Tech Blog

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I typically think of Acer as a PC manufacturer with tons of different models, but it’s now becoming clear that they want to play ball in other electronics categories too. Yesterday, the company announced that it was launching its first smartphone in North America, calling it the Liquid E.

Rogers is carrying the device and offering it for $49.99 on a three-year plan. Shave off even one year of the plan, and opt for two years? The cost jumps to $324.99. If you want it without a contract at all, you’re looking at $424.99. That’s a pretty big jump, and possibly ill-timed, since three-year plans definitely aren’t as popular as they used to be.

The Liquid E runs on Google Android 2.1, has a 3.5” touchscreen (no slide-out keyboard), 5.0-megapixel camera, along with Wi-Fi and GPS. Acer is making much of the fact that you can choose to type from any of three different types of keyboards — QWERTY, Half QWERTY and 12-digit numeric. But aside from that, the specs don’t seem to point to anything that is really revolutionary or unique to the device.

One useful perk is that it is a world phone, so taking it with you to use in other parts of the world shouldn’t be a problem at all. I should get a chance to try the phone myself at some point in the near future. Trying to look at it objectively, the Liquid E may not have features that are entirely unique in the grander scheme of the smartphone arms race, but if it’s more usable than others, maybe it is worth a consideration.

I like Android a lot, so I have my own curiosity, and I suppose I’ll find out soon enough if there should’ve been something uniquely special on the device to raise it a bit from the rest of the pack. Any thoughts out there on if this launch will mean anything down the line in a crowded smartphone market?