Acer is not a brand we normally think of when we think “smartphone” here in the US, but the company is growing in Europe and Asia. With their solid, yet mid-range offerings, the company has people taking notice and buying into their brand. Their latest, the Z5 however, might have a certain company paying attention for all the wrong reasons. The Liquid Z5 is a 5-inch smartphone with mid-range specs, like a 960 x 540 display resolution and a dual-core CPU. However, it’s the software that might give Acer some funny looks. The Quick Modes feature of the Liquid Z5 does exactly what you think, it gets you to certain parts of the device, quickly. As you’ll note in the image above however, it looks very much like a Windows Phone 8 device. Which a certain technology company might not be too happy about.
The device is on sale in Taiwan and it’s here that reports of Acer using the Quick Modes interface prominently in their advertising have emerged. In Asia, Windows Phone has proven pretty successful compared to here in the West so, to take a leaf out of their book doesn’t seem like too bad an idea. Hopefully for Acer though, Microsoft don’t take exception to Acer’s flattery. Elsewhere however, we’re not sure Microsoft or Nokia have much to worry about as the Liquid Z5 really isn’t that impressive a device. We already covered the low resolution of 960 x 540, but things don’t look much better than that. With a dual-core 1.3 Ghz MediaTek CPU and just 512MB of RAM, this is not Acer’s powerhouse.
Instead, it’s an affordable device that aims to give users an Android option without having to spend too much. In Asia and emerging markets, that’s pretty important and we’re pretty sure that consumers there won’t mind that Acer has taken a few design cues from Microsoft. We saw Samsung debut something similar with their Magazine UX in the Galaxy Tab Pro series and it’s starting to look like the industry is a little more found of Windows 8’s look than they originally let on. The Liquid Z5 is available from Acer in Taiwan, other parts of Asia, the UK, France and the Netherlands.
Via: PhoneArena
Source: ePrice