Acer Iconia Tab A500 Review

Acer Iconia Tab A500

Review Summary:

Poor camera and bulk aside, the Iconia Tab A500 is exceptionally fast, reliable, and functional.

Pros

• Fast and well-polished device
• Great Display
• Flash support available
• Full-sized USB

Cons

• Mass and dimensions
• Below average photograph quality

Acer Iconia Tab A500 Full Review

 

According to technical specifications, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 rivals other 10-inch Honeycomb tablets. It ships with Android OS 3.0 (Honeycomb) with several proprietary apps, along with a 1GHz dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, GeForce GPU, 1GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.

The Iconia Tab A500 is well stocked with additional features, including GPS, a 5-megapixel back-facing camera with an LED flash, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, microSD card slot to expand the memory capacity, headphone jack, as well as micro-HDMI, USB and micro-USB ports. A version with a SIM card slot should be available on the market soon.

The feature set is impressive, making the Iconia Tab A500 equal to the other Honeycomb tablets on the market, including the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. However, it is somewhat heavier and bigger than those two, making its size its biggest flaw.

Acer Iconia A500 specs:

• Android Honeycomb (3.0)
• 10.1-inch diagonal  capacitive touchscreen (1280 x 800)
• 1GHz Dual-Core NVIDIA Tegra 250
• NVIDIA GeForce Graphics
• 1GB DDR2
• 16GB internal memory, MicroSD expandable
• Front-facing 2.0 megapixel webcam, rear 5.0 megapixel camera with flash
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• MicroSD card reader, USB 2.0, micro USB, HDMI, 3.5 mm headset
• 10.2 x 7.0 x .52 inches (HxWxD)
• 1.7 pounds
• Price at Launch: $450

BUILD & DESIGN

The Acer Iconia Tab A500 build is part plastic and part metal alloy, which undoubtedly add to its weight. It weighs significantly more than the svelt iPad 2and even the relatively bulky Motorola Xoom. Ultimately, the Acer tablet becomes too heavy and hard to hold in hand after a while.

The device's design is not the least bit modern, so, in addition to being bigger, the Iconia Tab A500 is not nearly as slick as Motorola or Samsung's devices. Still, it’s a serious and impressive device, just one that happens to be heavier and larger than the competition.

Fortunately, Acer has taken advantage of its tablet's size and added functional and practical ports. The front is buttonless, which is common with Honeycomb tablets, while the back is rounded on the left and right edge, and includes a back-facing camera with flash and a cover for the microSD card slot. This cover also encompasses the right edge of the tablet, which also includes the volume control keys and a screen orientation lock switch.

The left edge sports an accessory connector slot, while the upper side houses the micro-HDMI port, a headphones jack and the power button. There is also a charge indicator light.

The lower edge has a reset key, both a full-sized and a micro USB port and a charger port. It is a shame that the Iconia Tab A500 cannot be charged directly via USB.

DisplayIdentical to the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 comes with a 10-inch, 1280 x 800, capacitive screen. This is a slightly bigger resolution than what the iPad has, but almost identical when it comes to pixel density, given the slightly smaller screen diagonal of the Apple tablet. The surface of Acer's display is exceptionally glossy, and fingerprints can quickly build up.

On the other hand, the screen features decent image quality. It offers excellent brightness and lively colors. It’s great for watching movies and viewing pictures. The touchscreen's responsiveness is spot-on and smooth.

The on-screen keyboard also impresses. It is large and supports multi-touch for special characters (Shift +).

Compared to the iPad, Honeycomb tablets have different display ratios. They are narrower and longer. This is a good thing for multimedia playback when the tablet is held in the landscape position, however things are more limited in portrait mode due to the thinner design.

PERFORMANCE

The Acer Iconia Tab A500 is a very fast tablet. NVIDIA's Tegra 250 dual-core 1GHz processor, GeForce graphic processor and 1GB or RAM have no trouble handling Honeycomb. The Iconia Tab A500 manages to launch applications instantly and run them smoothly, regardless of how demanding they are.

The A500 handles Flash no problem, however Honeycomb does not support Flash out of the box. Users have to download the free Flash player through the Android Market.

To make things easy Acer included a handy Flash installation shortcut on the Honeycomb homescreen (as well as shortcuts to other useful software additions). Zooming in on web sites and scrolling is not as smooth as it is on the iPad 2, but overall the performance was still speedy.

Unfortunately, the rear-facing camera is not very good. Photos are of below average quality, with poor sharpness and pale color imaging with colder tones. The same thing goes for video recording and the front-facing camera.

The Acer Iconia Tab A500 runs "pure" Android 3.0, though Acer did include some additional applications (some of which are useful and some which are not). These apps are easily removed if the user wants to get rid of them.

Connectivity and BatteryThe Iconia Tab A500 offers the ability to connect to the Internet solely via Wi-Fi, at least in the current version. This is not surprising, given the fact that the tablet is a little too large to be considered mobile.

Despite this, Acer representatives have announced a 3G version of this tablet will be available soon, which is also evident from the fact that there is a hidden SIM card slot under the microSD card slot's cover. It is hidden only with a sticker that comes off easily, but removal could void the warranty.

The Iconia Tab A500 does not have any problems with Wi-Fi connection – during the review period the tablet swiftly connected to various types of routers and maintained a constant and fast connection even at a distance.

A large built-in battery is partially responsible for the tablet’s size. Still, it only provides average life from everyday work and occasional usage of GPS and Wi-Fi. Generally, the tablet will need to be charged every three days.

CONCLUSION

The Acer Iconia Tab A500 is a 10-inch Honeycomb tablet that belongs in the very top of its class. Compared to the Xoom, the Acer model is bigger and heavier, and maybe even more poorly designed overall. However, it has some significant advantages, including an abundance of ports and jacks.

Poor camera and bulk aside, the Iconia Tab A500 is exceptionally fast, reliable, and functional.