Acer Liquid Mini review

Acer Liquid Mini review: Verdict

The Acer Liquid Mini does a fair job of offering a range of Android features in a small format. There isn't anything startlingly new here, though, and what you do get is cramped into a relatively small screen that doesn't really cut the mustard for things like web browsing and video playback.

Whether or not the quirky Android skin appeals to you will be a matter of personal taste. It's growing on us the more we see it.

We liked

The hardware design is attractive, and we like the choice of chassis colours. We'd have liked swappable backplates even more, though, Acer.

Acer provides a slipcase in the box. This is a real rarity and it does very well for keeping the Acer Liquid Mini clean and scratch-free.

We like the way the Nemo Player pops online and gets album art for our tracks. This means all we needed to do was copy a few tracks onto an SD card and then get their album art later. Simples.

We disliked

We were miffed about the lack of streaming video support via websites. Really that's a must these days.

We don't really see why Acer feels it necessary to offer two media playback apps or quite so many Facebook and Twitter options. It's just designed to make life difficult for newcomers to Android.

Acer really should provide instructions for using its media streaming DLNA service in the box. There's a printed quick start guide, but it doesn't cover it.

The 600MHz processor also let things down a little at times, running a tad slower than we'd have liked. Instant response to taps just wasn't always there.

Verdict

The Acer Liquid Mini is yet another mid-range, middle of the road Android smartphone. It doesn't do anything spectacularly well, and if you're able to stump up a few more quid and still want Acer, we'd advise you take a look at the Acer Stream instead.