The Acer Liquid Jade Z ($229, 8GB) is an unlocked midrange smartphone with solid performance, a nice display, and a surprisingly good selfie camera. It's also perfectly sized for comfortable one-handed use. Unfortunately, it is laden with bloatware, suffers from poor call quality, and has lackluster rear camera performance despite a 13-megapixel sensor. But its biggest problem is that the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7 and the Motorola Moto G are both available for a similar price, with nicer hardware and less top-heavy software.
Design, Display, and Features
Picking up the Acer Liquid Jade Z for the first time was a surprise. It's incredibly light; wiith dimensions of 5.65 by 2.75 by 0.31 inches (HWD) and a weight of 3.88 ounces, it's one of the lightest smartphones we've seen in recent memory. The Moto G is downright hefty by comparison (5.59 by 2.85 by 0.46 inches and 5.47 ounces).
The downside to the lightweight build is that the Jade Z's plastic body feels cheap. It's rough to the touch, which provides good grip, but it has a raw, unpolished feel. It's not nearly as luxe as the classy Idol 3 or the customizable Moto G.
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The front of the device is home to a 5-inch 1,280-by-720 display. It has 294 pixels per inch, and looks nice and crisp. On the back you'll find a tinny speaker and a slightly protruding camera sensor with a single LED flash.
There's a nano SIM and microSD card combo tray (or you can opt for dual SIMs) on the left, which is easy to pull out without any tools. The power button is located at the top right, with far-away volume buttons on the left side of the phone. Since the phone is small enough for one-handed use, it's not a major issue, but it makes for a slightly awkward reach.
Network Performance and Battery
The Jade Z supports GSM/GPRUS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and LTE (2/4/7/17) bands, so you can use it on AT&T and T-Mobile, but you're out of luck on Sprint and Verizon. Note that it's missing a number of bands for optimum network performance, like T-Mobile's Band 20 and AT&T's Band 29. I tested the phone with a T-Mobile SIM and network connectivity was generally decent in most parts of Manhattan with an average 10Mbps download speed.
Voice calls on the Jade Z were uniformly poor, filled with crackling, distortion, and raspy-sounding voices. Noise cancellation wasn't good either; I could clearly hear the sound of the wind in the background as well a truck backing up. The OneTouch Idol 3 is a better choice if voice calls are a priority.
Battery life on the Jade Z was also a bit below average. In our battery rundown test it clocked 4 hours, 32 minutes of battery life while streaming a fullscreen video over LTE at maximum screen brightness. That's less than I would expect from a device with a 2,300mAh battery. It falls nearly an hour short of the Idol 3 (5 hours, 14 minutes), and exactly two hours short of the Moto G (6 hours, 32 minutes).
Processor and Camera
The Jade Z is distinct from many other mid-range devices in that it doesn't use the ever-popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor. Instead, it has a quad-core MediaTek MT6732 under the hood, with 8GB of storage and 1GB of RAM (A 16GB model comes with 2GB of RAM for $249.99).
In terms of performance, the difference between the Mediatek and Snapdragon processors was indistinguishable. On the AnTuTu benchmark, the Jade Z scored 31,023, which is actually better than both the Moto G (25,166) and the Idol 3 (22,212). Real-world performance is comparable across all three devices, though your results with gaming may vary. I was able to play Asphalt 8 on the lowest settings, but it still suffered from dropped frames.
Multitasking and app switching handled fine, though I occasionally hit the RAM limit and had to reboot because the phone froze up. That's inevitable on most mid-range devices, and you'll encounter the same issue on the Idol 3 and the Moto G.
Despite having a 13-megapixel sensor with f/1.8 aperture, the rear camera is disappointing outside of well-lit settings. Daylight shots and well-lit indoor shots were usually fine with manual focus, but autofocus resulted in far too many blurry or unfocused shots, especially when trying to take a quick snap. Low-light shots were grainy and noisy across the board, and camera options like Bright Mode, Beauty Mode and HDR didn't help.
While the camera is capable of 1080p video capture, but the Noise Reduction setting is on by default, locking it to 720p. You need to turn off this off to record in 1080p, but either way, video suffers from the same problems as still, with too much time spent out of focus.
In contrast to the rear camera, the 5-megapixel front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture captures much better images across the board. Outdoor and indoor shots are clear, with good detail and free from the softness that plagues the rear camera. It even did decently in low light.
Software and Conclusions
The Jade Z runs the outdated Android 4.4.4 KitKat OS with a heavy layer of Liquid UI caked on top. There's a proliferation of Acer bloatware that duplicates the functionality of stock Google apps, like abDocs, abdMusic, abdPhoto, and others too numerous to list. None of them can be uninstalled. This is a huge downside compared with the almost-stock Moto G and the lightly tweaked Idol 3, both of which run the newer Android 5.0 Lollipop.
The unlocked Acer Liquid Jade Z has a lot going for it. It's light and easy to use one-handed, with a good selfie camera and a crisp display. Unfortunately, its poor call quality, weak rear camera performance, and sloppy software bring it down. For even less money, you'll be better served by the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7, which has a nicer build and better call quality. But your best bet remains our Editors' Choice, the Motorola Moto G, which has long battery life, clean Android software, and an attractive, customizable design.
The unlocked Acer Liquid Jade Z is an affordable compact smartphone, but there are more attractive alternatives at the same price point.
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