Acer Iconia A100 Tablet

Going off of the Kindle Fire thread, viewtopic.php?f=21&t=14304

I was looking for a tablet for my twin daughters for Christmas, and was considering the Kindle Fire and Nook Color Tablet. Both looked promising, but both had some shortcomings (lack of camera/mic on the Kindle Fire, limited memory use on the Nook). I then saw the Acer Iconia A100 7" tablet and played with the demo unit. The Honeycomb 3.2 interface works pretty smoothly, was responsive and was quick. It also had all of the good stuff (front and rear camera, bluetooth, mic, microSD card slot), plus the price was pretty reasonable at $259. So I went ahead and picked up a pair for the girls.

I'll let you know how they turn out after Christmas, if the girls let me play with it

When I failed to get the Acer Iconia A100 during Black Friday, I got the 10.1" version, the A500, on Cyber Monday instead. I have no regrets, as the tablet is extremely fast and responsive (on the quality of the ipad you might say), but it doesn't run crappy iOS, it runs delicious Android 3.2, and comes with all the benefits, like widgets (it's a mystery why iOS still lacks widgets), connecting USB devices, and microSD for endless storage for music and movies, etc. Has all the hardware you'd want, really. Only downside is that the A500 is a tad heavy, but hey, if you aren't old and prone to arthritis, it'll benefit you to work out your muscles.

I'm often picky about protecting my pretty screens, but I don't think the Iconia series needs a screen protector. It has Gorilla glass, just like the ipads do. I did get a nice leather case for mine though, which acts as a stand as well. Handy.

Let us know how that goes. Acer is starting to knock it out of the park with their latest offerings. I got a nice Acer laptop for traveling about 6 months ago, and it can play the latest games, and only cost $600. Solidly built.

The Iconia series can also play the latest tablet games, like GTA 3, Dungeon Defenders, and many more. I love http://www.androidpolice.com for their weekly round ups of the best releases.

If you are not a tablet user, and perhaps only messed with an ipad, you might not know how awesome tablets are. Android is a LOT more than iOS does, because of all the hardware periphs it supports and ease of software support. You have to do a bunch of iTunes syncing to get the ipad working. With android you just copy stuff and be done, or if you like music syncing, you can get an app to do it. iPad is a giant iphone. The wall of icons is so outdated I wonder why anyone still believe iOS works for anything but phones.

^ there was probably some anti-ipad stuff in there but I can back up any claims. Not a fanboy, just observed how things have worked out

So here is how I wrapped the tablets - I put them in a regular box, and put them in a special container:


When they opened the box, I yelled "There you go! You asked for tablets, right!?" But my daughters were wise to my ploy, as last year, I put their Christmas gifts, a pair of Nintendo DSi's, in old instant oatmeal boxes.

So they quickly opened the "tablets" to reveal the true gift inside:




Anyway, initial first day of use review - this tablet is really nice - the interface is smooth and quick. Videos (Youtube, Netflix) play very well on the device and are very clear. I wouldn't mind having one for myself. Plus they can now watch their favorite animes on Netflix and I can have the big screen TV back

So far the apps we installed - Google Earth, Google Sky Map, Angry Birds, Skype, and a couple of other games run great on this device.

The not so nice side, the battery runtime is not very long - halfway through the day (morning to about after lunch, about 5-6 hours) the battery was down to around 30% - granted, this was running some heavy processor stuff, like videos and games, but it would be nice if it was longer. The other nitpick I have is that it uses a proprietary charging cable, and not the microUSB port to charge.

Will check back after a few weeks of use.

What a neat way to wrap them!

Very Nice wrapping jobs...those are nice tablets.