Acer Liquid Gallant E350 Hands-On Review and Complete Specs: Design and Storage

This Acer Liquid Gallant E350 review looks back at a compact Android phone from 2012, a time when a 4.3-inch screen felt generous and 1GB of RAM was a respectable amount for a mid-range handset. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 specs describe a simple, pocket-friendly device: a 4.3-inch TFT display, a 5-megapixel rear camera, a single-core MediaTek processor and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It was announced in August 2012 and released in September 2012, priced at about 160 EUR in Europe. This is a retrospective review based on the published specifications and the context of its era, not a fresh test of a brand-new unit, because the phone has long been discontinued and no new units are sold through ordinary retail channels.

What makes this model worth revisiting is how clearly it shows the priorities of its time. Acer aimed at buyers who wanted a larger screen than the small budget phones of 2012, without paying flagship money. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 price of about 160 EUR put it in the affordable middle of the market, and the Acer Liquid Gallant E350 release date of September 2012 placed it right in the Ice Cream Sandwich era, just before Android moved on to Jelly Bean on newer handsets. For readers comparing other Acer devices of the same period, Is the Acer Liquid Z110 Worth It? Review, Specs and Verdict covers a smaller and cheaper stablemate from the same Liquid range.

Design and Build Quality

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 design weight dimensions and build quality together explain why the phone felt so easy to live with: a plain, rounded and practical body. A curved back, a soft-touch finish and a slim 9.9 mm profile made it comfortable to hold, while the 4.3-inch screen kept the overall footprint modest by the standards of its day. There is nothing flashy here: no metal frame, no glass back and no water resistance, all of which were rare or absent at this price in 2012. The phone was sold in Gentle Black and Ceramic White, and the white version in particular gave the handset a cleaner, friendlier look than the usual black slab. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 colours were limited to those two finishes, Gentle Black and Ceramic White, so buyers chose between a discreet dark body and a bright light one.

Build quality was solid for an affordable 2012 phone. The plastic body flexed little, the battery cover came off for access to the battery and SIM, and the weight felt balanced rather than top-heavy. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 dimensions of 129 x 65.9 x 9.9 mm meant it sat neatly in a jacket pocket or a small bag, and the curved rear helped it sit flat in the palm. At this point it helps to be precise about identity: this is the single-SIM version. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 single SIM version versus Gallant Duo question comes up often, because the Gallant Duo is the dual-SIM sibling with the same E350 family name. If you need two lines in one phone, the Duo was the one to buy; this review covers the single-SIM Gallant E350 only. For the sibling in detail, see Acer Liquid Gallant Duo Review: What Software and Durability Are Really Like.

Size, Weight and Colours

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 weight is 145 grams, which was typical for a phone of this size in 2012 and still feels light next to the 200-gram handsets common today. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 145 gram weight one handed use comfort review angle matters because the narrow 65.9 mm width let most adults reach across the screen with one thumb, something that is harder on wide modern phones. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 Gentle Black colour versus Ceramic White colour choice was purely cosmetic, with the same plastic, the same screen and the same internals under either finish. Gentle Black hid fingerprints better, while Ceramic White showed scuffs less on the pale rear cover. Neither colour changed the feel in the hand, and both used the same removable rear cover design.

Pocket Fit and One-Handed Use

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 129 by 65.9 by 9.9 mm pocket fit test is easy to picture: the phone slipped into a jeans pocket without the sharp corners or tall body that made later 5-inch and 6-inch phones awkward to carry. At 9.9 mm thick it was slim for 2012, and the rounded edges stopped it catching on pocket seams. One-handed use was realistic for calls, texts and music control, though typing long messages with two thumbs was still more comfortable. The power key and volume keys sat within easy reach, and the 145-gram body did not tire the hand during a long call.

Buttons, Ports and Single-SIM Layout

Around the edges, the Gallant E350 kept the familiar 2012 layout: a microUSB 2.0 port for charging and data, a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top edge, and a loudspeaker on the rear. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 SIM tray takes a Mini-SIM, the full-size SIM card that was standard before micro-SIM and nano-SIM took over, so a modern nano-SIM would need an adapter and careful handling. The dedicated microSDHC slot sat under the rear cover, which meant the card could be swapped without tools, though the battery usually had to come out first. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 microUSB 2.0 port and file transfer speed were modest by later standards, with USB 2.0 rates that were fine for moving a few photos or songs but slow for large video files. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 FM radio and 3.5mm headphone jack features gave it two everyday pleasures that later phones dropped: free over-the-air radio with wired headphones as the antenna, and a standard jack that worked with any ordinary earphones.

