Forget the official CES start date, Acer has already announced their new collection of swag coming in 2014.
The new line-up starts with the Acer Liquid Z5, a follow-up to their Liquid Z3. The new budget phone sports a 5″ FWVGA TFT display, powered by a 1.3GHz Cortex-A7 processor, Mali-400 graphics and runs Android 4.2 on 512MB of RAM. A 2000mAh battery is also in charge, as well as a 5MP rear-facing camera, with an LED flash, VGA front camera, 4GB storage and a micro-SD port. Running on 3G HSPA+ networks, the phone will ship first to the UK, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Acer has started their all-fruit diet, producing the Iconia A1-830, or basically a cheap iPad mini running Android. With a 7.9″ LED-backlit IPS display, a resolution of 1024 x 768, and a 4:3 screen, so far it seems like a regular budget Android tablet. As well as that there’s a nice 1GB of RAM, a slightly sluggish 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor, with ‘Hyper-Threading technology’, 16GB of storage with micro-SD card support, and a 7.5 hour battery. But make sure you grab a pair of glasses before you go tablet shopping next, because this thing is basically an iPad mini on the outside. An aluminum backside is joined by a regular glass front, with a webcam center aligned, but it’s clear that Acer isn’t unintentionally replicating the iPad mini design. Every single detail, right down to the antenna cutout on the back, is a perfect clone of the mini. Oh, but it costs a lot less ($149 USD) and doesn’t have an LTE model.
An even more budget alternative is the B1-720, which looks more like a typical budget Acer tablet with a 7″ screen, 1.3 GHz processor, 5 hour battery, and 1GB of RAM.
All come in black or gray and white and may or may not come to Australia soon.