There is a 3.5mm headset slot on the upper edge and also here you will find three indicator lights that illuminate as necessary. One tells you the charge level as you are charging up the battery, one tells you you've unread messages, another that you've got missed calls. You have to refer to the screen for the details, but the lights are a nice feature.

This is a reasonably large device measuring 115 x 64 x 12.75mm and weighing 135g. Those with smaller hands might find it a stretch to reach all around the screen for one-handed operation. The Snapdragon processor runs at 768MHz, not quite as fast as the 1GHz versions found in a small number of rivals but fast enough.

The Liquid is, of course, an HSDPA device, and both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are built in. There is A-GPS so you can take full advantage of things like Google Maps and geotagging of photos.

Mentioning photos brings us on to the camera. The 5-megapxiel unit sounds impressive on paper, and the autofocus is a boon. It copes fairly well in bright lighting conditions, but there is no flash so indoor shots can suffer.

There is 512MB of internal memory and the Liquid comes with a 2GB microSD card, which gives it a reasonably sized storage boost. However, one of the annoyances of the Acer Liquid is that you have to take the battery out to get to the microSD card slot. Those who like hotswapping cards will feel rightly disgruntled about this.

The Liquid runs version 1.6 of Android, and we understand that an upgrade to version 2.0 will become available in due course.

There are no 'wow' factors or must-have features to be found in the Acer Liquid and some people may feel the build quality is a bit lacking. But there are some nice plus points which include a good screen and a solid set of core features.