Display and Everyday Viewing

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 display is a 4.3-inch TFT panel with a resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, which works out to about 256 pixels per inch. For 2012 that was a sharp screen for the price, with readable text, clear icons and video that looked smooth at arm’s length. The 16:9 ratio suited video playback, and the screen filled about 60 percent of the front face, with noticeable bezels above and below by modern measures. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 screen is a TFT type, so colours are a little less vivid than the AMOLED panels that appeared on costlier phones of the same era, and the viewing angle is narrower. Even so, for browsing, messaging and watching short clips, the panel did its job well. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 screen size compared to modern phones today shows how much handsets have grown: a 4.3-inch display now looks small, yet it was a selling point in 2012 because it offered more room than the 3.2-inch and 3.5-inch screens on cheaper models.

Resolution and TFT Panel

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 540 by 960 pixels TFT screen viewing angles are best straight on, where text stays crisp and colours stay true. Tilt the phone and the image washes out a little, which was normal for TFT panels at this price. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 4.3 inch display resolution and quality held up for its main jobs: the qHD resolution kept web pages legible without constant zooming, and the 256 ppi density meant individual pixels were hard to spot in normal use. Brightness was adequate indoors and usable outdoors in shade, though direct sunlight made the screen harder to read, as it did for most phones of the period. There was no high refresh rate and no always-on display, and nobody expected those features in this class in 2012.

Viewing Angles and Outdoor Use

In daily use the screen was at its best for reading and video in normal indoor light. Outdoors, shading the display with a hand helped, and turning brightness up drained the small battery faster. The TFT panel also meant blacks looked dark grey rather than true black, which was most visible when watching video in a dark room. None of this stopped the phone being pleasant to use; it simply marks the display as a competent mid-range panel of its time rather than a showcase part.

Performance, Software and Daily Use

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 performance comes from a single-core 1.0 GHz Cortex-A9 processor paired with 1GB of RAM, a combination that handled the everyday tasks of 2012: calls, texts, email, light browsing and casual games. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 chipset is the MediaTek MT6575, built on a 40 nm process, with a PowerVR SGX531 graphics unit. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 processor is a single-core design, so heavy multitasking and demanding 3D games were beyond its comfort zone, but the phone felt responsive when used within its limits. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 RAM of 1GB was a genuine advantage over budget phones that shipped with 512MB, because it let the phone keep a few apps in memory and switch between them without constant reloading.

Acer Liquid Gallant E350 Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich features included the cleaner Holo interface, improved notifications, a better keyboard, face unlock in the stock system and the ability to create folders on the home screen. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 Android version was 4.0.3 at launch, and there was no official path to the newer Android versions that later phones shipped with, so the software stayed frozen in the Ice Cream Sandwich era. That matters for anyone considering the phone now: modern apps and current web services will not run on it, and it should be treated as a period device or a collector’s item rather than a daily phone. Readers who enjoy Acer hardware of this era may also like Everything About the Acer Iconia Tab A110: Review, Audio and Full Specifications, which covers a tablet from the same period with a similar approach to affordable Android hardware.

Processor, RAM and Everyday Speed

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 MediaTek MT6575 processor performance review picture is one of modest but honest speed. Menus opened promptly, the browser rendered pages of the time without long waits, and the phone handled music playback and navigation at the same time. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 1GB RAM multitasking performance in 2012 was good enough to keep a browser, a music player and a messaging app open together, though opening a large game would push other apps out of memory. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 PowerVR SGX531 graphics and gaming performance suited casual titles and older 3D games at modest settings; demanding titles of the period ran, but with lower detail and occasional stutters. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 games that suited it best were puzzle games, simple racers and the popular casual titles of 2012, played in short sessions rather than long marathons.

