Acer liquid pre-release wagon starts a-rolling and first impression...

[acreda1234]

well, drioid and SE X3/10 may have stolen the thunder from the first properly announced snapdragon andorid phone but I have seen it up for pre-order in the UK. (I imagine UK market will get this first as the PR came from acer.co.uk)

King of Gadgets - Pre order no proce
expansys - Pre order

 

[carthesis]

More information here:

Power Packed Acer A1 Android Phone Hits Pre-Order - Mobile Phone News - TrustedReviews

 

[Lancewood]

As of now the liquid is still runnin 1.6, no idea if it'll be released as 2.0(highly doubt it)

 

[Max.Andresen]

the link that carthesis posted said that 1.6 and 2.0 are the same. donut. is that true?

 

[Lancewood]

The donut 2.0 posted on that link is speculative. As of today(after more than a month with the phone) it is still runnin 1.6.

 

[yakboy]

Lancewood - how you getting along with the Liquid? I've been looking upon the pre-order pages since they appeared in the UK and on the face of it it seems like a good deal.

At the moment all the 'reviews' out there are at best pre-release or worse still regurgitation of someone elses brief hands-on.

Are you willing to post a mini-review?

I'm interested in the following personally:

-General build quality and looks - that bezel looks kinda large to me
-Screen quality, both in-doors and outside
-Battery life, this is still the first snapD android handset on the market, how long are you getting?
-Has it got a digital compass? (not a big concern but a nice to have these days)
-Any obvious bugs in the SW, either the vanilla Android elements or the Acer customisations?

Many thanks for any info proffered!

Please excuse the horrific spelling above, I can't find the spellchecker on this forum tool

 

[Lancewood]

Due to nda reasons (obviously).

 

[yakboy]

Due to nda reasons (obviously).

It's shipping today in the UK! There you go, your NDA is now null and void! Happy days.

 

[Carl C]

It's shipping today in the UK! There you go, your NDA is now null and void! Happy days.

Good spot

 

[JackTheMan18]

Does this phone work on the US 3G+ Bands (i.e. ATT, T-Mobile, Rogers)?
Is there an american version?

 

[yakboy]

Does this phone work on the US 3G+ Bands (i.e. ATT, T-Mobile, Rogers)?
Is there an american version?

Not a clue mate, don't understand the technicalities of frequency acronyms but... perhaps gsmarena can help.

 

[Aevum]

actually, in the networking configuration, you can chose on what 3G bands you want it to work, gives a choice between auto, US, Eur, japan and 2 australian configurations,

whats really really killing me is that i charged it 4 hours ago, and its allready at 79% battery, maybe the indicator is miscalibrated, im gonna wear it down a bit, maybe the battery is defective or just new and is still on the bottom of the curve,

but the fact that it consumed 21% of the battery in a little more then 4 hours is a bit disconserting for me. especialy becuase GPS, BT and Wifi are all shut down,

 

[SimonAldrich]

I pre-ordered my Liquid and it arrived on the UK release date (Tuesday). I am finding that it absolutely chews through the battery though - with wi-fi turned off it managed to go through 50% of its charge in 8 hours. I'm thinking that something in the power management isn't right.

Is anyone else experiencing really terrible battery life?

 

[Aevum]

i can confirm your findings, the battery is at 19% after around 15 hour use, and the battery information is reporting 95% of the power is being used by the android system, not the phone or the display, meaning theres a serious OS problem or a defective battery,

today is the 11nd, and i bought it on the 8, meaning i have 12 days to ship this baby back to expansys, im going to run the battery to zero and then give it a couple of more cycles, if the battery dosnt "wake up" in 2-3 days, this thing is getting RMA for refund,

 

[saquib]

Hi

On the question of battery life, I moved from a HTC Hero to HTC HD2, which I had for a couple of weeks (sold last night - can't stand windows mobile!). Battery life on the HD2 was also very minimal, and as that also has a Snapdragon processor, I think it may just be that is the cause.

Just ordered from Expansys, shipped, hope it arrives in the morning!

Saquib

 

[JackTheMan18]

i can confirm your findings, the battery is at 19% after around 15 hour use, and the battery information is reporting 95% of the power is being used by the android system, not the phone or the display, meaning theres a serious OS problem or a defective battery,

today is the 11nd, and i bought it on the 8, meaning i have 12 days to ship this baby back to expansys, im going to run the battery to zero and then give it a couple of more cycles, if the battery dosnt "wake up" in 2-3 days, this thing is getting RMA for refund,

Although I don't have a Liquid yet, I have to tell you that Android phones in general have a terrible battery life. The reasons are numerous:
1. very high frequency of accessing mail (both other mail and google mail)
2. always on data services (especially the sms messenging app)
3. many apps install background apps that are always on, and check the internet at all times
4. the gps locator is always on
5. Google voice is always checking the internet

The following are the strategies that I have employed to minimize this issue:
1. download from the market: advanced task killer; use it often to kill tasks
2. check your download mail frequency, and your background data sync frequency
3. buy additional batteries from eBay (they are usually inexpensive); never leave home without a spare one!
4. buy a stand charger to charge your phone and a spare battery at the same time (also eBay)
I know that some of these techniques won't work yet with the Liquid because the secondary market isn't there yet; However, it will be there soon.

 

[Aevum]

hmm...
5. return phone for a refund, go back to my E71,

 

[acreda1234]

Ive just ordered mine from pixmania for 294, the I7500 apparently chewed battery as well before they release a new firmware in the UK - here's hoping for the same.

although android still needs power management work, I plan just to use 3G when browsing - that is one of the battery eaters as well!

 

[Aevum]

i hope you mean 294 GBP, becuase if its euros im going to shoot myself...

anyways, after working the battery a bit and playing with the configuration, i

 

[acreda1234]

i hope you mean 294 GBP, becuase if its euros im going to shoot myself...

anyways, after working the battery a bit and playing with the configuration, i

 

[Aevum]

Well,
the important things are Disable data connection from the acer configuration, enable when you want use it, shut it off when you

 

[00sully]

yep pretty woeful battery life here too :-/ I've disabled background data (until I need it) screen at 20% - gps off! will see how I go from here.

Anyone having a problem with the autocomplete feature of the keyboard when typing message/email? mine never shows suggestions like the dictionary is missing - it does work when I add words myself but common suggestions are completely missing - I've locale and language set correct and autocomplete on!??

 

[baley]

I think you are overreacting. The Live Sync does take quite some power but it shouldn't create that much of a battery drain. If it does its a bug, to be expected in a new phone.

This is most certainly due to the fact that when the phone wake's up to synchronise for example gmail, other apps might kick in and prevent the phone from goin on actual standby.

Sometime its a firmware bug, othertimes it's just a matter of crap app that drains the battery. The Samsung Galaxy battery used not to be able to last more than a day now it's usually up to 2 days with heavy usage!

 

[baley]

Anyway I will test it myself when my Acer will arrive tomorrow hopefull the battery will last until I get home

 

[sandys]

I am using my Acer as mediaplayer today at work and its seriously chomping through the battery when using the Music app to play MP3s, the phone is getting quite warm, I'm sure it doesn't need to use so much CPU as other devices manage MP3 just fine.

Also checking what has use Battery it does say that 42% was acer sync and no mention of the music player, maybe all acer software comes under the com.blahblah.acersync banner.

Is there a way to downclock cpu?