Acer's Liquid Z220 and Z520 are a pair of low-cost Androids (hands-on)

Acer has a pair of new budget smartphones aimed at giving folks a taste of the Android experience, for less -- and for your money you get that rarest of things: a bit of character.

We'll start with the Liquid Z520: it has a 5-inch display, powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM. There's just 8GB of storage, but you'll also find a microSD card slot to give you a bit more breathing room. The 8-megapixel rear shooter is joined by a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and this 3G phone also offers optional support for a pair of SIM cards. The phone runs Android 4.4 KitKat -- there's no word on if or when it'd see an upgrade to Lollipop.

And then there's the Liquid Z220, which is Acer's first smartphone running Android 5.0 Lollipop. The phone is equipped with a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, paired with 1GB of RAM. There's just 8GB of storage, though you can supplement that with a microSD card. There's a 5-megapixel shooter on the rear, and a 2-megapixel camera up front. This 3G phone has a 4-inch display with a density of 233 pixels per inch, and offers optional support for dual SIM cards.

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