Android 4.0 and the Apps of Its Time

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 document viewer organizer voice memo apps included covered the basics: a document viewer for reading files, an organizer with calendar and notes, voice memo and voice dial, predictive text input and the standard Google apps of the Ice Cream Sandwich era. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 user manual setup and first time use process was straightforward: insert the Mini-SIM and microSD card, charge the phone, sign in to a Google account and the home screens were ready. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 manual explains the same steps, along with the button layout and the settings menus. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 sensors are an accelerometer and a proximity sensor, which handled screen rotation and switching the display off during calls. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 accelerometer proximity sensor functions explained in plain terms are simple: the accelerometer turned the screen when the phone was rotated, and the proximity sensor blanked the display when the phone was held to the ear.

Camera and Video

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 camera is a single 5-megapixel rear camera with autofocus and an LED flash, and there is no front camera at all. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 5 megapixel camera photo quality test view, judged by 2012 standards, is fair: daylight shots were detailed enough for sharing online and printing small, colours were natural rather than oversaturated, and autofocus locked on reliably in good light. Indoors and at dusk, noise increased and detail softened, which was true of almost every phone camera at this price. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 LED flash low light photography tips and results are worth stating plainly: the flash helped with close subjects in a dim room, but it could wash out faces at very close range, so stepping back a little and holding the phone steady gave better results than relying on the flash alone.

Video recording was available on the rear camera, and the Acer Liquid Gallant E350 video quality was acceptable for short clips of family moments and holidays, though it could not match the smooth high-definition recording of costlier phones. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 audio on playback came through the rear loudspeaker and the 3.5mm jack, with the speaker loud enough for ringtones and casual video watching but thin for music. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 no front camera selfie options and limitations are a clear drawback for anyone used to modern phones: there was no way to take a self-portrait with a preview except by turning the phone around and guessing, or by using the rear camera with a mirror. For a closer look at another Acer phone camera of the same era, see Breaking Down the Acer Liquid Glow E330: Review, Features and Full Specs.

Rear Camera, Flash and Low-Light Results

In bright daylight the 5-megapixel sensor produced pleasant images with decent edge detail, and the autofocus helped with close subjects such as flowers and food. The LED flash added a useful option after dark, though its range was short and its light was harsh. Video clips were best kept short and shot in good light, with the phone held steady in both hands. Judged as a 2012 mid-range camera, the Gallant E350 was capable rather than remarkable, and that is an honest summary of where it stood.

Battery Life, Charging and Connectivity

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 battery is a removable Li-Ion unit rated at 1500 mAh, which was a standard size for a 4.3-inch phone in 2012. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 battery life and charging time picture was typical of the era: a day of moderate use with calls, texts and some browsing was realistic, while heavy browsing over 3G or long gaming sessions would run the battery down well before evening. Charging was through the microUSB port at the slow rates common in 2012, so a full charge took a couple of hours rather than the fast top-ups that later phones offered. Because the battery was removable, a spare battery was a practical accessory for heavy users, and that is one of the nicest things about phones of this period. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 1500 mAh removable battery replacement guide in brief is simple: power the phone off, remove the rear cover, lift the old battery out, fit a replacement of the same type and charge it fully before first use. Any replacement battery bought today should be checked carefully for age and condition, since old lithium cells degrade even when unused.

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 WiFi Bluetooth GPS connectivity options explained in one place are GSM and HSPA 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with hotspot support, Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP, GPS with A-GPS, FM radio and microUSB 2.0. There is no 4G LTE, no NFC and no dual-band Wi-Fi, which is expected for a 2012 phone at this price. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 HSPA 3G network bands and call quality were fine for voice calls and for the mobile data speeds of the time, with HSDPA on the 900 and 2100 MHz bands in the listed specification. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 WiFi handled home networks and hotspots, the Acer Liquid Gallant E350 Bluetooth paired with headsets and car kits, and the Acer Liquid Gallant E350 GPS worked with the mapping apps of the period. For a different angle on charging in Acer devices of this era, see Acer Iconia Tab B1-A71 Specs and Review: A Detailed Look at Charging Speed.

Battery, Charging and Replacement

Removable batteries were a real advantage in 2012. A tired battery could be swapped in seconds, and carrying a charged spare removed the worry of a dead phone on a long day out. Charging used a standard microUSB cable and a modest charger, so topping up from a computer USB port worked but took longer. Owners who still run this phone as a collector’s piece should treat the battery with care, keep it away from heat and replace any swollen cell at once.

