Companies like Huawei and Motorola showcased a couple of new mobile devices each at IFA 2015, but Acer dropped seven notable phones and tablets in Berlin.
Liquid Z330
It appears that Acer revealed its mobile roadmap for the next year in one single product unveiling, starting with the baby of the bunch, the Z330.
Despite packing the most conservative specs of this year’s lineup, it, like the rest of Acer’s latest handsets, supports 4G. The 4.5-inch WVGA (854×480) screen isn’t anything to write home about, but head on it’s legible and colourful, whilst the humble Snapdragon 210 keeps things ticking over for low-level gaming, email and YouTube playback.
Unlike its launch sibling, the M330, the Z330 will debut running the latest available build of Android, version 5.1 Lollipop.
The Z330 is expected to hit the UK in October with general pricing in EMEA set at €129. Single and dual-SIM skews will be available depending on market.
Liquid Z530
If the Z330 is a little small or a little underpowered for your tastes, then the Z530 is a more conventional 5-inch, 720p HD IPS display-toting Android Lollipop device. The 64-bit 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek chipset paired to 1GB (or 2GB of RAM depending on storage option you pick) should serve most users well too, provided high-resolution video or high fidelity gameplay aren’t on your ‘must have’ features list.
Acer is talking up the phone’s selfie capabilities with an 8-megapixel front-facing camera boasting an 87 degree wide-angle lens, but a lack of front-facing flash places it slightly behind the likes of devices such as the new Honor 7.
The Z530 is expected to hit EMEA markets, including the UK in October priced at €149. Single and dual-SIM skews will be available depending on market.
Liquid Z630
The top dog of Acer’s new Android arsenal, the Z630 borders phablet territory with a 5.5-inch 720p HD display and a massive 4000mAh battery, which should see most users through two days of use by our estimations.
The rest of the hardware is a little more pedestrian, with the same MediaTek chip as its smaller sibling, but a guarantee of at least 2GB of RAM for smooth performance and Full HD video recording through either of its 8-megapixel cameras.
Acer has also improved the Android Lollipop-based Liquid UI with tools to make the most of that larger display, namely by way of its new float apps facility, that lets you suspend an app on your homescreen, not unlike what we’ve previously seen form high-end devices like the Samsung Galaxy S6.
The Z630 is expected to hit EMEA markets, including the UK in September priced at €199. Single and dual-SIM skews will be available depending on market.
Liquid M330
Like the Z330 you can expect the same internal hardware; from the display size and resolution, aesthetics, processor, the same 8GB of internal storage, 1GB of RAM and 5-megapixel front and rear cameras – choice is what’s key in Acer’s 2015 IFA lineup though and that’s why the M330 runs Windows 10.
If you’re itching to be at the head of the queue, Acer’s M330 is one of the first phones to run Windows 10 out of the box, but the low-level internals limit its functionality beyond the typical mobile experience.
The M330 is expected to hit the UK later this year with general pricing in EMEA set at €129. Single and dual-SIM skews will be available depending on market.
Predator 8
When we first heard about Acer’s plans to re-enter the gaming market with its Predator product line back in April, the biggest surprise wasn’t a killer gaming desktop PC or laptop, but rather an Android tablet.
The striking design of the dummy device we met back in New York has endured and at IFA we were finally able to test out working Predator 8 prototypes, which boast virtual surround sound through four front-facing speakers (branded as the Quadio sound feature), boasting virtual surround sound capabilities.
A 1920×1200 8-inch display with Acer’s own technology boosting colour and fidelity sits up front, whilst a solid Intel Atom x7 processor runs the show on the inside – the same one used by Microsoft’s Surface 3. We were surprised by the 2GB of RAM backing the chipset up, but initial impressions of gaming performance were promising.
Along with the audio experience, two inbuilt motors add vibration to the games and thanks to a partnership with Gameloft, a number of the publisher’s titles natively support this standout feature – dubbed TacSense.
The Predator 8 gaming tablet is expected to hit the UK sometime in October, with pricing in EMEA set at £249.
Predator 6
Whilst there were plenty of devices on show at Acer’s IFA booth, the Predator 6 smartphone was one of two big mobile offerings that the company teased during its keynote, which strictly remained behind closed doors for the rest of the show.
Expected to push the Predator name into the smartphone space too, the Acer Predator 6 is being billed at ‘the gamer’s smartphone’, rocking a 6-inch HD screen, an impressive-sounding deca-core MediaTek processor and a 4GB of RAM.
All we know about the Predator 6 right now is that we won’t see it again until 2016.
Jade Primo
Rounding off Acer’s armada of exciting new mobile tech was the company’s second Windows 10-powered smartphone; the Jade Primo.
As the name suggests, this phone is kind of a big deal, with company CEO, Jason Chen announcing it as “the first PC phone.” A title deserved thanks to some solid internal hardware, powerful enough to support the operating system’s Continuum feature – letting users operate through a full-sized monitor, mouse and keyboard for a desktop-like computing experience.
The Primo’s external design is similar to other smartphones from the Acer’s Jade family and boasts some of the most high-end internal hardware the company’s ever put into a smartphone. A 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display, a 21-megapixel rear camera and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 808 hexa-core chip at its heart.
As with the Predator 6, we won’t likely hear any more about the Primo until next year, but we’re certainly curious.
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