Review smartphone Acer Liquid S2

In 2013, Acer have not been very active in the smartphone market , the company for the year presented literally five or six models , and those – mostly government employees or devices of the middle segment . And at the end of the year in the Acer decided to announce its flagship smartphone , while being fabletom with top performance.

Options

• smartphone
• charger
• USB- cable
• Wired headset

The smartphone comes in a small square box . Included with it is a good headset . More features at no configuration .

Appearance, materials , controls , assembly

Frankly, part of the design Acer does not cease to amaze me. If you look at different lineup of devices , then you wonder , how do they differ in appearance. Take, for example , Acer Aspire S7 – ultrabook flagship company. Its design – one of the best among similar models , the device immediately sinks into the soul . Or another example – Acer CloudMobile S500, compact smartphone with an interesting look . Such wonderful in terms of design devices coexist with frankly boring models like Acer Liquid S1 or Acer Liquid E1. Unfortunately , Acer Liquid S2 refers precisely to the second category : the smartphone there are no striking design elements . It’s just a great bar , the main design sophistication which is perhaps that red back .

On the front side of the device is located a six-inch display, above it are the front camera , proximity sensors and lighting as well as LED . It glows red while charging , green when charged and then flashes green if you have missed the notification .

Under the screen you can see the three touch buttons : ” Back “, ” Home ” and ” Recent Applications.” Interestingly, one can use the “Home” screen as the power key . You need to enable the option in the settings. Until this smartphone a realization I’ve only seen in Meizu MX2/MX3.

On the right side are the volume rocker and the connector microUSB. Under plugs hidden slots for memory cards microSD and SIM- card format nanoSIM.

On top is 3.5 mm jack for headphones, and the left – the external speaker .

Behind the eye can only see the main camera and a ring flash . The lid itself is made of matte smooth plastic which is resistant to scratches. However, due to its smoothness smartphone slides in hand and tries to fall out of it.

By the assembly there is a small complaint : the strong squeezing location ” Sims ” and memory card cover barely noticeable crunches . The rest of it is perfectly assembled.

screen

Display size – six inches , resolution – 1920×1080 pixels , type of matrix – IPS, supported multitouch up to ten simultaneous touches , oleophobic coating is present , the screen covered with protective glass Gorilla Glass.

On the one hand , the display is very good : it has a high resolution, good viewing angles , natural color reproduction . On the other hand , it is clear that it is inferior to the same HTC One Max or Samsung Galaxy Note 3 . First of all, it affects the levels of maximum and minimum brightness – the first is not always enough , and the second night is excessive .

The screen is almost completely blind , but the information remains readable . Of the interesting features I note the absence of the air gap between the display and the glass.

Dimensions

Currently Liquid S2 is one of the major fabletov as in size and weight . More it only Sony Xperia Z Ultra, but he and thinner , by the way .

Acer Liquid S2 – 166 x 86 x 9 mm, weight – 231 grams
Asus Fonepad 6 – 164.8 x 88.8 x 10.3 mm, weight – 210 grams
Sony Xperia Z Ultra – 179 x 92 x 6.5 mm, weight – 214 grams
Apple iPhone 5 – 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm, weight – 112 grams
HTC One Max – 164.50×82.50×10.29 mm, weight – 217 grams
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 – 151.2 x 79.2 x 8.3 mm, weight – 168 grams
Lenovo K900 – 157 x 78 x 6.9 mm, weight – 162 grams
Huawei Ascend Mate – 163.5 x 85.7 x 9.9 mm, weight – 196 grams

Use your smartphone with one hand is almost impossible. First, you can not get the thumb to 60 % of the screen , and secondly, when you hold with one hand outweighs the upper part , and have a chance to drop it.

operating system

The device runs on Android 4.2.2 with a few additions from Acer.

First, here is a great launcher : you can safely change the number of desktops supported circular paging , you can configure options when scrolling animation . In addition , the default 5×5 grid that is the best option for such a large diagonal.

