Acer - Iconia Tablet with 16GB Storage Memory - Aluminum Metallic

I bought this tablet last week and love it. The flash player is flawless, you get a full function website experience that loads as quick as a PC. It is the heaviest tablet so far, but it is well balanced and you tend to not notice the weight. Come preloaded with three HD games that play great. The two cameras are not the best but I did not buy to take pics. HD vids play great. Battery life is good. If you are looking for a good all around wifi only tablet this is the one. The only complaint I have is more so on Best Buys part, is I had to order a case from Staples. This is my first Android experience and i'm hooked.

I am a Graphic Artist so, resolution and good speed is vital for me. I read a lot of reviews about the Iconia not having good image quality but, what a lot of people do not understand is that the intial resolution of an image or video that your are trying to view is an important factor in how it will look on the screen you are trying to view it on. You cant expect a 200x200px image to look as crisp and clear as a 1280x800px image....same for video. This tablet does quite well with speed and image quality. Also, I have the new Adobe Touch Apps which are working quite well on the Iconia!

I have purchase this tab from Best Buy, and I don't have much bad things to say about this tab, Battery is AAA+++ Rear Day Camera is B+ Night Rear Camera with Flash looks Bad FFF--- I see a bunch of lines on the screen. I have loaded bunch of my mobile apps and so far they work :-) The screen looks nice and the game play as well. Its a bit heavy but feels solid. Co Pilot USA works but Freeze one in a while. I also notice when you use head set with 3.5 jack and when you unplug it you hear no sound and you have to power cycle device. I hope Acer could address this with upcoming update in June. But everything else is good. Accept the power cord its to short.

I bought this specifically to use in France in July 2011. I only had the WiFi version, but where ever I had WiFi connection, it worked very well indeed. Other reviews mention that its only real drawback is its weight, but I did not find that a problem. Rarely did I ever need to hold it, it was usually on my lap or on a desk. Screen visibility is excellent, as is the reponse time for screens. Not having used a touch screen unit before, I was not familiar with how to get to everything, so it was not as intuitive as I would have liked, but for someone familiar with iPhones etc., it was simple to use. I have not been able to compare it against other similar systems, but I would give this a 4.5 star review.

I have the pleasure of testing the Iconia, Xoom an Transformer over the last 5 days. So here is my .02 on the 3 tablets. Since this is the Iconia review section, I will try to focus most on the Iconia. Firstly, all 3 tablets are nearly idectical as far as internals. So the differences are product specific, and there are a few differences. The build quality of the Iconia is superior to the Transformer (TF) and pretty much on par with the Xoom. Like the Xoom the back of the unit is a brushed aluminum (the Xoom is grey anodized) and feels solid. The Iconia has a plastic bezel that outlines the screen whereas the Xoom's glass runs nearly all the way to the edge with an aluminum trim piece around the edge. The TF is like the Xoom but has an all plastic back and an aluminum trim around the edge. The Iconia's screen is solid glass and feels solid and does not flex when pushed, like the Xoom. The TF seems to have some kind of clear plastic or thin glass screen that has some flex to it if you give it more than a tap. The display of the Iconia is bright and vibrant and pleasent to look at. However the sharpness of the picture is less than that of the Xoom and TF. If you look close, you can actually see the pixils. It isnt a big deal, but gadget junkies will notice it. The UI of the unit is butter smooth, smoother than the TF by far and even a bit smoother than the Xoom. It is also more responsive to guestures like the xoom, the TF, although smooth, seems to lag behind the actual questure. The Iconia has something the Xoom and TF doesnt have, and it is a pretty sweet feature. A full sized USB port that supports KBs, mice, flash drives, card readers and USB HDDs. The TF does not have that unless you have the keyboard dock ( add $150) and the Xoom requires a $20 cord that converts the micro USB to USB. The Iconia performed EXTREMELY well in everything I did with it. I was VERY impressed by it and this would have been a total keeper for me hands down if but 2 things. 1. The screen. The pixil density I mentioned before. Being able to see the dot pitch (space between the pixils) even though minor, is a deal for me because I am such a hard core gadget geek that really pays attention to such things. Also the display only supports 256k colors, whereas the TF and Xoom support 16 million. Again, not very noticable, but if you really look at high res photos you can see a difference where color shades blend. 2. Support. The Iconias are know (some of them anyway) to have a few glitches. Some have issues with wifi performance and some have issues of the screen waking up on its own. Acer IS issuing an update but for some reason they have many different build numbers. Some of them have recieved their update weeks ago and others still dont have it. Even those purchased from the same lot, in the same store going to the same household... your wife my have been updated and you arent?! Not a big deal if your unit doesnt suffer the issues, but it could be an issue if it does have the issue(s) or it could be a an issue with upcoming firmware and OS updates (Honeycomb 3.1). 3.1 for example is already running on the Xoom and TF. Also accessory support. Since the Asus and Xoom are more popular brands, there seems to be more accessories available for for them. However, I am sure, with time, the Acer will get more. In the end though for $50 more (16gb Iconia vs. 16gb Transformer) and $50 less than (32gb Iconia vs. 32gb Xoom) this tablet is one heck of a unit. The build quality is on par with the Xoom (except screen) and the added USB fuctionality over the TF (needs $150 dock) and Xoom (needs $20 cord) is great. If you are considering between the Asus and the Iconia, (and dont care about the keyboard dock) GET THE ICONIA. It is a much better unit for the money!! AND, you can actually go in and buy one and take it home. The TF STILL has availability issues. For the added features of the Iconia over the Xoom (which is still waiting to get its MicroSD slot activated for crying out loud) at $50 less (32gb vs 32gb) and you can look passed the screen differences and accessory limitations, it is still a heck of a unit! I hope Acer gets the update kinks worked out because this beauty deserves it. Acer needs to push this unit harder, it will sell!

