Acer Iconia Tab A500 10in Android tablet PC manufacturers clearly haven’t been reading the script. They were supposed to over-hype their forthcoming Android 3.0 tablets as iPad-killers (check!), miss their initial launch dates (check!) and then let us all down by delivering a hunk of poorly designed, obsolete tat (er…). Acer Iconia A500 Acer's Iconia Tab A500: …
after watching this item being demonstrated on QVC,(yes, I know.... but it caught my attention because of this device), it soon was on the top of my xmas wish list !!!
this review has firmly kept it up there... unless something much better arrives on the market between now and then...
Indeed it's too expensive, probably not quite by £100, but far too close to the iPad price. Like it or not it is the market leader and to get your sales you need to offer a lot more for the same price (more than microsSD and mpx in the camera) or the same for a chunk less. I've also used it and found it to be not quite as snappy in use as the iDevice which was far smoother and snappier.
I'm getting splinters on the fence at present because I really want to be able to get something other than an iPad as I already have enough iDevices but I'm not quite feeling compelled just yet when all the Apad devices hit the same price point.
i bought the 32gb model from pc world a month ago and i can tell you right now the battery-life is awesome and i cant put the thing down. the only thing i have to say im bothered about is that it has a locked bootloader which acer is resisting to unlock (i can see their reasons) but apart from that im deffo keeping the tablet and its my new best friend atm
I bought myself a really cheap Android tab about 6 months ago, and it is great, especially because i only spent £120 on it, and the only downfalls it has are a resistive screen and no flash.
However, it has all of the features of the top end tablets like HDMI out etc. So, considering how much I got with my £120 tablet.... what would i pay for a capacative touchscreen and flash support?
well, around £200, maximum of £250.
At the weekend, Warehouse of Phones for Cars had a clearance deal on the 7" Galaxy Tab @ £250, and the Dell Streak for £199. If i wasn't currently a bum and had less self constraint... i would have had one of each.
Although the kit itself is the same, the keyboard dock is reserved for the W500 model only, and not the Android A500 edition. Accessory sales suggest to us users bluetooth option only.
USB sockets for flash memory only, and reports say not all types work. We're all waiting for the new Honeycomb update in June/July to see what other devices will be supported.
In the meantime v. happy with experience on the move, however thinking about a A501 with 3G when they come out soon.
That's incorrect, the USB port does support a keyboard as I have used it a few times already.
I even tried some old 128MB uSD cards with it to ensure the SD card slot worked before I bought some more memory...worked like a charm.
I had a 1st Gen iPad and although I loved it I wanted something that would sync up with my EVO 4g without hassle. The Acer A500 does everything the iPad can do and more with the only short coming currently being the apps. Hopefully we'll continue to get more and better quality apps to change that.
Drawbacks - it's heavier and thicker than an iPad, but it's not a brick. You need to root the device to do wireless tethering.
It has better graphics (720p right now, and 1080p shortly with a software upgrade coming soon), SD card slot (a must-have for me), mini-HDMI that you don't need to pay Apple for a "special" cable for, and a full USB, although that's not much good for USB disks until you "root" the device and monkey around a bit.
And you don't need to install and run bloody iTunes just to be able to switch the thing on.
Had my A500 for 2 weeks, hardware wise it is the best tablet out right now. The screen seems to draw finger prints more than iPad 1.0. Zinio just came out for it yesterday and I am ecstatic, unfortunately iOS version is much better. It had many Force Closes but that cleared up with an update this past weekend.
Everyone seems to be rushing beta versions of their apps out for Honeycomb as there are many stories of crashing or poorly written apps but given a few months I think it will have cleared up.
...you won't ever get an update. It's the biggest issue with Android tablets, as far as I'm concerned. They haven't been around long enough to know how long and well they'll be supported by their manufacturers. I guess we can only look at their record in mobiles, and Acer don't do at all well in this department. In fact, only HTC of the current crop of tablet manufacturers have a pretty strong record, as far as I can tell (although I can't speak for Samsung).
