Acer Liquid Metal review

The 3.6-inch screen doesn't sound like an ideal size for web browsing, and indeed if the internet is key for you, then you might think about looking for something with a larger screen.

But in fact, the 800 x 480 pixel screen is sharp and vibrant, and while you can't see enough detail to read text on a crowded, complex web page, you do get enough of an overview to work out what you want to zoom in on.

The good old double tap to zoom in and out works smoothly, and once you've zoomed in you're usually close in enough to text to be able to read it – and the text reflows too.

If you want to zoom in further you've got pinch to zoom, and this too is smooth and efficient. Really, the 800MHz processor was not troubled by manoeuvres around web pages.

Flash 10.1 is supported, and we streamed video from the BBC website with just a little slowness over Wi-Fi and a bit of jerkiness at the start of playback sessions. The main bulk of playback sessions were unproblematic.

However here's an oddity. When you first switch the Acer Liquid Metal on having deboxed it, you're invited to install Flash for yourself.

Now, at this point you won't have logged on to a wireless network, so we suggest skipping, and popping into the Android Market later to make the download. But we can't understand why Acer didn't take this little chore off our hands.

There's a YouTube client on board, and it was a real star. Fast, clear, sharp, we found ourselves wasting a lot of time watching videos.

A real plus point is the fact that sound delivered through the Acer Liquid Metal speaker is quite loud and good quality.