Acer Liquid Jade S Smartphone Review

Though keeping the same display panel as the original Liquid Jade is no bad thing, it also appears the Liquid Jade S has the same version of Android, too – which we did not find so enjoyable last time around.

It is Android KitKat 4.4, but Acer have made some alterations and their version does not quite make the grade.

For one, the ‘Acer Home' launcher is still as clunky as ever – a huge weather widget takes up most of the display, and the icons look very dated. Modern phone UIs are flat and clean, something Android Lollipop and iOS 8 do very well. Acer's UI looks like it could be 5 years old – it is not very attractive at all. We strongly recommend a different launcher, as well as a new icon pack.

The quick settings are still very blocky, and lack colour. When you activate one setting – i.e. you switch on your WiFi – it does turn a sickly green, but it is far from appealing. Acer could learn a lot from looking at the clean look Asus achieved with their ZenUI interface – simple icons and bright splashes of colour look good, clunky and dark icons do not.

On the plus side though, it is nice to see Acer have included ‘Swype' as the stock keyboard. Swype usually costs £0.59 from the Google Play store, but is included free of charge with each Liquid Jade S. We tend to find 3rd party keyboards more user-friendly and efficient than stock keyboards, so this is definitely a good move.

It is not enough to redeem the OS as a whole, though. Acer did not change anything from the original Liquid Jade OS, and as such it remains a clunky and unattractive version of KitKat. The Acer website does suggest Lollipop will be coming to the Liquid Jade S, which will hopefully breathe some life into an otherwise stagnant OS.

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