Posted 11/05/09 at 07:59:31 AM by Paul Lilly

While the mobile world drools over Droid, there's another smartphone that has a shot of stealing a few headlines. We're talking about Acer's upcoming Liquid A1, which is expected to ship in Europe within the next few weeks.

The Liquid A1 is the first Android-based smartphone to be built around Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset. And even though the CPU has been downclocked to 768MHz, that's a lot more pep than most Android phones are boasting.

Oddly, Acer has decided not to step up to Android 2.0 (Eclair), and the Liquid A1 will instead run on Android 1.6 (Donut). That puts it a generation behind the Droid and other upcoming Android 2.0 smartphones, although this could change by the time the A1 ships. We also wouldn't rule out a software update after the fact, although Acer has spent some time tweaking "a new user interface with easy access to entertainment and web bookmarks."

No word yet on price or when this one's expected to land in the U.S.

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Posted 08/26/09 at 09:53:28 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Asustek may have put its plans to develop an Android-based smartbook on the back burner but that is unlikely to deter other companies from dabbling in smartbooks. According to Digitimes, Taiwan’s leading technology rumormonger, Nokia is said to be working on an ARM-based smartbook. The news comes from Digitimes’ sources at Taiwanese handset makers.

The handset makers expect Nokia to launch the smartbook only after its maiden netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G, hits the market sometime in early 2010. The smartbook, if it does materialize, would most likely run Symbian or Maemo QS. Windows does not currently support ARM processors and Microsoft has categorically vetoed any plans to make the two compatible.

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