Acer announced a set of Android tablets this afternoon that are sure to make people pause before they put an order in for the holiday season. The 7” Tablet looks like a belter and you can be sure that Acer will compete heavily on price.

The 7” model on the left (neither model has a name yet) will come with a dual-core 1.2Ghz Snapdragon CPU,  a 1280×800 resolution screen, 3G, Wi-FI  and we hear, Android 2.2 with Flash 10.1. With front and rear cameras it looks like it will be suitable for Google application certification so we should see the Market and Google applications on this.

The 10”er on the right above, looks to be aimed at the home market and will also be a dual-core device. HDMI-out, dual-cams and ten-point multitouch, indicate a high-end experience. Interestingly, reports are saying that this one has a dual-core Tegra 2 CPU at 1Ghz. Maybe there’s a gaming slant here.

There’s also a 4.8” super-wide-screen device with 1024×480 on the cards. The strange resolution might be very good for landscape browsing.

Without full specs and pricing it’s difficult to position the devices but it looks like Acer is taking the tablet market seriously because Windows Tablets were announced too. I can’t believe all these devices are going to make it to the same markets but CeBIT in March will certainly be interesting!

News via Netbooknews.com and Engadget.

David Flynn of APCmag.com in Australia has uncovered an interesting device whilst at Acer’s Source Home conference in Beijing. The as-yet unnamed tablet devices is running Google’s Android operating system and sports a full QWERTY keyboard and embedded 3G.

APCmag qouted Acers CEO and president Gianfranco Lanci as saying the device should arrive in Q4 of these year. Lanci also states that although the tablet is similar to the iPad  “We are not convinced that 10 inches is the right size for this type of device. It becomes too close to a netbook in size, and why should it not be a netbook with full PC capability?”

The device will have Acer’s own user interface and be used primarily for “books, music and videos, browsing the internet, email and chatting” Lanci says, he goes on to say that “Android is very good in terms of Internet browsing and connectivity. You can run it on an ARM processor at a certain speed and Android is light enough not to overload the CPU”.

Further details are slim at the moment but from what I can tell it looks like it could make an excellent ebook reader. We’ll be keeping a look out for this at Computex next week.

via APCmag.com

A phone I’ve had my eye on in Europe for quite a while now is the Acer Liquid. With a Snapdragon processor, capacitive touchscreen and a good-looking set of specifications you’d expect it to cost more than it does but if you’re in the EU, this little pocket rocket can be picked up for under 300 Euros inclusive of taxes. Unlocked! Compare that to the 400-500 that you’ll pay for a Nexus One and you see why it becomes interesting as a sub-year phone or a good device for keeping track of the Android ecosystem. The only problem is that it runs Android 1.6.

Fortunately, Acer will be releasing the Liquid E soon and with Android 2.1 it should bring some great improvements along with the possibility of multitouch, Google Navigation, Buzz and other features that are only possible with Android 2. Unfortunately, when I visited Acer at MWC there wasn’t anyone around to answer my questions so I was left like a schoolboy playing with the device to find out what I could.

Acer will have to keep the price down on this to compete with the incoming HTC Android devices but if they do, it’s a chance  make an lower-risk investment in Android at a time when new devices are coming in thick and fast.

The Milestone/Droid and iPhone 3GS are already with us and showing the way forward for powerful, dynamic and fun smartphones. But what if you’ don’t want to pay 450-800 Euros for a phone?

The Acer A1 Liquid is offering high-power (768Mhz Snapdragon platform), big screen, Android-based capability for an early price of just 360 Euros. That’s a price we expect to drop down to the low 300’s before long making it a real bargain. When did you last see a 3G-capable, WVGA capacitive touch, 5Mp, high-power platform with a huge application library for that sort of price?

Obviously the Liquid could fall flat on its face if it fails to offer the quality that’s expected and that’s what we’ve been looking for in the first reviews. Frandroid is one of the first and via a translation we’ve been able to pick out some important points.

Image via Frandroid

A video review is embedded below but you’ll probably pick up more from the translation which highlights tight battery life and size as negative points. It is indeed a rather chunky device but if you’re looking for a good value, all-day high-end smartphone, it’s still an important one to have on the toplist, especially if you’re looking to get into the world of high-powered Android devices.

Outstanding questions for us:

• Camera quality
• Haptic feedback
• Actual battery life figures