Acer Iconia Tab A500 Review
The Acer Iconia Tab A500 could be something that fits your requirements, especially if you are not impressed with the HTC Flyer for its high cost or with the BlackBerry Playbook for its apps availability issues. The tablet is powered by dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 processor, 1GB of RAM and ULP GeForce GPU. The Acer Iconia Tab A500 uses a 10.1” display with 1200 x 800 pixels resolution, but with 256k color depth instead of 16M. Buyers can choose two version of internal storage, 16GB and 32GB, while the external memory slot can support up to 32GB of microSD card. It is a non-3G tablet and relies on Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n for connecting to Internet, other wireless feature is Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and EDR. You’ll also find a 2Mp webcam at the front and a 5Mp shooter at the rear. The 3260 mAh Li-Po battery offers talk time of 6 hours and stand-by time of 200 hours.
You should give the Acer Iconia Tab A500 credits for its rugged design and aluminum back that can withstand more abuses than other plastic-covered tablets. You can get a good grip on the device, due to the wider footprint and an extra heft to it. You could picture waitresses in a busy eating place or supervisors in a factory use the Acer Iconia Tab A500, due to its conventional industrial look.
However, the bulky design of Acer’s tablet might be an acquired taste and it’s not for everyone. It offers a faint reminder of those bulky, unsightly Windows XP tablets that appeared years before the iPad. Although it has the same weight with the Motorola Xoom, the difference in design makes the Acer Iconia Tab A500 looks less portable and heavier. Other issues are relatively short battery life, faint pixel grid on the display and short charging cable. Despite these minor drawbacks, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 is still a good tablet, as it is more rugged than the Motorola Xoom and offers better apps selection than the BlackBerry Playbook.