Nvidia Tegra 2 is going to become the standard cpu to power all tablets for some time to come. 1 GB RAM is currently the highest amount in any tablet as well. In terms of hardware, Iconia does everything that Xoom does, with arguably better software (SD and Flash support out of the box). Honeycomb, or Android 3.0, was designed specifically with tablets in mind. Without ranting off of every single spec users may see on Best Buy's webpage above, here are a couple of questions that are not addressed yet. 1. True multi-touch. There are some tablets with similar specs (e.g. eLocity A7) out there with capacitive screens that claim to be "multi-touch" when in fact they only support "1+1 touch", which is used for pinching and zooming only. 1+1 touch has very little practical uses as far as gaming and other more advanced apps are concerned. Acer Iconia has true multi-touch. 2. Access to Android Market. Some tablets with similar specs (e.g. Viewsonic g Tablet) do not come with ready access to Android Market. Unfortunately this is more of a problem with the Android platform overall. But this is one of the trade-offs you get choosing between iOS (iPad) and Android-based tabs: uniform controlled experience versus customization. 3. Regular LCD screen. Capacitive screens for the most part fall in to two camps. One camp uses IPS (in-plane switching) LCD (e.g. iPad 2 and Asus Eee Pad Transformer), which gives greater viewing angles (~178 degrees) and more vibrant pictures. The other uses just regular LCD for about 160 degrees viewing angle. Acer Iconia uses the latter rather than the IPS LCD. Chalk this one up as a minor con. 4. Lastly, no word yet on whether or not it is possible to root Acer Iconia so that if you aren't happy with the firmware, you might very well be stuck with it and are at the manufacturer's mercy. And for those who are confused by the A500's twin, W500, the ONLY difference is that A500 uses Android, and W500 uses Windows 7. So if you would rather have a Windows 7 based version of this tablet, you do have a choice. Maybe not through Best Buy though. Finally, for comparison purposes, Asus EeePad Transformer is basically identical to Acer Iconia in terms of hardware. The only difference in between the two are type of LCD screen, and battery life. EeePad Transformer's battery life is estimated to be somewhere around 9.5 hours, longer if keyboard docking station's used. Acer Iconia's top range is somewhere around 8 hours.

