IFA 2013: Acer Liquid S2 hands-on

Acer Liquid S2 hardware

The Liquid S2 comes in two color options - black and red. The black paint job features a silver trim, while the red one has a black trim. Both work well and lend to the device aesthetics.

The Acer Liquid S2 comes in two color varieties

The most notable first impression the Acer Liquid S2 makes is its solid build quality. While Acer didn't provide exact figures, the device feels hefty in-hand - almost overly so - but the solid construction and matte plastic finish on the back make up for the added weight.

The device is hefty in-hand

The power button is located at the top of the device, which is very inconvenient and perhaps the Liquid S2's only design flaw. Good thing is you can unlock the phone by a press-and-hold of the home button. As for locking it back... well, you'll have to use the other hand every time.

On the right side there is a dual speaker setup, while on the left you'll find an uncovered microUSB port, volume rocker, as well as the covered microSIM and microSD card slots. Acer Liquid S2 has a quad-microphone setup for advanced stereo recording. Two of these are located at the bottom.

The sides of the Liquid S2

The back of the device features the 13MP camera capable of 4K video recording. It's surrounded by quad-LED flash ring around the lens, which includes a diffuser that helps immensely when shooting video in low-light at close range.

On the front you'll find the 2MP wide angle shooter located above the display.

The primary camera with ring LED flash • the front-facing 2MP shooter

The display on the Acer Liquid S2 is seriously good, quite crisp at 367 ppi, with good contrast and pretty wide viewing angles - not the widest we have seen but wide enough not to be a hindrance. One downside, it is, unfortunately, also quite reflective.

The quality display