Acer Iconia Tab A500 – A Multimedia Android Tablet

Acer Iconia Tab A500 is part of the new Android 3.0 Honeycomb wave, a system not yet fully grown but full of potential. The product is elegant and well designed. The 10.1-inch multitouch display is placed in a round edged case but the device weighs 730 grams which makes it rather heavy to be hold in one hand.

The Power button is placed on the left side of the screen and locks/unlocks the display. The headphone and the mini-HDMI slots are also on the left. The AC adapter, USB connector, mini-USB connector for PC synch and the Reset button are placed on the right.

The two stereo speakers are located on the back of the case and offer Dolby Mobile technology support. The 5MP camera incorporates LED flash but photo quality does not impress and neither does the HD 720p video quality. On the other hand, the 2MP front-facing camera is very useful for video calls.

The TFT display with 1280×800 p resolution is protected by a mineral cotton film. The display finish does not prevent light reflection and the glass window can still be used as a mirror when the device is not turned on. High LED display image quality is excellent for movie watching and viewing angles are similar to those of a good PC monitor.

The tablet runs on the Nvidia tegra 2 platform, powered by a dual-core ARM 7 1 GB RAM processor. The 32 GB flash memory can be extended by another 32 GB using a microSDHC card.

Internet access is guaranteed by Wi-Fi connection, but lack of 3G connectivity is a major downside.

The homescreen of Iconia Tab A500 has four directories for eReading, Games, Multimedia and Social; each with its own specific apps. Apart from the standard Android Honeycomb apps, Acer has also added a few additional apps such as Need for Speed Shift, Let’s Golf, Docs to Go and Social Jogger.

Apps loading is almost instant, and preinstalled browser web surfing was smooth. Adobe Flash installation completes multimedia experience and YouTube videos playing was smooth as long as the native player was used. The YouTube desktop version playing was jerky, probably because of the Adobe Flash Plug-in, only available in the beta version.

The Nvidia Tegra 2 platform offered good results for 3D acceleration when tested with the Need for Speed Shift game. The 3D environment had a good framerate which allowed smooth game playing.

Acer Iconia Tab A500 is powered by a 3260mAh Li-ion battery which barely lasts for more than seven hours when used continuously with the Wi-Fi on and display brightness reduced by 50%. Android Honeycomb uses quite a lot of laptop battery power even when the tablet is in stand-by, the display is off and the OS is running in the background. Up to 50% of battery power can be thus drained in 24 hours without actually using the tablet.

Strong points: excellent hardware configuration, high quality display and speakers, HD 5MP camera, 32GB storage capacity, microSDHC slot, a more flexible Android Honeycomb OS and clear fi technology.