At least with Apple you know you're going to keep getting updates until the hardware can't take it any more.
There are limited options for provider customisation, so updates come straight from the source. Thus, updates are no more a problem than with a Windows or Linux device.
I'm not sure the situation with phone versions of Android is as bad as some people make out, either. I've got a selection in front of me now, and even the oldest and clunkiest, an original Samsung Galaxy, is running v2.0, albeit quite slowly. Most of them are on Gingerbread. I've not had an Acer phone, though.
GJC
.......some kit that would cause me to blow the dust off my wallet. This is definitely a step forward and the pricing actually is reasonably keen IMO for something of the given quality in a *very* young market. I'll be waiting, probably another year. 2.5 GHertz/quad core, 2 Gb RAM, 64 Gb on board storage, Bluetooth, at least two USB ports (properly supported), 7 inch form-factor (coat pocket), charging and ports dock (without a keyboard - I'll choose my own) and a "retina" display. *Then* I'll be willing to pony up, in fact I would be willing to part with some serious wonga.
I'm typing this on my own A500 - the device is phenomenal! Why's it better than the I pad? The ports and DivX... So far, every flash drive and portable hard disk plugged in has been accessible. And with a player like Rockplayer installed, all my AVI movies play straight away, and beautifully. The other reason why I bought it, was for browsing. Opera Mobile works magnificently. All in all, I'm very happy that I reallocated some of the children's inheritance money for the Acer fondleslab (great word; I'm also forcing my kids to use it).
The A500 has a bigger screen (10" vs. 9"), making it heavier. And the screen has more pixels too, so it isn't just physically bigger.
The A500 has support for add-in storage, so if you get the 16GB model, and it turns out to be lacking, you can add more. The iPad line will never have expandable storage.
USB can be run in host-mode, so you can connect cameras and other devices directly to the A500. You can even use a standard USB keyboard if you want. The iPad has a camera interface adapter, but it is quite limited in the devices it supports. The A500 doesn't provide much power, USB port when in host mode, so don't expect it to spin up big unpowered 3.5" hard drives. So just flash disks, and devices with batteries.
The A500 has more ports (ex. HDMI), none of which which are unique to the A500 over the iPad2, but none require special adapters like the iPad2. And you can use several at once, as there are separate ports per interface. I don't think you can use HDMI and USB on a iPad2 at the same time, for example. Could be an issue, if you want to connect a display and a keyboard at the same time.
I bought an A500 back in mid-April while visiting Singapore and have to say it is a beautiful looking piece of kit, but boy is it heavy to use for extended use.
Try holding it in one hand for any length of time while using it and you will see what I mean.
I just wish Acer had used some lighter materials, it would have been a real winner then.
I've had one of these for a few weeks now, and to be honest I'm finding I don't boot the desktop PC for days at a time - apart from hey photo work and a couple of specific apps I don't need to. I'm typing this on the tablet now, as fast as I ever type on the PC, and with similar accuracy. :-)
However, things aren't perfect. You talk about Skype but fail totally to note that the app can't use the cameras, so no videoconferencing. Total fail by Skype, shirley. Also, the tablet goes to sleep and fails to wake up, requiring a power off and restart from time to time.
The graphics are Fab, and if I have only one game apart from the obligatory Angry BoFH then let me applaud GameProm for the Pinball HD port. Makes full use of the graphics and processor power with nary a flicker.
I'm using it with a 3 mi-fi mobile broadband router on PAYG, and really can find little apart from the above niggles to rant at.
I almost bought this one when Transformers were sold out everywhere. They are very similar. I held out though and found the Transformer in stock finally.
The Android tablets go well with Android phones. You only have to buy your apps once. 3.1 is smooth. The Talk app does video chat and is compatible with the pc and mac version. Citrix works just fine. Battery is all day. Display is glorious indoors useless outdoors.
They are going to sell a lot of these.
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