MWC 2014: Various brands overview

Acer Liquid E3

The Acer Liquid E3 feels pleasantly thin and the build quality impressed us. This up and coming gadget certainly has a few interesting tricks up its sleeve.

But let's start with the basics. The E3 has a 4.7" IPS LCD screen of 720p resolution, which gives it a pixel density of 312ppi, the norm in this segment. What the raw specs don't tell is just how good the image quality of the screen is.

A flash for the front-facing camera and a "design accent" grill

Above the screen, you'll notice the standard 2MP front-facing video camera and an LED flash on the opposite side of the Acer logo. That's right, there's a dedicated flash for selfies. Another interesting feature here are the two speaker grilles - the E3 has a single speaker, the grille on top is a "design accent."

Around back we see the main camera - a 13MP shooter - with its LED flash. Below it is a button that can be long pressed to launch the camera and then tapped again to take a photo (another feature to make selfies easier). A short press on the button outside the camera can be programmed to launch any app.

Long press for camera, short press to take photo

The Acer Liquid E3 is powered by a quad-core chipset (CPU at 1.2GHz) with 1GB of RAM. While it runs a relatively old Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, the interface moves surprisingly fast. Acer has promised a 4.4 KitKat update for the first half of this year.

The phone has 4GB of built-in storage, but there's a microSD card slot. On the other side of the phone are two microSIM card slots - the E3 we handled is a dual-SIM device. There will be a single-SIM version too.

microSD card slot • two SIM slots

The Acer Liquid E3 will carry a €200 price tag when it launches in April.

microUSB port • 3.5mm audio jack

Acer Liquid Z4 hands-on

The Acer Liquid Z4 is an entry-level phone with a 4" WVGA screen and a dual-core 1.3GHz processor. Flip covers are available for the Z4, an accessory typically reserved for higher-end devices.

The Acer Liquid Z4 has flip cover accessories

While this one does not have a front-facing flash, it has the same button on the back that serves as a handy camera shortcut (long press to launch, short press to take photo). You can program this one to launch other apps too. The camera itself is not nearly as impressive as the E3's shooter, the Liquid Z4 does 5MP at most.

5MP camera with flash on the back and the customizable shortcut button

Much like the E3, the Liquid Z4 does not have stereo speakers but DTS tech should ensure quality audio output.

The Acer Liquid Z4 will cost half as much as the E3, just €100, when it comes out in April.