How much are you willing to sacrifice to get the perfect tablet of your choice? Do you accept the tablet being a bit thicker to accommodate more room for extra features or do you prefer the basic bare bone hardware and the tablet keep its slick and light design? These are some of the question most tablet seekers ask themselves when considering the best tablet for themselves. The new Acer Iconia A-500 Tablet is portraying its self as the bulky and more to offer rather than sticking to the company practice of jamming in the basics in the most smallest of sizes.
The new tablet isn’t light weight nor sleek, and because it giving you performance over looks. The new tablet has more ports a revamped user interface. It shouldn’t be over looked because of its size, not that the tablet isn’t good looking, but from utilitarian point of view the tablet has a lot to offer.
The Hardware
The tablet is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra2 1 GHz processor and 1 GB RAM, pretty basic for a Honeycomb OS tablet. The tablet has a 10.1 inch touch screen, the same screen size as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Motorola Xoom but it sets itself apart in terms of its design. The tablet is 7 inches tall, 10.24 inches wide and 0.52 inches thick, and if we compare to the slimmer Samsung Galaxy 10.1 you will certainly feel the difference. Technically the Acer Iconia is 0.18 inch thicker than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 which doesn’t look much on paper but one you hold them you will notice a big difference in the two. The Acer Iconia A-500 is also a bit taller and wider but compared to its size you won’t notice it at first. The weight of the device is 25.75 ounces which is almost 6 ounces heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Tab.
Despite it being bulky and broad, there was a reason why it was made this way. The tablet comes with extra ports and switches than the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 and the Motorola Xoom and the following is the list of what you will find on the extremities of the devices.
1. Power Button
2. Rotation Lock Switch
3. 3.5 mm audio jack
4. Full size USB port
5. Dock Connector
6. Propriety charging port
7. Volume Control
8. Micro-SD card and SIM card slots
9. Micro-USB port
10. Reset pinhole
11. Mini-HD connector
The ports and switches are around the sides and top of the device, except the docking port which bulges out a bit to an otherwise sleek designed tablet. All the ports are buttons are tucked in nicely in the tablet. Another thing to notice is that apart from the microSD/SIM card slot no other slots or ports are covered. It is a matter of time before the full size USB gets dust in it.
In the front of the tablet is all touch-screen with a front facing 2 MP camera. The back side of the tablet is gray with brushed metallic look with a 5 MP camera with flash and pair of stereo speakers.
The power button and the 3.5 mm audio jack is on the left hand side of the tablet while on the top you will find the volume control, rotation lock and the microSD/SIM slots. The door that unlocks the microSD and SIM slot is covered by an easily removable door. Aesthetically speaking the door is disaster as it breaks up the lines of the tablet.
The tablet has a 10.1 inch screen which is a standard now for all Honeycomb tablets, running at 1280 by 800 resolutions another standard on the Honeycombs. The display quality is decent but lacked the quality you would see on other tablets. And unfortunately like any other piece of glass it gets finger prints on it easily.
Honestly speaking the Iconia A500 isn’t the prettiest in the lot but considering how many ports are crammed in the device it certainly will appeal to a limited number of people.
Under the Hood
The Acer Iconia A500 is powered by a dual core 1 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor with 727 MB of RAM. The device runs is excellently on the Android 3.0 and it feel like any other Honeycomb tablet.
The battery life is good too for a 10 inch tablet and the tablet running on a pair of 3260 mAh batteries it should last more than a day on normal usage.
The Software
Acer has done a good job with customization of the Honeycomb. The user interface is a skin per say but more like a UI in a UI.
The home screen is pretty clean with some widgets, date clock widget, bookmarks and series of icons in the bottom half of the screen. The icons range from market to your entertainment and social applications. The icons you will likely see are the clear.fi for music sharing, eReading, Games, Multimedia, Social and Market.
The four icons except Market and clear.fi are what can be distinguished as a UI within a UI. You can swipe between right and left or sue the arrow buttons to move around.
The Game Zone has NFS Shift, Hero of Sparta HD and Let’s Golf. Alongside games you will find the Android market, TegraZone Games and Top HD games icon at the bottom.
When you open eReader you will find that it has Google Books app, LumiRead and Nook.
Opening the Multimedia icon you will see YouTube, MusicA, Photo Bowser HD, AUPEO, nemoPlayer which is a multimedia player and a music sharing app called clear.fi.
The Social icon contains the SocialJogger app which has all your social feeds in one single app, FaceBook Web and Google Talk.
It is nice to see Acer put in an effort to make the honeycomb a bit different, it isn’t spectacular but certainly the effort is well appreciated.
The Camera
The Iconia A500 has front facing 2 MP camera and 5 MP rear camera. The front facing camera ia aligned on the short edge instead of being in the centre of the long edge which means you will have to tilt the tablet to get a self shot image.
The camera is a simple point and shoot camera and the quality of the picture is decent.
Other features
<!–[if !supportLists]–>1. <!–[endif]–>It does not make phone calls
<!–[if !supportLists]–>2. <!–[endif]–>The speaker quality is ok, not too much base but gets the job done
<!–[if !supportLists]–>3. <!–[endif]–>Has a VGA adaptor to connect to monitors
<!–[if !supportLists]–>4. <!–[endif]–>Has GPS and Bluetooth that work fine.
Conclusion
The Acer Iconia A-500 isn’t the best looking tablet you will encounter neither is it the lightest. And the reason for it is that it has a number of ports for almost device you want connect with the device. Sadly enough the device is not meant for everyone, it is a niche product and only a handful of users will actually appreciate the extra ports.
The tablet is running on an adequately powerful dual core 1 GHz processor and 727 MB of RAM and runs on the Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS. And the price tag of $400 makes it more attractive than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. If you are someone who appreciates the extra ports then there is no reason why the Iconia isn’t the best tablet for you.
Related posts:
