Dubai: Acer is re-entering the smartphone market with a mid-range device — Liquid Jade — offering some value-added features.

The five-inch device (1280 x 720 resolution) is powered by MediaTek 1.3GHz quad-core processor with 1GB or RAM and 8GB of internal storage capacity. Out of the 8GB, only 5GB is available for users but the storage capacity can be expanded up to 32GB using microSD slot.

The IPS LCD screen with 294 pixels per inch density offers good colours and details and it is easy hold as it is very thin, thinnest in Acer’s portfolio, and light at 110 grams and with its thin 6.8mm profile.

The ‘Zero Air Gap’ technology used by Acer eliminates the space between the screen and the glass to make it thinner and in addition to the improved contrast and brightness. The panel is covered by Gorilla Corning Glass 3 to prevent breakage or scratching.

The curved design feels comfortable but the very glossy and cheap plasticky back cover makes the phone slip from your hands.

The dual-SIM card and microSD card are in one slot on the left side of the device.

The device runs on Android KitKat operating system with tweaked interface from Acer, not as much as done by Samsung, HTC and others. But Acer has added a slew of bloatware apps (free promotional software) which might not be useful to some like file management, cloud storage, camera, messaging and photos, etc.

The device produces occasional lags when multitasking and running graphic-rich 3D games is ruled out due to low memory and less-demanding processor.

The circular single speaker on the rear surprisingly produces decent audio quality due to DTS-HD Premium Sound enhancements on a mid-range device.

The 2MP front-facing is decent for video calling and nothing extraordinary.

The 13MP rear camera with LED flash protrudes outside the back over but takes very good snaps in terms of sharpness, colour and vibrancy in decent conditions and in low light conditions. It is a hit and miss in low light conditions but better than some cameras in the market.

The tweaked app offers different modes and settings, some of which are more useful than others while white balance can be adjusted manually and a handful of colour effects can be applied too. The high dynamic range (HDR) is accessible via one click on the left hand side for balancing out shadow and highlight detail in one shot.

The videos can be recorded in Full HD and the time lapse feature is fun to play with as it can pause recording, Vine-style. The camera app is more feature-rich alternative to the stock Android camera, though a little less polished.

Remaining connectivity, there’s WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth but no NFC, IR blaster or 4G LTE support.

The 2,100mAh non-removable battery does not stand for one full day for moderate users but Acer has added special CPU power-saving modes when the phone is idle and when not in use. Users can also customise a power-saving mode of their own through the phone’s settings, which is pretty impressive. It is priced at Dh999.