Acer unveils Android phone and netbook

New products on show at annual press conference

The Liquid is the first phone with Android 1.6, according to Acer

Acer has showcased new products including a smartphone and a netbook, both running Google's Android platform. The firm also hinted at its future strategy, saying that it expects to grab a double-digit share of the smartphone market, and to be the top global supplier of laptops by 2012.

Acer's annual international press conference in London saw the unveiling of its Liquid smartphone, the first to market with version 1.6 of Android, according to the firm.

Due in December, the Liquid boasts a wide VGA (WVGA) screen and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, two aspects that make the device well-suited to mobile web use, according to Acer senior vice president Jim Wong.

"It offers a full internet experience. WVGA really enables you to browse properly, and Snapdragon delivers high performance for a responsive device," he said.

The Liquid has a 3.5in touch-screen and supports HSPA for internet access, geo-tagging, a Spinlets application for streaming music and video, and integration with Facebook, Twitter and other services in its address book.

Acer claimed that it already has one European carrier signed up to offer its smartphones, but declined to detail which one.

The company also announced a netbook that can run both Android and Windows in a dual-boot arrangement, allowing users to choose Android for quick access to the web, or Windows for productivity.

Android thus replaces the quick-boot environments such as Splashtop, many of which were based on Linux. However, these did not prove popular, according to Wong.

"Android is the way for mobile internet. You can boot in seconds and get the web at your fingertips, but you need Windows for productivity tools, and you get better browsing with Internet Explorer," said Wong.

The new model is based on Acer's existing Aspire One D250, and has an Atom N280 processor, 1GB memory and 160GB hard drive. It is set to ship later this month for £299 with Windows 7 Starter edition, or £279 with Windows XP.

Other products on show at the conference included the T230H monitor with multi-touch support for Windows 7, and the Aspire 5738, a laptop also featuring multi-touch support.

Acer chief executive Gianfranco Lanci said at the event that he expected the firm to soon overtake Dell and become the second largest PC maker in the global market, behind HP.

Lanci also boasted that Acer aims to be the largest supplier of laptops by 2012, and to capture a significant share of the smartphone market in the future.

"There's no reason why we cannot reach a double-digit share. We want [smartphones] to be in the same place as the rest of the business today, but it will take some time, as it took four or five years to grow our share of the PC market," he explained.