rear camera with auto focus and flash
• 2MP front facing camera
• 4GB on board storage with microSD card expansion
• 512MB RAM
• 1300mAh battery
• Dual SIM options HSDPA+

As expected, the resolution wasn’t the best with the some slight pixilation and loss of clarity here and there.

Speaking of resolution, the 5 megapixel camera performed as expected. The shots were fine, but not too great and not up to the standard of say the Lumia 620. But that’s alright, the phone isn’t intended to do battle with Lumias with nice cameras which cost twice as much, it aims to dip below the level of current Windows Phones and undercut them on pricing with specs being the casualty.

The 1.2 Ghz dual core processor handled the OS smoothly opening and switching apps quickly. While I didn’t have time to game on it, I’ll go ahead and say that the processor may work fine for th stock OS but may struggle with higher end games. But that’s fine too, Acer says the phone isn’t marketed to those who would be picky over such things, But rather to people who walk into store and just need a phone that covers the basics and can get things done.

The software was stock windows Phone 8.1.1 for the most part aside from the camera app which offered some basic filters. Acer also tells me that there will be more software from the company to expand their vertical Windows Phone integration. As for high-end devices and projected sales, Acer had nothing to share at this time.

I also had a chance to have a look at the Acer smartwatch although on Android since the Windows Phone app launches with the Liquid M220 in April. The smartwatch will be fully compatible with Windows Phone and brings notifications and fitness tracking to your wrist, In short, it’ll do everything the Android version does.