Networks, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS

Connectivity was complete for everyday 2012 use. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 connectivity suited calls, music and navigation without fuss. Calls and texts ran over quad-band GSM, data ran over HSPA, and Wi-Fi covered browsing at home and in cafes. Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP streamed music to wireless headphones and car systems of the time, GPS with A-GPS gave turn-by-turn directions, and the FM radio worked without any data connection. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 speaker was the rear loudspeaker, which was adequate for calls on speakerphone and for ringtones, though music sounded better through wired earphones in the 3.5mm jack.

Full Specifications

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 full specifications and price in 2012 are set out in the table below, based on the published specification record. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 price in Europe and launch date September 2012 context is included in the table, along with the display, platform, memory, camera, battery and connectivity details. Use it as the reference point for the whole review, and note the single-SIM entry under the body section.

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 storage combination of 4GB internal memory plus a dedicated microSDHC slot deserves a closer look, because it shaped how owners actually used the phone. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 4GB internal storage and microSD expansion meant the built-in memory filled up quickly once apps and photos accumulated, so a memory card was close to essential for anyone who took many photos or carried music. The dedicated slot was a plus, since it did not force a choice between a second SIM and a card, and the phone treated the card as the natural home for photos, music and video. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 SAR value head and body radiation levels are listed in the table above, at 0.49 W/kg for the head and 0.54 W/kg for the body, with an EU head figure of 0.50 W/kg, which were ordinary figures for phones of the period.

Pros and Cons

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 discontinued status and second hand buying advice is simple: buy it only as a collector’s item, a period piece or a spare for basic calls and texts where 2G and 3G networks still operate, and check the battery, the screen and the SIM slot before paying. Prices for used examples are low, but condition varies widely, and a phone of this age should be inspected in person where possible. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 verdict is that it was a fair, friendly mid-range phone for 2012, with a good screen and enough memory for its time, held back by a single-core processor and a camera without a front lens.

Pros

• Sharp 4.3-inch qHD display with about 256 ppi for its price in 2012
• 1GB of RAM, which helped multitasking compared with cheaper 512MB phones
• Removable 1500 mAh battery and a dedicated microSDHC slot
• FM radio, 3.5mm headphone jack and a loudspeaker for everyday use
• Compact 145-gram body that was easy to carry and use with one hand

Cons

• No front camera, so self-portraits and video calls were awkward
• Single-core processor that struggled with demanding games and heavy multitasking
• Only 4GB of internal memory, so a memory card was close to essential
• No 4G LTE and Android 4.0.3 with no official upgrade path to later versions
• TFT panel with narrow viewing angles and weak sunlight legibility

FAQ

When was the Acer Liquid Gallant E350 released?

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 was announced in August 2012 and released in September 2012. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 price in Europe at launch was about 160 EUR, and the phone is now discontinued. That September 2012 launch put it in the middle of the Ice Cream Sandwich era, and it remains a clear marker of what a mid-range Android phone offered at that point in time.

What chipset does the Acer Liquid Gallant E350 use?

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 chipset is the MediaTek MT6575, built on a 40 nm process, with a 1.0 GHz single-core Cortex-A9 CPU and a PowerVR SGX531 GPU. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 processor handled the ordinary tasks of 2012 well, including calls, messaging, browsing and casual games, but it was not built for heavy 3D gaming or demanding multitasking.

Does the Acer Liquid Gallant E350 have a front camera?

No, the Acer Liquid Gallant E350 has no front camera. The only camera is the 5-megapixel rear camera with autofocus and an LED flash. That means self-portraits had to be taken with the rear camera, and video calls were not practical in the way modern phone owners expect.

How much storage does the Acer Liquid Gallant E350 have?

The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 storage is 4GB of internal memory with 1GB of RAM, plus a dedicated microSDHC card slot for expansion. In practice, the internal memory filled quickly, so owners used a memory card for photos, music and video. The Acer Liquid Gallant E350 is it still worth buying as a collector phone question is fair: as a collector’s piece or a look back at 2012 Android, yes, it has charm and a clear place in Acer history; as a daily phone for modern apps and networks, no, its software and 3G-only data make it unsuitable for everyday use now.

About 160 EUR at launch bought a balanced 2012 mid-range phone. The Gallant E350 offered a sharp screen, honest performance and practical features such as a removable battery and a memory card slot, and it still reads as a sensible, friendly device from the Ice Cream Sandwich era when judged on its own terms.