Liquid S2 smartphone with 4K video capture leads Acer IFA announcements

Acer has played its hand early, revealing a complete set of IFA announcements topped by the Liquid S2 smartphone, which is capable of recording video clips at 4K Ultra-high definition resolutions.

The company won’t be holding a press conference this year, so announced its major news ahead of the show itself. In doing so, the Liquid S2 smartphone became the “world’s first” to support the 4K video capture built into Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 chipset specification. Although the LG G2 and Sony Xperia Z Ultra use the same chipset, neither support 4K video recording. Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 3 is expected to include the feature, but won’t be officially announced until the company’s Wednesday press conference.

The 6in handset has a Full HD 1,920×1,080 resolution IPS display and is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU running at 2.2GHz. Paired with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory, it appears to be every bit the high-end smartphone. It supports all major UK 4G frequencies and also includes 802.11ac Wi-Fi, wireless display, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0.

The most important feature looks set to be the 13-megapixel backside illuminated (BSI) camera sensor, which has an f/2.2, 28mm lens and LED ring flash. It’s not yet clear what bit-rate it will record at, but being able to capture 4K video clips will likely be a major talking point at the show. The Liquid S2 will go on sale some time in October, but we don’t yet know what it will cost here in the UK.

The Iconia A3 tablet was also revealed today. A 10.1in, 1,280×800 resolution display, quad-core cortex A7 processor running at 1.2GHz and a 5-megapixel rear camera add up to a fairly mid-range device, but the 10mm thickness and 600g weight are at least better than most budget slates we’ve tried in the past.

A microSD card slot will let you add extra storage capacity if the 16GB or 32GB base specification isn’t enough, and with a micro HDMI output it should work well as a reasonably priced multimedia machine.

The Iconia A3 will go on sale in Europe in both Wi-Fi only and 3G variants, with prices starting from €249 and €299 respectively.

Finally, Acer has updated its Aspire R7 laptop/tablet hybrid ready for IFA, replacing the 3rd generation Intel Core processor with latest 4th Generation Haswell chips. the folding device will now also ship with an Acer Active Pen stylus, which supports multiple pressure levels to let you use the device as an artists sketchbook or painter’s easel.

We’ll be taking a look at Acer’s complete line-up of new and refreshed products later this week when IFA begins.

Want us to cover something specific on Acer’s IFA stand this year? Let us know on twitter @expertreviewsuk