Acer Liquid C1 - Intel Android Smartphone

Overview

Intel is the biggest semiconductor chip maker in the world and much of its business resides in the PC industry where OEMs use its chips/platforms for building servers and PCs. However, the past few years saw the surge in popularity of smartphone and tablet devices which ushered in an era that many label as "post-PC". 

Its first attempt at cracking the lucrative mobile market begun at CES 2012, where Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini made a couple of major announcements around their smartphone platform (formerly codenamed Medfield). One of the more significant announcements was its reference design platform, which is based on the Intel Atom Z2460 single-core processor.

Motorola also entered into a multi-year, multi-device strategic partnership with Intel to build smartphones and tablets based on the latter's processors. Eight months later, both companies jointly announced the first smartphone to run on a 2.0GHz processor, the Razr i.

At CES 2013, Intel unveiled a new low-power Atom processor-based platform (formerly known as Lexington) and smartphone reference design, targeted at the value smartphone market. According to industry sources, the value smartphone market is expected to reach 500 million units by 2015. Acer was one of the several vendors announcing support for the platform.

On 31st January, Acer and Intel announced the availability of the Acer Liquid C1 in Bangkok. It is the first smartphone based on Intel Atom processor Z2420 for the Asia Pacific region. Touted as a milestone in the history of processor chips, the Z2420 processor is marketed to deliver a great user experience in the aspects of battery life, rich graphics, advanced camera features, smooth web browsing and multitasking. So does the Acer Liquid C1 live up to the expectations? We managed to grab one from overseas, so let's find out in this review. Before we dive into the review, here's a quick look at its specs: -

Key highlights of the Acer Liquid C1 Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich 4.3-inch IPS LCD display / 960 x 540 pixels Intel Atom Z2420 single-core 1.2GHz processor 1GB RAM 4GB internal storage (microSD support up to 32GB) 8-megapixel rear autofocus camera / LED flash 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera 2000mAh battery (removable) 127.3 x 65.5 x 9.95mm 140g Price and Availability: N.A. in this region.

Design

Acer does not break new grounds with the design of the Liquid C1 - it's just run-of-the-mill. Although the chassis is made up of plastic, the Liquid C1 is a bit on the heavy side at 140g. Considering that the aluminum-clad HTC One S weighs a mere 119.5g and the plastic-clad Huawei Ascend P1 is 10g lighter, it seems that the Acer phone can afford to shed some weight to be more competitive. However, the Acer phone packs much higher battery capacity, so we'll find out on the next page if it is worth the extra weight.

Located below the 4.3-inch display are three capacitive navigation buttons (Back, Home, Menu) that light up whenever you tap on them. A 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera resides just beside the Acer brand near the top of the phone.

Despite being an entry level device, the Liquid C1 comes with a decent suite of data connectivity options such as a microSD card slot (supports up to 32GB), GPS, Bluetooth 2.1, micro-USB 2.0. We appreciate the addition of a memory card slot since some high-end phones such as the LG Nexus 4 does not have one and yet comes with limited built-in memory.

Features 

The Liquid C1 is powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and does not sport any customized user interface. It's strange that the phone ships with Android 4.0, a platform which was released more than a year ago. Even the recently announced Samsung Galaxy S III mini (yet another entry-level device) runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Mike Bell, Intel's Vice President of Ultra Mobility once commented that Intel is "a first class citizen" in the Android ecosystem, hence it is able to release processors which are optimized for each new iteration of Android OS. Android 4.1 has been out for close to a year already, and we see no reason for not shipping it onboard the Liquid C1. As such, it's a slight letdown in terms of OS support.

Performance

The Acer Liquid C1 is the first phone to be powered by the Intel Atom Z2420 single-core processor. The chip supports Intel Hyper-Threading (HT) technology, which simply means that a single processor can 'act' like two separate processors to the operating system and the apps that are using it. The processor can execute two streams of instructions sent by the operating system simultaneously (where CPU resources allow), hence allowing more work to be done within each clock cycle. Theoretically, this will result in more responsive interfaces, faster loading of web pages and seamless multitasking. To find out more about HT, we've summarized it in this old article.

