Acer Steps Back Into Windows Phone Arena With Underwhelming Liquid M220 Smartphone

The Windows Phone platform could benefit from a few more players to go along with the usual crop of Lumia devices, don't you think? Well, here comes Acer with its Liquid M220, the company's first Windows Phone 8.1 device, though temper your expectation -- this is very much an entry-level phone and not a game-changing handset.

The Liquid M220 has a 4-inch display with an 800x480 resolution and pixel density of 233 pixels per inch, 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, microSD card slot, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, and 2-megapixel front-facing camera. According to Acer, the Liquid M220 will see an upgrade to Windows 10, though Microsoft has previously warned that devices with 512MB of RAM will have some features missing.

Acer Liquid M220

“With the launch of the Liquid M220, it’s great to see Acer expanding its portfolio of Windows devices to include smartphones,” said Peter Han, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, OEM Division, Microsoft. “Together we are providing an integrated, cross-device Windows experience to our joint customers.”



While the specs are underwhelming, it's not a bad looking device. It has a surface texture design on the cover with a Thai Silk inspired pattern, and a silver middle frame featuring a distinct square pyramid design for added grip, Acer says. Volume and power keys sit along the path of the silver middle middle frame so that they're easy to find with one hand.

Acer's planning to sell the Liquid M220 this April for €79 (a little over $88 in U.S. currency) in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. No word on when or if it will land on U.S. shores.