Is Acer entering the love triangle market? The Acer Liquid E700 is curious: with not one, not two, but three SIMs.
Let’s do a quick hands-on before we go through some pros and cons of having three SIMs.
Acer takes the soft rounded look wherever it can, including with the chin where the front-facing speaker is found. I’m liking the design.
Recent apps are shown in grid style. The bottom menu can launch small floating apps, like those found on the LG phones.
The soft matte finish feels great in your hand. Oh and that singular back button under the camera (a la LG G3) can both launch the music app and activate the selfie camera – at least when I was playing with it. I’m going to need more time with this baby to smoke out all the features – the physique and design are deceptively simple.
The Acer Liquid E700’s stock camera UI is Spartan – reminds me of the rear camera UI of the LG G3 – and that quick access to HDR mode (button under the shutter icon) is a good thing. Also, notice how yellow the lighting is on the scene behind the camera, and yet the white balance of the normal setting of the camera “knows” this and adjusts correctly. That means better shots inside restaurants, where yellow is a “normal” color because it enhances the look of food.
Again, even more yellow, leaning on yellow-orange, lighting. Yet it’s correctly white balance-adjusted on the camera.
What the Liquid E700’s stock camera hides is a one-tap-to-reveal settings menu – look at that: top row are basic options, followed by capture mode, scene selection, and filters. Usually, these are found in separate menus you can select to reveal. Impressive.
Taking a selfie while slightly against the light. Even the front camera has its own auto white balance feature, it seems. Not bad.
And finally, three SIMs.
Triple SIM advantages:
- You can avail of a good mix of text, call, and surf promos and bundles from three networks of choice. If you’re running a business, or if you hold a vital position at work, there’s no excuse for being unreachable and unable (due to one network’s poor coverage) to text or call back.
- You’ll finally get that work, life, secret identity balance. After work hours end, disable your work SIM. Or if that creature-of-the-night persona beckons, disable both work and life SIMs, and Let It Go.
- There’re less chances of texting or calling someone via the “wrong persona”: SIM1 – current boyfriend; SIM2 fling-fling; SIM3 semi-current. Of course, you need to have some presence of mind here. So don’t text back when you’re drunk or angry.
Triple SIM disadvantages:
- The klutz (krang-krang) in us will mix up all three SIMs anyway, and text and call via the “wrong” SIM. Like I said, presence of mind is needed.
- Congratulations! You now have three inboxes with SPAM messages!
- The battery life may be affected by having all three SIMs active, but then the Liquid E700 has a whopping big battery to cope with that.
Bottom line
I’m really liking this phone. Its curved design and soft finish make it easy to hold; it’s easy on the eye as well. The triple SIM and that big 3,500 mAh battery are twin wins. And it doesn’t hurt that the camera has good white balance adjustment – that means potentially good indoor pics – group shots and food. The “only” HD display is not a problem here, as another “only” dual SIM phone also has the same resolution and ppi.
Lastly, I didn’t see any lags or stutters while playing with the E700, but it’s too early to render anything final, no matter how excited I am about it. We’re requesting a review unit, so you may be seeing an unboxing followed by a full review of the Acer Liquid E700 soon.
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You may also wish to check out the Acer Liquid Jade flagship phone and the Acer Liquid X1 phablet.
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