It is noteworthy to mention that unlike the majority of the smartphones in the market, the Acer Liquid C1 does not run on ARM processors. Since both camps have touted their superiority in performance, it will be interesting to see how the x86-based Intel Atom processor fares against the ARM processors in phones of its class. As usual, we will use the Quadrant benchmark to evaluate the CPU, memory, I/O and 3D graphics of the Android devices.

Based on the Quadrant benchmark, the Intel Atom processor held up decently against the ARM processors. While the gap with the dual-core Huawei Ascend P1 is noticeable, it is too early to disregard Intel's efforts to make its mark in the mobile space; they are surely but steadily making progress. 

Aside from benchmark results, we found the overall user experience to be decent. Having handled Android 4.1 devices that offer smoother operation as per the OS design, the speed of operation on the Liquid C1 seemed to be a tad slower and expectedly so with its slightly older Android 4.0 base. However, it is important to note that the Liquid C1 is primarily an entry-level phone, and the slightly inferior performance is understandable for its class.

Imaging Performance

Despite its proposition as an entry-level device, the Liquid C1 comes with an 8-megapixel rear autofocus camera. On paper, it is in the same league as some of the high-end Android smartphones such as the HTC Butterfly and Samsung Galaxy Note II. Now, let's see how it performs in our imaging test below: - 

Imaging isn't the camera's forte and it's clear that if you intend to own the Liquid C1, you would do good to also keep a stand-alone camera handy to tackle any good photo opportunity. What about the display of the device in which you enjoy photos and videos? Well, it won't blow you away, but it's very reasonable for its entry-level status as the 4.3-inch IPS display comes with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels.

Battery Mileage

Our standard battery test for mobile phones includes the following parameters:

• Looping a 800 x 480-pixel video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

The Liquid C1 lasted 5 hours and 47 minutes, which is about 42 minutes longer than the HTC Desire V. When compared to the Huawei Ascend P1, the Acer phone paled in comparison. Despite having a dual-core processor and smaller battery capacity, the Ascend P1 had a better battery mileage. This is mainly attributed to the more power efficient Super AMOLED display and TI processor. Our assumption is reinforced by the Power Consumption chart, where the Ascend P1 had the lowest power consumption among the three phones compared. It's quite unfortunate that despite the bulkier and higher capacity battery on the Acer device, its power efficiency needs work.

In the Portability Index where where each device is assessed on its ability to balance battery mileage with its size and portability, the Liquid C1 fared the worst as it is easily the bulkiest among the three phones and given the fact that it didn't last as long as we hoped it would in our benchmarking scenario.

Under normal daily usage conditions, we were able to squeeze out about a day of battery life from the Acer phone. This is pretty normal for smartphones today, when consumers usually perform some moderate web surfing, text messaging and make a few phone calls throughout the day. As such, do note that our battery test results reported above simulate fairly stressful usage conditions and that actual battery mileage varies under different usage conditions

Conclusion

As the first Intel-powered smartphone to land in our test labs, we find the Acer Liquid C1 to fall within our expectations. It may not have an outstanding design or superior specs, but the Acer Liquid C1 gets the job done most of the time, apart from it photo-taking capabilities that let us down. The Intel Atom Z2420 processor is positioned as a platform for smartphones in emerging markets, and its performance seemed to be acceptable when compared to the ARM competition.

Retailing at an estimated price of S$408 (a direct conversion of the RM 999 retail price), Acer and Intel have positioned the Liquid C1 in a competitive spot against the ARM-based competition such as the $568 Samsung Galaxy S III mini, $498 HTC Desire V and $648 Huawei Ascend P1 (considering their official retail prices). However, the latter two phones have been around for more than half a year and their current street prices are much more enticing at under S$400 and under S$500 respectively thus making Acer's Liquid C1 a much tougher proposition (even though there's nothing really wrong with it other than below average imaging quality). In any case, there's no mention if Acer would retail the Liquid C1 in Singapore. So for those really keen to try out an Intel powered Android device, you'll have to try your luck across the boarder.

If you are in the market for a non-Android entry-level smartphone locally, you can also consider the Nokia Lumia 720 and 520, which are priced at S$479 and S$279 respectively.

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