Acer launches Liquid Express NFC phone, pledges allegiance to NFC

Acer launches Liquid Express NFC phone, pledges allegiance to NFC

The days of being geeks with a penchant for an obscure communications protocol are far behind us, and even Acer is now getting in on the act by launching the Android Liquid Express NFC phone in Europe. Yes, we can now add Acer to the growing list of companies who intend to launch an NFC phone. The Acer Liquid Express will run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread to deliver its NFC love to consumers. Acer recently had a shake up in its top brass and have committed to the industrial design and aesthetically pleasing standards of Apple. The introduction of an Acer NFC phone over in Europe will only further fuel the NFC adoption that is currently taking place in countries like the UK and France all over the continent.

Acer Liquid Express Android Gingerbread NFC Phone Specifications

The Acer Liquid Express NFC phone isn’t going to take a hero phone position by any stretch of the imagination, as far as top end specifications are concerned. Yet the build quality of this Android device is above average with care and attention towards aesthetic apparent in its crafted skin. MobiUSSite reports that the NFC phone packs Android Gingerbread and thinks its way around most problems with its 800 MHz processor. The display is a 3.5-inch capacitive touch screen as is expected these days. Memory comes in the flavor of 512MB, which is a little on the low end compared to many smartphones available in the marketplace today.

Connectivity comes in the HSDPA fashion and the Acer Liquid Express also has the normal Micro USB port, so you can get your stuff on and off the device. GPS comes as standard and is standard these days. Around back, the Acer NFC phone sports a 5-megapixel camera and the memory on this NFC phone is upgradable via the microSD slot. The phone also supports Acer’s WLAN transmission technologies, which we are assuming is a mobile hotspot of sorts or a WiFi direct type service. And, of course, NFC capabilities are built straight in. What is interesting and still unknown is whether the Acer Liquid Express has its own secure element or is meant to work from an NFC SIM card and single-wire protocol for NFC payments. The company mentions NFC payments in its quote that you will find below. Acer has also bundled its “Acer Social joggers” app which allows direct access to the social networking services like Facebook and Twitter.

Acer to embrace NFC in numerous product in the future

But Acer’s new mantra goes well beyond the Liquid Express NFC phone as the company commits to embracing NFC in all manner of upcoming products. The company views NFC as a priority and, of course, that will be music to NFC fans’ ears. It will add more competition from a major manufacturer and will ultimately make NFC products more available and competitively priced.

“NFC is a priority because the uses offered by this technology are numerous: payment, transportation, ticketing, loyalty, information in the service of culture, aggregation municipal services … “ Augustin Becker, Director of Business Development at Acer France. And to add: “we have not explored the thousands of applications that will result. ” [Translated, from Gizmodo France, but you get the gist]

Acer also makes a Ferrari version of its Acer Liquid Express phone. Rumors suggest it, too, will support NFC in an upcoming iteration, which is great because it is beautiful. You can see the Acer Liquid Express Ferrari version in our post graphic above. An NFC version of that phone would be welcome here in the states also. So pretty soon when you are choosing an NFC phone, Acer could be on your list of options. We’d love to see a hero NFC phone from Acer.