Acer Debuts Entry-Level Android, Windows 10 Mobile Phones at IFA

Acer has two tiers of its Liquid smartphones. The Liquid Jade series are its higher-end handsets, though when compared to other vendors, they would be considered mid-range. The Liquid Z and M series are its entry-level phones, with the Z's being Android-powered and the M's being Windows-powered.

After recently announcing two phones that we saw earlier in the year at Mobile World Congress for the U.S. market, the Liquid Jade Z and Liquid Z410, Acer has followed up by announcing six entry-level Liquid phones at IFA. Keep in mind that none of these phones are currently slated to come to North America, but that could change.

Although there are six models, technically there are really only four phones, as two of the models are just the same devices with either Android or Windows 10 Mobile installed. It is also good to still see some strong support from Acer for Windows Phone. After many of the other larger OEMs (Samsung, HTC, LG) have seemingly abandoned Microsoft's mobile platform, Acer has kept the Windows torch burning instead of just leaving the platform to Microsoft itself and smaller OEMs like Blu.

It is also good to see that all the Android devices are finally running Lollipop; at MWC, Acer was still offering devices on Android KitKat. A couple of new software features it is highlighting at IFA include the new BluelightShield app that controls the blue light output from this screen. This kind of light can disrupt sleeping patterns when viewed late a night, and it's important to take into consideration the health implications of extended mobile technology use. Acer is also now including manual controls in its camera apps, which is a surprise feature on entry-level phones such as these.

Liquid Z630/Z630S

The Liquid Z630 is the highest phone to be announced this week, and it's an entry-level phablet. As you can see, it comes in two flavors, the quad-core powered Z630 and the faster octo-core Z630S. Unfortunately, Acer did not specify the exact MediaTek SoC being used by the 'S' model, but we are guessing it is the same MT6752M found in the previously-launched Liquid Jade S. The Z630S is pictured at the top of this article.

These phones have 5.5-inch 720p screens, so don't expect them to be particularly crisp, but let's hope they are at least bright and color accurate. Acer was a little light on the rest of the specs, but we are expecting to see microSD slots on both these phones, as it is a feature found through Acer's phone range. The enormous 4,000 mAh battery in conjunction with the lower-end SoC and HD screen should give these phones incredible battery life.

The Acer Liquid Z630 launches in September for €199 ($225 USD). Acer did not indicate when the faster Z630S will launch.

Liquid Z530/Z530S

The Liquid Z530 is a 5-inch screen version of the Z630. The SoC and other features are basically the same, and there is also an "S" model (not pictured) with a faster octo-core MediaTek chip. However, depending on the market, the Z530 will either come with 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of storage or 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage. Again, there is no mention of a microSD slot in the material given to us, but we assume there is one present. Acer also did not specify the battery capacity of this smaller device, but expect it to be at least half the size.

Acer is pushing this phone as the perfect entry-level selfie phone, and the 8 MP front-facing camera with an 84-degree lens should help with that. The Z530 will start at €149 ($170 USD) and comes out in Europe in October.

Liquid Z330/M330 and Z320/M320

This quartet of base-model phones all use the same basic chassis and have 4.5-inch 854 x 480 displays. Although, as we mentioned, it's good to see that Acer is offering Windows 10 Mobile devices, it is a little disappointing to see this OS only available on such basic phones. However, this does seem to be the Windows Phone's current lot in life, and it will be up to Microsoft to reignite the interest in having this OS on something more powerful.

As for the rest of the specs of these phones, the main differences between the 330's and the 320's are the SoC -- quad-core vs. dual core. The 320 phones also don't have LTE, just 3G connectivity. Acer did not specify the battery capacity, or if there will be a microSD slot. The latter should be expected, and you may also find that these base models have removable batteries, as the older base-model Z220 and M220 did.

There isn't much else to say about these bare-bones devices, but at €129 ($145 USD) that is to be expected. The Android Z330 comes out in Europe in October, and the M330 when Microsoft officially launches Windows 10 Mobile. Acer did not provide pricing and release information about the Z320 and M320.

Update, 9/02/15, 12:45pm PT: We have updated and corrected some of the specs for these new phones. The ‘S’ versions of the Z530 and Z630 do not use the octo-core MT6752M SoC, but the slower MT6753. This chip uses the Mali-T720 MP3 GPU, not the T760. We also added the battery capacity for the Z530, Z330/320 and M330/320. All these phones have replaceable batteries. Lastly, we added their weights.

Update 2, 9/02/15, 5:15pm PT: Acer has confirmed to us that all these phones have microSD slots.

Alex Davies is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware and Tom's IT Pro, covering Smartphones, Tablets, and Virtual Reality. You can follow him on Twitter. Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.