Should i get the Liquid?

[Guest Lightning Count]

For the past few months I've had my heart set on the Hero being my first smartphone. This largely had to do with the fact it was on sale for 250 pounds (a bit out of my budget) at amazon. However that price jumped to the legend's price for some odd reason and I've been waiting for it to fall back to it's initial price since. This doesn't seem to be happening as it's settled to about 290 pounds right now. Cheapest i can find one now is 260 pounds.

However, only a few days ago, I discovered the Acer Liquid A1. I can get a brand new one in black for just 211 pounds, and it seems to be quite a good device. Price is a huge factor for me, and I'm not really seeing any reason now to go for the Hero aside from the Sense UI and the better build quality, I suppose. I read the topic about the faulty screens which I find concerning, and although I was leaning toward the liquid, I'm back now to being undecided. So what do you guys reckon? Save a bit more and go for the Hero or just go ahead and get the Liquid?

[Guest bais]

Yeah there was some Screen problem but well there seems to be a lot less complaints now. If you're careful there's nothing to fear I guess.

My phone works well and if you can't afford a Desire or Galaxy S I definitely advice you to give the Liquid a try.

As you said the hero has better build quality and Sense but that's all, the Liquid has a better and bigger screen and overall better internal hardware (Snapdragon).

[Guest Lightning Count]

I'm generally careful with any electronics that I buy, but the phone getting ruined just because of a single fall, even from a small distance seems alarming. Hence i'm wondering if it's worth the risk. I was planning to get a black one btw, which i think were less prone to this defect?

[Guest simoneser]

Liquid post-February 2010 are much less fragile than the previous ones :)

[Guest koudelka]

Liquid post-February 2010 are much less fragile than the previous ones :)

Yes, seems acer has been working on this issue. I have not had any problem with my liquid. What about the liquid E? extra 256mb ram is nice to have

[Guest Lightning Count]

Liquid E is out of my budget. I was planning to buy from the site totalpda, how am i supposed to know if these are new units or older ones?

[Guest Umka]

I have a White liquid. And it fell a couple of times form 1m plus height - but nothing happened to the screen, I guess this is a matter of luck to some extent.

If you cannot afford Desire or Galaxy - I think Liquid is your best bet. Big screen, Nice hardware and GREAT MODACO SUPPORT and lots of custom roms

[Guest Gryx]

Don't think you can get a better phone for that price. So yes go for the liquid.

[Guest Calcvictim]

You can buy my liquid...PM me

[Guest HustlinDaily]

I honestly don't see why anybody should buy a Hero over a Liquid. It is close to half the price of a Desire/Nexus with very similar hardware.

I have had my Liquid for over 4 months and love it (have dropped it a couple of times but its okay).

[Guest ginja]

I had some toughts when i was deciding to buy acer liquid, but hey it gave me very good impression and I like the device, mines still a virgin of falls. I better shut my mouth! LoL

[Guest Rajit]

I totally love my liquid (not in the literal sense :))... Its a great device for its price. Great specs.. and the icing on the cake is that it has AWESOME community support. Go for it. And yeah, if you are careful with your device (which you should with any device), you won't have any problems.

[Guest Lightning Count]

Well I'm pretty much convinced now. I mailed the site i was going to buy from if they could tell whether the units they have were manufactured before or after Feb 2010 to ease my mind. Where did this Feb 2010 date come from anyway? Did the community just figure it out themselves?

[Guest Rajit]

Well I'm pretty much convinced now. I mailed the site i was going to buy from if they could tell whether the units they have were manufactured before or after Feb 2010 to ease my mind. Where did this Feb 2010 date come from anyway? Did the community just figure it out themselves?

I think it's general experience. Just to convince u a little more, i bought my liquid on 20th february. But I live in India, and i don't know if the indian handsets suffer from the black screen problem. Well just a few days back i dropped my liquid from more than 1 meter height, on hard concrete floor. It landed right on the weak spot (top right corner of the phone). The impact was so great that the battery, the sim card and even the mmc came out. BUT, my phone is working flawlessly. Got a few scratches on there, but i love it too much to let them bother me. And its been a few weeks and no sign of the screen going crazy.

Also, if ure buying a 2nd hand device, make sure it does not already suffer from the defect. Best of luck!

[Guest jayziac]

Get the Liquid, it's cheap enough to replace anyway if something does happen to it, unlike other more expensive phones.

[Guest pigia]

I have a Liquid A1. I bought it because I thought it to be a good piece of hardware at nearly half the price of a nexus one (back in the beggining of 2010 nexus one did cost more that it costs now...).

After months of using it for leisure and work with official and unofficial roms, fixex from community and so on i can say that you should ... NOT buy it!

Short life battery :)

Zero support from Acer: no 2.x rom if there wasn't the community and every rom has its drawbacks :D

Even official roms, even if old, have problems :D

Touchscreen is not that good and sensitive (compared to iPhone at least...)

I think that you should buy a Desire / Nexus / Galaxy S; if you can't afford any of tem get a Droid/Milestone. Not so bleeding edge hardware but it has a good GPU for gaming and it will be updated officially to froyo in a few days!

Trying to find my way in the sea of Liquid's problems brings my mind bask to the old and sick days of Windows mobile 5 - 6.5 days :P

bye bye

[Guest jayziac]

Short life battery :)

My battery lasts up to 5 days with light use, or 1 day of heavy use. It happens to all smartphones, just check some of the other device forums and everyone complains about battery use.

Zero support from Acer: no 2.x rom if there wasn't the community and every rom has its drawbacks :D

Even official roms, even if old, have problems :D

Acer may not be as fast as HTC, but they did eventually put out 2.1, and plans to release froyo later this year. Unlike a lot of other manufacturers (like samsung).

