Acer Iconia Tab 500

Tablet

By Siobhan Keogh and Zara Baxter, Auckland | Monday, 20 June 2011
At first glance, Acer’s Iconia tablet appears to be a wee bit chunky, and very solid. A closer look uncovers that while it is thicker and heavier than most tablets, it has good reason to be – the Iconia is a feature-packed tablet in our round-up, and it’s thicker than most because it has to accommodate all those awesome extras.

If you are looking for a tablet running Android’s tablet OS, Honeycomb, at a price that can rival the iPad, look no further – the Iconia’s 16GB Wi-Fi only tablet is $799, the same price as the 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2. However, if you’re looking for a tablet that supports 3G – which you’ll need if you travel a lot – then you’re going to have to wait a few months. The 3G version of the Iconia is yet to launch in New Zealand.

That said, if you’re willing to go without 3G or to wait an extra few months, the Iconia is a solid choice. The hardware is fantastic – like the iPad 2, it has a dual-core processor, solid aluminium backing, large 10.1-inch screen, and a physical switch that locks the display in place so you can turn the tablet around and look at something upside down without the picture on screen turning as well.

But unlike the iPad 2, the Iconia also has a mini HDMI port so you can play media on your laptop or TV directly from the tablet, the ability to act as a media server with a pre-installed app, and a USB host port so you can grab media from your USB and stick it on your tablet. The Iconia seems to be the device that’s closest to realising the full potential for portable video that the tablet has. At the moment it can only play video in 720p, but we’re told a later software update will allow the Iconia to step up to the full 1080p.

None of these extra features would be worthwhile if the Iconia didn’t have a great display, and it does. Nothing shows off the Iconia’s ability to render extremely detailed, colourful art like the comics on the Comixology app, and the Iconia did a fantastic job of showing off every detail in deep colour, without pixelation. We’d hope so - the screen’s resolution is 1024 x 1280, the highest of any tablet we’ve tested.

The only big let-down of the Iconia is its 5MP rear-facing camera, which is mediocre and doesn’t film in HD. Given the tablet is capable of playing back video in high definition, it would be nice if it could film in it, too. Tablet manufacturers have a lot of work to do on cameras if they want to unlock the devices’ potential as a video powerhouse.

Still, for the price the Iconia is a lot of tablet for your money. You’re getting the features of a laptop – minus the keyboard – on a device that can fit in a satchel. If the device we had was 3G-capable, the Iconia could have been our top Android tablet.

The Acer Iconia is distributed in New Zealand by Synnex, Ingram Micro and Dove Electronics.