Acer Liquid A1 Android Begins Shipping This Month [Acer's First Android smartphone Release Date Set For Late November]

Extensively covered here on TFTS, by now we already know most of the things regarding Acer’s first Android smartphone, the Qualcomm Snapdragon based Acer Liquid A1. It’s fast and very reliable, boasts amazing specs and looks good, but the thing that may have slipped until now, was an actual release date. I’m saying “was” because today, our ninjas have got their hands on a report saying that the handset will arrive this November in the UK, will run Android 1.6 Donut and will cost £286 pre-tax (some $480 at today’s rate).

For that amount of money you’re getting a stylish smartphone that is somewhere between a smartphone, a personal navigation device (PND) and a media player. It packs a a 3.5-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen display, a 5-megapixel camera, built-in GPS, HSDPA, WiFi b/g and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR connectivity to play with.

Although preview reviews say it’s a hell of a smartphone, the Liquid A1 has few drawbacks that include a Qualcomm 8250 Snapdragon processor that clocks at 768 MHz — we would’ve loved the 1GHz CPU down under, and the  fact that it lacks Android 2.0 Eclair as operating system.

Any UK readers out there? Would you buy one when it’s out?