Acer Liquid A1 Android Smartphone Gets Previews [One of the Fastest Snapdragon Android Handset, Lacks UI Customization]

We already know that Expansys has confirmed the release date of the new Acer Liquid A1 smartphone (for November 28th) and we also got a pretty good idea of what the full specs are, what we couldn’t be sure about was how fast and reliable the new handset is going to be.

Meant as the first smartphone to run Google’s Android OS and to pack a Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD 8250 chipset under the hood, the long-awaited Acer Liquid A1 comes with a 768MHz processor (why not 1GHz guys?), runs Android 1.6, has a unique WVGA capacitive touchscreen at 800×480 pixel and supports quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE as well as triband UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA at either 900/1800/2100 MHz (European version) or 850/1900/2100 MHz (North American version).

But if already knew that, how about a short “preview” review as our good friends from TheUnwired got their hands on one and have shared it with us. Apparently the handset first impresses with its refreshing design that is somewhere between a smartphone, a personal navigation device (PND) and a media player.

A small drawback is the fact that it lacks a D-pad or trackball in favor to the touch sensitive Android typical home, search, back and menu keys. Another one is a lacking front-facing camera for UMTS video telephony, although the Liquid A1 is a 3G smartphone.

As for the positive aspects of the review there’s an excellent RoadSync Exchange client, the native Exchange support and the different apps for streaming media, improved local media control and social networking. However, most notably, the Liquid A1 vouches for performance and stability.