Acer Liquid Jade S review: Semi-precious

User interface

The Liquid Jade S comes with the last pre-Lollipop version of Android, KitKat 4.4.4. Acer saw areas where Google's OS had room for improvement and the interface is quite heavily customized. For a quick glimpse of the UI check out the brief video below:

Pressing the power button lights up the display and the Liquid Jade S greets you with Acer's take on a functional lockscreen. It shows a combined clock and weather widget on top for a quick update on when and where you are in the world. The liquid concept is continued with a wave effect which simulates that your phone is half full of water (or half empty, depending on your view of the world).

A host of shortcuts is at your disposal, which copies the dock on the homescreen, for quick access straight from the lockscreen. If you just want to unlock the phone you have to swipe from the padlock or any other empty space on the lockscreen. Google Now can also be called upon with an upswipe from the bottom edge.

Acer Liquid Jade S custom lockscreen

Past the lockscreen you arrive at a pretty standard homescreen with the usual arrangement of onscreen buttons. Google Now can be accessed from here as well with a tap and hold on the home button.

A set of four app shortcuts sit at the dock with access to the app drawer in the middle. You can't change this arrangement and if you choose to have 3 icons, they don't redistribute evenly. You do get folder support, though.

Acer Liquid Jade S homescreen

The Liquid Jade S lets you have up to nine homescreens, and you can access their settings with a pinch gesture. From there you can add, remove and rearrange those and set an arbitrary one as Home. A number of transition styles are available and the homescreens can be cycled or not, depending on your preference.

Homescreen customizations

The Liquid Jade S lets you have up to nine homescreens, and you can access their settings with a pinch gesture. From there you can add, remove and rearrange those and set an arbitrary one as Home. A number of transition styles are available and the homescreens can be cycled or not, depending on your preference.

The notification shade is one of the areas where Acer's touch is most noticeable with a thoroughly redesigned set of toggles. Other than that the features are pretty standard, and a single-finger pull-down reveals 5 toggles and the list of notifications. Swiping with both fingers opens the entire array of toggles with a direct shortcut to their settings, where you can rearrange them and chose which 5 are immediately available.

Notification shade

The task switcher is another modified aspect of the UI with added functionality. It displays up to nine running apps in a grid of thumbnails, and swiping a thumbnail away closes the app. A "Remove All" button is present as well.

Task switcher

On the bottom of the task switcher you get a strip of what Acer calls "Float apps", i.e. apps that open in a window, on top of whatever else you have on the screen, much like Sony's small apps. You get a host of float apps, including a quick note app and a calculator, but also a windowed view of the camera app and the built-in browser. Some float apps can be resized, while others are fixed-size. Only some apps can be opened in this fashion, but a number of widgets are available too.

Additionally you can opt for a floating bar of buttons which double the back/home/task buttons for simplified single-handed use. The bar comes in two sizes with the larger one offering a shortcut to the notification shade and another one for locking the device without reaching for the power button.

Float apps • Control bar

The app drawer is a more standard affair with a familiar 4x5 grid of apps, which can be sorted by name, date or frequency of use. Swiping right past the apps you get to the widgets, but once you run out of those, you have to swipe back left to get to get to the apps, as there's no cycling in the app drawer.

App drawer

Finally, Google Now integrates with your Google account and if you give it access to your daily routine, internet searches, email, etc. and give you information relevant to your interests and daily needs.

It provides traffic information to your work or home, knows the scores of sports teams you follow and gives you the weather forecast for your location. It's great for at-a-glance info, but can handle voice input as well. It also has a dedicated homescreen/lockscreen widget.

Google Now