Acer’s Iconia Tab A500 Joins the Honeycomb Party
by Jarred Walton on April 8, 2011 2:18 PM ESTAcer’s Iconia Tab A500 Joins the Honeycomb Party
The year of the tablet continues, and every major manufacturer—and many smaller parties as well—are keen to get their cut of the pie. As their entrant into the tablet market, Acer is announcing their Iconia Tab A500. We posted a short overview of the Iconia-6120 Dual-Screen notebook a few weeks ago, and it’s weird to have devices that are so wildly different in the same product family, but the Iconia Tab is a far more traditional device.
Google selected NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 platform as the target hardware for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), so it’s little surprise that Acer will use Tegra 2 (specifically the Tegra 250 variant) as the core of the A500. Perhaps more importantly, the A500 uses a 10.1” display with a 1280x800 resolution, so it will be similar in size and form factor to the Motorola Xoom. It’s actually a bit heavier (1.69 lbs. vs. 1.61 lbs) and fractionally thicker (.52” vs. .51”) than the Xoom, but since we’re dealing with tablets rather than smartphones it’s unlikely anyone will notice. What they will notice is differences in styling; the A500 has a brushed aluminum casing that looks quite nice in the photos we’ve seen.
Other aspects of the device are pretty standard. Tegra 2 starts with a dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU and pairs that with NVIDIA’s ULP GeForce graphics and 1GB of RAM. There are front- (2MP) and rear-facing (5MP) cameras, an HDMI port for viewing content on an external display (1080p supported), 802.11bgn WiFi, 16GB flash memory on the initial device (with 32GB versions planned for the future), and a micro-SD expansion slot capable of accepting up to 32GB micro-SD cards. The tablet comes with two 3260mAh Li-polymer batteries rated for up to eight hours of casual gaming or HD video playback and 10 hours of WiFi Internet browsing. Another piece of hardware is the six-axis motion-sensing gyro, which can be useful for games (and detecting orientation of the tablet). Finally, there’s a built-in GPS, and Bluetooth support allows the A500 to connect to a variety of peripherals.
One of the key elements of any tablet is the display, and here’s where things are a bit fuzzy right now: Acer’s press release states that the LCD “provides an 80-degree wide viewing angle to ensure an optimal viewing experience”. Hopefully that means it’s an IPS (or similar technology) panel, so that you’re getting true 80 degrees off-center viewing in both vertical and horizontal directions. More likely (being the cynic that I am), it’s a TN panel with “160-degree” horizontal and vertical viewing angles—except we all know that the way viewing angles are rated is often far from ideal, as one only has to look at a typical TN laptop panel to know that it can’t be used from above or below. When we can get an actual unit for testing, we’ll provide full details on the display.
On the software side of things, Acer has all the usual Android 3.0 accoutrements, but they’re including a few extras. Given the Tegra 2 platform, it’s nice to see a couple of games thrown into the mix for free: Need for Speed: Shift and Let’s Golf come pre-installed—I’m a lot more interested in the former than the latter. Adobe’s Flash is also supported, but it doesn’t come pre-installed, which is easy enough to rectify. Given that Google has expressed an interest in standardizing the Android experience and avoiding fragmentation, there’s not a lot of unusual software added on the A500. Acer includes their LumiRead and Google Books apps for enjoying eBooks, Zinio for full-color digital magazines, and a trial version of Docs to Go for office documents. Naturally, users all get full access to the Android Marketplace for installing additional applications. The A500 also includes clear.fi for digital media sharing, so it can communicate over your wireless network with any other DLNA-compliant devices to share multimedia content.
While the above items aren’t necessarily major improvements over competing tablets, one aspect of the A500 is sure to turn a few heads: the device is slated to go on sale at Best Buy starting at just $450. That puts it nearly $150 cheaper than the base model Motorola Xoom, albeit with 16GB instead of 32GB of integrated storage. The Iconia Tab A500 will be available for pre-order at Best Buy starting April 14 and available in stores and online starting April 24.
Besides the core unit, Acer also has a variety of peripherals planned. First on the list is a full-sized dedicated Bluetooth keyboard ($70 MSRP). There’s also a dock/charging station with IR remote and connections for external speakers/headphones ($80 MSRP), which can hold the tablet in two different tilt positions. Last is a protective case that allows access to the connectors and ports ($40 MSRP); it also lets you prop the tablet in two positions for hands-free viewing of movies or other content.
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Pinkynator - Friday, April 8, 2011 - link
Unless you're in Europe. $399 will translate to 459€ (or £459), plus VAT, doubling the price...human_error - Friday, April 8, 2011 - link
it's out in the uk for £379 now...Pinkynator - Saturday, April 9, 2011 - link
Seriously? That's the world's first :D Maybe there's still hope...spambonk - Friday, April 8, 2011 - link
"Given that Google has expressed an interest in standardizing the Android experience and avoiding fragmentation,"They haven't - that was just an unsubstantiated rumor. At least they don't in the way you mean, which Rubin has had to make clear in his blog. Google does not tell manufacturers they can't customize Android. Nor will they.
bplewis24 - Friday, April 8, 2011 - link
And thank goodness for that. Open Source lives on. The market will determine which products are worth buying.Brandon
kmmatney - Saturday, April 9, 2011 - link
I think the market has pretty much decided that already...Commodus - Saturday, April 9, 2011 - link
Rubin wasn't being entirely forthright. It's still true that the company is playing favorites as to who gets Android 3.0 first (HTC got the snub while Motorola, LG, and Samsung got first dibs).Moreover, the decision to hold off on source code for now has a convenient side effect: it keeps the Chinese white box companies from releasing any tablets or phones based on 3.0 until the platform has been established. There's no doubt that Google is willing to be patient to teach those firms a lesson.
joos2000 - Monday, April 11, 2011 - link
It sports a brushed aluminium look, sure, but I'll bet my 3 year old DELL that is a plastic case. And a TN panel in a tablet? In a tablet, the quality of the screen is everything, obviously the last thing to skimp on, not the first. Tsk tsk, what a piece of junk.JarredWalton - Monday, April 11, 2011 - link
From the press release: "The design boasts an Alpine Silver brushed metal aluminum chassis that is cool to the touch and comfortable to hold." So in this case, it really is aluminum (short of a straight-out lie from Acer, which I'm pretty confident they wouldn't do).TareX - Monday, April 11, 2011 - link
Isn't that the club of buggy OS that force closes apps and has a very limited app library?Sure you get visual multitasking and flash support, but at a dear price of usability, battery life, and stability.