To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more
Acer is better known for laptops than smartphones in the UK, and the Liquid E2 is unlikely to change this situation. It has a good screen and reasonable performance, but is let down by poor design and the fact it’s just outclassed by the very strong mid-range competition.
The Acer Liquid E2’s white plastic shell and silver rim resemble a cheap version of an old iPhone mixed with one of Samsung’s Galaxy phones. The orgy of plastic coupled with the over-sized speaker grilles on the back of the device mean that at best the E2’s design will divide opinion. One upshot is that the phone feels well-built, even if it doesn’t look it.
The screen is arguably the most important part of any phone, and the 540×960-pixel, 4.5in panel on the Liquid E2 is its strongest area. It’s far from the best the best display we’ve seen, as we expected at this price, but its brightness and contrast levels are acceptable, as are the display’s viewing angles. The screen didn’t handle bright outdoor lighting particularly well, however, with the auto brightness setting underestimating how bright the screen needed to be in order to be comfortably legible.
The Liquid E2 runs an unaltered version of Android 4.2.1 Jellybean. Many users will see this as an advantage compared to the heavily-customised Android versions most manufacturers use, as it gives them a blank canvas on which they can install custom keyboards or app launchers from Google’s Play Store. However, standard Android does look a bit dowdy compared to the smart custom operating systems available from Samsung and Sony.
The Liquid E2 is powered by a quad-core, 1.2GHz MediaTek processor. It coped reasonably well in our benchmark tests. The phone completed the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark in 1,441ms, which is fine for a budget phone and up there with budget rivals such as the Motorola Moto G and Alcatel One Touch Idol S. Performance in everyday tasks such as email composition, document editing and web browsing was good, with the device remaining fairly responsive throughout tougher tasks like opening image-heavy web pages. Multi-tasking proved to be a much trickier challenge for the E2, though, and it ground to a halt when attempting to browse the web while simultaneously installing an app.
The phone managed a respectable score of 3,195 in the challenging 3DMark Ice Storm benchmark. This is below average by modern standards, falling well short of the Motorola Moto G, which scored 5,412 in the same test. Despite this mediocre score, gaming is still possible on the Liquid E2. Simple, popular games such as Temple Run 2 and Angry Birds Space were smooth, while the slightly more demanding Beach Buggy Blitz and Riptide GP were also playable, with only slight juddering occurring during busier moments of on-screen action.
There are a few Acer apps preinstalled on the Liquid E2, such as Acer’s Cloud storage service. Also present is the bizarre Moodagent, which takes your music collection and creates various playlists based on how you’re feeling. Moods range from “sensual” to “tender” to “angry”, and such an emotional app feels strangely out of place on an otherwise very plain device.
By far the best piece of software included as standard is Swype, the keyboard app which allows users to type simply by sliding their digits across the on-screen keyboard. It works really well, and predicts with uncanny accuracy. Swype also has a classic typing mode which offers fast and fairly accurate predictions for those not wanting to use its swiping input method. With that said, you can download Swype onto almost any Android device for about £2.50, so this shouldn’t really influence your buying decision. The phone only has 4GB storage, so you’ll most likely need to use the microSD card slot to upgrade if you really want to go wild on installing apps.
We don’t usually worry about smartphone speakers, as most people accept they’re going to be rubbish. Acer, however, has fully committed to the illusion that its device can produce good sound, thanks to the bulging, plastic grilles on the rear of the device and installed DTS audio balancing software. The sound is no better or worse than any other cheap smartphone, though; it’s tinny, rattly, and you should ensure you have a decent pair of headphones or speakers to hand if you plan on listening to music on the Liquid E2.
The 8-megapixel camera looks good on paper, but we didn’t really rate its image quality. Pictures lack detail and colour balance is off both indoors and outside. Budget smartphone cameras don’t tend to blow us away, but the Liquid E2’s sensor is off the pace compared to the Motorola Moto G and Alcatel Idol S‘s cameras.
The Acer Liquid E2 is competing in a crowded market, and unfortunately doesn’t have any outstanding features to differentiate it from its rivals, while also falling short in terms of design and camera performance. While its processor and screen would probably serve you well enough, there are much better phones available which cost significantly less, such as the Motorola Moto G and Alcatel Idol S.
