Acer Liquid Jade S brings octa-core CPU power to Europe

CES isn’t traditionally a tech show for smartphone announcements, but that hasn’t stopped Acer showing off a slew of new models ahead of the event kicking off tomorrow. The flagship Liquid Jade S replaces the current Liquid Jade with a faster, Octa-core processor, while the Liquid Z410 aims to bring 4G connectivity to a lower price bracket.

Previously announced for Taiwan in December, the Liquid Jade S has now been confirmed for the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa. The headline octa-core CPU comes courtesy of MediaTek, and is the first time an Acer smartphone will arrive with a 64-bit processor. The MT6752M system-on-chip runs each of its eight cores at 1.5GHz and is paired with 2GB of RAM, which Acer says makes it up to 2.5x faster than existing quad-core smartphones.

The 5in display uses an IPS panel, but has a lowly 720p resolution. The Mali T760 graphics chip should be able to run Android apps and games smoothly at that resolution, however. Unfortunately the Jade S will be arriving with Android 4.4 Jelly Bean, although Acer has promised that an update to 5.0 Lollipop will be available later in the year. 

A 13-megapixel camera on the back, and a category 4 LTE modem 2,300mAh battery and dual SIM-card slots inside complete the 7.8mm thick, 166g package.

The Liquid Z410, meanwhile, dials down the specs with a 4.5in, 960×540 resolution display, 64-bit, quad-core MediaTek MT6732 processor, 5-megapixel rear camera and a battery that should last for 5.5 hours of talktime, or 400 hours of standby. Despite the less powerful internals, the Liquid Z410 retains Category 4 LTE support, which should make it an inexpensive way to get 4G.

The Liquid Jade S will be going on sale later this month across Europe in a choice of Cosmic Black and Lunar White colours, with prices starting from €299. The Liquid Z410 will arrive a month later in February, with a lower €129 price. We’ll be taking a look at both phones as soon as CES begins tomorrow.