Yesterday Acer gave us an early look at Windows 10 on its Liquid M220 smartphone in New York.
Whilst Acer has built its mobile empire on the shoulders of Android, MWC offered us our first taste of Windows Phone in the form of the humble Liquid M220 and now we’re looking at it once again, but this time it’s all about the software.
When Acer launched the phone back in March it sported the conventional Windows Phone 8.1 experience that was popularised by the Lumia smartphone family. The phone itself is a humble device; at launch boasting a 4-inch 480×800 display, a 1.2GHz dual-core brain, 512MB of RAM and just 4GB of internal storage (with microSD expandability).
Things are changing however and in a drive to expand its mobile horizons, Acer is giving the Liquid M220 a bit of a refresh in the run up to Windows 10. To prep the phone for its debut running Microsoft’s new operating system, Acer has doubled the amount of memory to 1GB and the internal storage is now a more capacious 8GBs.
Beyond that you still get the same Snapdragon 200 chip, wide-angle 5-megapixel rear snapper and a 2-megapixel front facer.
Windows 10 itself feels extremely familiar, without diving into the settings menu you’d be forgiven for thinking it hadn’t yet received the upgrade, but when it comes to personalisation, the new OS offers users far more control over the look and feel of the device. The extra RAM also proves its worth by doling out an impressively smooth user experience for such a frugal phone and to spice things up Acer’s dressing the M220 in a range of new cases.
These leatherette cases feature a folio-style flip cover to protect the display and thanks to a magnetometer, opening the case wakes up the phone. It adds a touch of premium to what can only be considered a budget handset and shrouds the somewhat uninspiring, albeit functional aesthetics.
We’re still unsure of when the refreshed Liquid M220 will make an appearance, but Microsoft has confirmed that potential customers looking to pick one up in the US will be able to swing my a Microsoft Store to find one.
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