Second, Acer slightly changed the lock screen . Now in its lower part houses shortcuts four applications ( which, incidentally, is also optional ) . To open an application , you need to hold the left or right of the label .

Third, the application added Float Browser and Float Dialer. The first is a pop-up window with the browser ( the dimensions of which are adjustable) , and the second – a popup window when an incoming call.

Fourthly , Acer used in place of a standard keyboard Swype, it is very convenient .

Fifth, here decided to leave the browser from Android 4.0 and added it to scale text and Autofit to fit the screen while zooming.

And, of course , I can not mention your own widgets with clock and weather. In the settings you can choose to display the city , and when you click on the clock opens the alarm.

In Acer did not radically change the interface Android, and very carefully added their improvement , I definitely like this approach .

performance

Responsible for the performance chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor , clocked at 2.15 GHz, accelerator – Adreno 330. RAM – 2 GB of internal storage capacity – 16 GB ( 12.4 GB user available ) , there is a slot for a memory card , my card to 64 GB unit recognizes excellent .

Currently Qualcomm 800 is one of the most powerful chipsets , so you can run without problems with any smartphone , even the most ” serious ” games . With regard to daily work , there is also no complaints : the launcher , the browser settings – all loads quickly and does not slow down .

Autonomy

The smartphone has a removable lithium-polymer battery capacity of 3300 mAh.

While reading ( 30% brightness mode ” Airplane ” is included ) was enough to charge a smartphone 13 hours.

View Mode HD- video at the maximum brightness of the discharge device for 6.5 hours.

With everyday use Liquid S2 charge enough for one day (mail, twitter, web surfing and about an hour viewing HD- video) .

The device has a separate mode to save battery that is automatically activated if the smartphone is discharged more than 70 %.

camera

The smartphone is set 13 megapixel camera with LED- ring flash and front camera 2 MP. With examples of pictures you can see below .

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As for unusual solutions with flash , I can only note that in low light illumination from a flash brighter , but the cadres themselves still blurred.

Wireless interfaces

Wi-Fi (b / g / n) – the module to no complaints. It also supports dual-band Wi-Fi, there is a feature Wi-Fi Direct.

Bluetooth 4.0 – supports all major standards including A2DP.

GPS – GPS work I did not like , cold start takes about 30-40 seconds, and then in the navigation smartphone can lose signal.

Mobile networks – in addition to working in 2G/3G networks , and have support Russian frequencies LTE. I tested the unit with a ” SIM cards ” MegaFon and MTS – LTE works fine.

conclusion

When talking on a smartphone , I would like to add a little more volume, but it was already at the maximum. Also note that to keep such a huge fablet ear basically uncomfortable.

Suggested retail price for Acer Liquid S2 is 22 000 rubles . On the one hand, we have a great flagship smartphone with a top filling, decent screen and good battery life . Also write down pros Russian support LTE frequencies and a decent headset included. On the other hand , the unit loses in many ways besides Samsung Galaxy Note 3 ( size, screen quality, camera, support video codecs ) . In this Note 3 can be bought in salons due MegaFon for 24 thousand rubles.

Another strong competitor – Sony Xperia Z Ultra. At his side a large screen size , the smaller thickness , the best design and moisture protection .

The last serious competitor – HTC One Max. He has a better design , materials, housing , better screen and some of the best stereo speakers.

In my opinion , the price of the machine a bit overstated. If he sold for 16-18 thousand rubles, he would have been a strong competitor for Asus Fonepad 6 and Lenovo K900, but for 22 thousand rubles he already much stronger opponents .

We are used to produce high-quality Acer device with a price slightly lower than that of other A- brands, and performance is slightly better (remember the same Acer Liquid / Liquid E). Recently, however, prices this brand became painfully high. Therefore, if you plan to buy Liquid S2, then, at least , look at Note 3 , Xperia Z Ultra and HTC One Max, and if you still decide to stay on the S2, then wait for price reduction .