Acer’s brand new top-of-the-range smartphone, the Cloud Mobile, which was unveiled at MWC in February 2012, has gone on sale at Expansys for £285, unbranded, SIM-free and with free delivery.

The device – which doesn’t carry the company’s usual "Liquid" moniker - has a fairly impressive specification for the price. This includes a 4.3in "fully laminated" display with a 1,280 x 720 resolution, a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM processor clocked at 1.5GHz, 1GB of RAM, 16GB onboard storage, an 8-megapixel camera, a microSD card slot, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, a front-facing camera, Wi-Fi, NFC, a micro-USB port, DLNA and Dolby compatibility and Acer’s own AcerCloud technology.

The Cloud Mobile is less than 10mm thick and is designed using what Acer calls a "sleeve DNA" with "soft, wrapping contours which enhance the handheld experience", possibly one of the reasons it received the iF design award in 2012.

At £285, it is the cheapest HD ready smartphone on the market and its hardware specification is not unlike the Xperia S (bar the 12-megapixel camera and the lack of microSD card slot on the latter).

Source: Expansys