I have owned the acer for about 4 month so i feel i can make a honest review. Everyone i know owns the ipad and i have used a ipad2 quite a few times and i must say overall i dont regret at all buying a android tablet over apple. This thing can do the same thing and more than a ipad and cost $150 less. Starting off with the pros i would say all the ports/connections is a great deal, i mean hdmi output, full and mini usb ports and a micro sd port compatible with up to a 32GB card is great. You can instantly make this 16GB model into a 48 just like that, that is why i said 150 less since this can be a 48GB model, lol where as with the ipad2 you get a 32GB for $600 so yeah it makes sense. It has flash player, since most things on the internet run in flash this is a great thing. The 5MP camera with built in led flash take pretty nice pictures, it has stereo speakers so it is a little louder than some other tablets out there, it has widgets. Apple's store is bigger but that does not mean it is better. I have yet to see a game or app that i liked on the ipad that i was not able to get on the android market, if not the same exact app, something similar. The voice commands are great and work great as well. If you dont like the stock web browser you can also download other browsers off the market, i currently use dolphin browser which i think is faster and has more features than the stock browser. Same thing with music players, i downloaded amazons mp3 player and haven't went back to the stock players since, live wallpapers(kind of a pro and con), you get email notification popups as well as you can sync with ebay and get watched item ending reminders. The store is nice and very detailed about each app, feels sturdy and i KNOW for a fact it is made well, how? Because i have dropped it a total of 3 times, once from about 3 feet straight onto concrete and twice it fell off my dresser witch is about 2 feet, it does not have scratch and it still works flawlessly, There are apps you can download to organize your apps into folder which is nice and saves room on the home screen. Battery life is pretty decent, i wouldnt say great but it is good. You can download torrent movies straight onto the device! After using this and going to use a ipad, the ipad just seems so boring and plain. Im sure there are more pros that i just cant think of at the moment but i am sure i got most the major thing. Now time for the cons. Yes the device is big and heavy, i believe it is the heaviest or second heaviest tablet out there so carrying this thing around is no fun. Dont like that you cant charge it through your pc via usb, at least i dont think you can, some apps and games force close and do not work on this device, happens rarely but it does happen, There is not much accessories out there such as cases, skins and stuff like that, you can get cases for the ipad for as little as $10. For the acer i think there is only 1 or 2 cases and there are like $40! If you are doing alot of things on the device is does tend to lag a little at times, oh yeah and the live wallpapers, the are nice and a great feature but i have found that using them at least on this device makes the device lag like crazy! And last but definitely not least is the is the store, the store when it works is great but alot of times it is either really slow, gets connection errors, gets stuck "waiting to install" apps or just gives an error saying the app installation was unsuccessful. Although i found the problem for that just not the fix yet. I found that when the device get under 2GB of free space(give or take) i start getting these errors, after freeing up space, the errors suddenly dissapear, weird right? Although i do not know a fix, the way i kind of solved it was to just buy a micro sd card to store all my music on(since i had it on the device before). That way i always have plenty of space for apps and games. Overall i really like this device and wouldn't trade it for a ipad anyday(just maybe a better android table) but i will keep for for at least a year before i trade it. I would recommend this to anybody that's having a hard time deciding on apple or android!

I have been researching the Xoom for quite some time but wouldn't pull the trigger because of Motorola's lack of answers on when the SD card would be activated. While looking around, a friend of mine came back with a flier for the Acer Iconia A500. I was suprised that I had not heard of this product before and immediately looked it up. All the specs were the same as the Xoom with the added advantage of the SD card working out of the box (and now I'm confused why the Xoom is still having problems accomplishing this). This in addition to the fact that April 8th this became available in Singapre (where I currently work) caused me to go to the store and check it out. The salesman pulled it out of the case and I flipped around to a couple of screens and was sold. I have since been playing with it all weekend long. If you have been looking at other Android OS tablets and can't make up your mind then go with this one! Pros: + Very sturdy feel and nice design + Good sound and video looks crisp + Responsive OS feels very smooth + Camera's take decent pictures (its a tablet not a Nikkon) Cons: - The Wifi connection doesn't seem to have much range. I'm not sure if this is a software/hardware thing or what but my iPhone can keep the connection from much farther away. - Not sure about other tablets but lots of fingerprints on the screen - A little heavier. This hasn't bothered me but if you like to lay on your bed with the tablet held above you I guess it could be a problem - App store still needs work/updating for 3.0 Honeycomb.