Touchscreen is not that good and sensitive (compared to iPhone at least...)

Not a lot of android devices have touchscreens as nice as iphone, so unless you're getting an iphone, this is not a fair comparison.

I think that you should buy a Desire / Nexus / Galaxy S; if you can't afford any of tem get a Droid/Milestone. Not so bleeding edge hardware but it has a good GPU for gaming and it will be updated officially to froyo in a few days!

Gaming on Android is not as nice as iphone anyway due to the OS. Plus battery will drain even faster. The liquid's snapdragon processor can keep up pretty well with most games since it's the same specs as Nexus One (slightly underclocked by default). Froyo is nice, but after using official 2.1 ROMs for a few months I realize that a little faster speed from Froyo isn't going to improve my daily use experience much. It's all the great apps that Android supports that matters, and they all support 2.1.

[Guest dennerjw]

I have a Liquid A1. I bought it because I thought it to be a good piece of hardware at nearly half the price of a nexus one (back in the beggining of 2010 nexus one did cost more that it costs now...).

After months of using it for leisure and work with official and unofficial roms, fixex from community and so on i can say that you should ... NOT buy it!

Short life battery :) My liquid lasts all day with wifi, sync, gps, web browsing. When i plug it in at night, it has 20-30% left.

Zero support from Acer: no 2.x rom if there wasn't the community and every rom has its drawbacks :D There is an official Acer 2.1 rom.

Even official roms, even if old, have problems :D Like what?

Touchscreen is not that good and sensitive (compared to iPhone at least...) With the sensitivity patch, I find the touchscreen to be more than good enough. You also have to remember that this isn't an expensive, top of the line device.

I think that you should buy a Desire / Nexus / Galaxy S; if you can't afford any of tem get a Droid/Milestone. Not so bleeding edge hardware but it has a good GPU for gaming and it will be updated officially to froyo in a few days!

Trying to find my way in the sea of Liquid's problems brings my mind bask to the old and sick days of Windows mobile 5 - 6.5 days :P

bye bye

I counter your complaints with bolded rebuttals!

If you want an affordable phone with good hardware, the liquid is a great choice.

[Guest pigia]

My battery lasts up to 5 days with light use, or 1 day of heavy use. It happens to all smartphones, just check some of the other device forums and everyone complains about battery use.

Battery lasts about 2 or 3 days if not using the phone at all!

using it switching off wifi when not used, using 2G instead of 3G, disabling GPS, killing processes with task manager lasts and doing some phone calls and checking mail lasts about one day, a few hours more.

Acer may not be as fast as HTC, but they did eventually put out 2.1, and plans to release froyo later this year. Unlike a lot of other manufacturers (like samsung).

Pardon?

Liquid has been officially updated to 1.6 (bugfix release) at exactly 09/04/10 13.49.00 !!!!

Man, that's an old ROM!

A few days ago Acer released a bugged 2.1 update and then suddenly it disappeared! So right now ... no 2.1 :D

Just one example: with 1.6 I can't run software as funambol client or asphalt 5 ...

Not a lot of android devices have touchscreens as nice as iphone, so unless you're getting an iphone, this is not a fair comparison.

Many devices have touchscreen better than liquid one.

one for all? Droid/Milestone :)

Gaming on Android is not as nice as iphone anyway due to the OS. Plus battery will drain even faster. The liquid's snapdragon processor can keep up pretty well with most games since it's the same specs as Nexus One (slightly underclocked by default).

iPhone has much better software, you're right.

Froyo is nice, but after using official 2.1 ROMs for a few months I realize that a little faster speed from Froyo isn't going to improve my daily use experience much. It's all the great apps that Android supports that matters, and they all support 2.1.

Froyo is not all about speed. Froyo is something more.

just think about installing apps to sd card without patching the system. This in turn brings a standard feature for installing/storing software and data for developers.

Froyo has better Exchange support, progressive streaming for web, better camera and last but not least a new error reporting feature that works in background with marketplace that helps developers keep track of failures in their sofware.

[Guest simoneser]

Try to not use task manager.

2.000.16D rom went out on 3rd march 2010, but it was available an older version some weeks before.

From 20 july there's the 1.100.09 eclair rom. Check acer's site :)

Many? Galaxy S and Milestone, and Droid Incredible. Nexus One and Desire have the same touch screen.

Froyo will be available for Liquid E between October and November, and maybe also for normal Liquid. But there's a custom Froyo ROM :D

[Guest three_pineapples]

If you can only afford a phone around 200 pounds, then the liquid is for you. The liquid e would be better (256mb ram is abismal. You really notice how laggy the phone is when you use a phone that has more ram in).

The screen sensitivity is dodgy, but apparently fixable through custom software.

The support from Acer is bad.

Yes official Froyo is coming, but by that time gingerbread will be out (or out soon) and I doubt the liquid will ever run gingerbread well.

If you buy the liquid, be prepared to spend a lot of time playing with new roms, etc to make it better/usable. Which leaves you at the mercy of the ROM developers here, and while they generally do a good job, the number of half baked things that get left unfinished can be off-putting to new users. Also, flashing new ROMs can be dangerous, and you can brick your device if you are not careful (I would say the liquid is much more brickable than the nexus one)

All in all, it is up to you, and what you can get for the money you have. But I've ditched my liquid completely now for nexus one's (passed down to my partner who ditched it for a nexus one yesterday). My liquid will be relegated to a "loan" phone which I will use to convince others to switch to android phones (not the liquid!)