Acer ICONIA TAB A100 Review

Introduction:

Shopping around for a tablet, we’ve been led to believe that the $500 price point is considered to be the safe level for most tablets, even for some of the smaller 7-inchers out there, but as we continue to see fierce competition, it’s naturally expected to be lowered. Right out of the gate, the Acer ICONIA TAB A100 carries along mostly everything offered by its bigger brother in the ICONIA TAB A500 – but in a smaller package and better $329.99 price from the onset. However, we’ve been seeing some steep price drops with other comparably sized tablets, like the HTC Flyer and BlackBerry PlayBook, which minimizes the effect of Acer’s offering. Then again, it might prove otherwise with its performance. Let’s jump right in!

The package contains:

• Acer ICONIA TAB A100
• microUSB Cable
• Proprietary Wall Charger
• Start Guide
• Product & Safety Information

Design:

To put it lightly, the ICONIA TAB A100 embodies the general design characteristics of its 10-inch big brother, but instead of utilizing a cheap feeling brushed metallic exterior, we’re instead presented with a better feeling tough glossy plastic one. Plus, the design pattern found in the rear sprinkles a bit of style to it. Getting a good feel, we adore its better build quality and its compact form factor seeing that it’s not as wide as some other similar sized tablets – allowing us to grasp it easily with one hand. Of course, there’s a recognizable amount of weight to it, but it simply adds to the feeling of it being more durable.



Much like its esteemed colleagues, the tablet’s 7” LCD display features a resolution of 1024 x 600, which handily enables it to produce some detailed visuals. At the same time, our eyes dig its deep color tones when looking at the display straight on. On the other hand, its poor viewing angles and low brightness output make it nearly impossible to view outdoors. On top of that, it’s wickedly susceptible to getting dirty very quick – and it doesn’t help when it’s difficult to clean.

Atypical amongst the Honeycomb slates, the ICONIA TAB A100 employs a capacitive home button beneath its display, which also happens to blink and light up for certain notifications. Meanwhile, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera is positioned above the display.

Peering over its sides, it’s remarkably intriguing to fathom how Acer is able to cram so many ports, buttons, and slots to its body. On the bottom edge, it’s littered with a bunch of things that include a reset button, left & right speakers, microHDMI port, dock port, microUSB port, and a proprietary charging port. Feeling its distinguishable physical buttons, we like the feel and responsiveness of its power button and volume rocker. Lastly, there’s a plastic flap that can be removed to gain access to its microSD card slot – though, it also seems to be a placeholder for a SIM card slot.

Aside from the pretty design that’s splashed on its back, there is a 5-megapixel auto-focus camera prominently highlighted by its large lens and chrome border – and its LED flash is perched nearby. Internally, the tablet packs tucks away two unremovable 1,530 mAh Li-Ion batteries that power the entire thing.

Interface and Functionality:

Even though we might yawn at the fact that the Acer ICONIA TAB A100 is powered by none other than the usual 1GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, which is aided by 512MB of RAM, we’re enamored by its spot-on responsiveness. Generally, other tablets show some signs of struggle when glitzy live wallpapers are used, but instead, the ICONIA TAB A100 is nearly flawless with its operation – much like what it does with other basic tasks. Moreover, it doesn’t strain or stutter when navigating in portrait, which has been one eyesore for earlier Honeycomb slates. Overall, this thing is uncannily fast, and by fast, we mean super-duper responsive, which is surprising considering it uses the same CPU as others.

Interestingly, part of the reason why this tablet is considerably faster than previous ones, it probably has something to do with the fact that it features Android 3.2 Honeycomb. Just like on the Sony Tablet S that we reviewed recently, the update appears to have solved most of the platform’s sluggishness – and boy does it run quick. Like the ICONIA TAB A500, this one sports a stock Honeycomb experience as well, which is complemented by some of Acer’s very own widgets. Furthermore, it also offers the same alternative interface that better organizes apps as it breaks them down to categories like eReading, Game Zone, Multimedia, and Social. Although it’s nice looking and all, it doesn’t particularly add anything beneficial besides the fact that you can group apps according to category.


Limited in space versus its larger counterparts, typing on its keyboard is tough at first due to the cramped confines – but after some practice, we’re able to get a feel for it. In addition, its peppy responsiveness never misses a beat, as it’s able to keep up with us. Finally, we find ourselves typing comfortably in portrait since the experience is very similar to those smartphones packing ginormous displays.


Seeing that it’s the stock Honeycomb experience we’re presented with, all of its core organizer apps retain their presentation and functionality. Being a tablet platform and all, most of the core apps utilize the familiar two-panel layout that we’re so accustomed to seeing – like what’s found with the Calendar, Contacts, and Gmail apps. Naturally, we find all the usual Google branded apps preloaded with the tablet, but in addition, we also find things like clear.fi, Media Remote, Media Server, MusicA, nemoPlayer, SocialJogger, TegraZone, and Ustream.


Camera and Multimedia:

Neither fantastic or abysmal looking, its 5-megapixel auto-focus camera is able to cook up some average looking photos. When it’s sunny outside, it’s able to capture some accurate looking colors with its images, but we’re not thrilled by its flat details – though, it excels with macro shots. However, things are dulled down tremendously with photos taken in low lighting because they’re grainy looking and filled with plenty of noise. Granted that its LED flash is able to brighten things up a little, it tends to cast a dull tone with its color production.

Shooting some tolerable still shots, there’s nothing pretty about its 720p video recording – well, except for its smooth 30 frames per second capture rate. Rather, things are shifted downwards since details are muddy looking, there is plenty of artifacting when panning very quickly, and its exposure can sometimes distort colors. Luckily, audio recording is clear for the most part without the hint of it sounding irritating to the ear.

Acer ICONIA TAB A100 Sample Video:



Exhibiting some instantaneous responses with other operations, we’re puzzled by the tablet’s inability to play 1080p videos consistently. Specifically, it struggles at times to play our test video that’s encoded in DivX 1920 x 1080 resolution. However, it’s able to play 720p videos with no problem at all.


Choice is nice, and that’s exactly what we’re given with the tablet’s music players, which features the stock Honeycomb one and the nemoPlayer. To tell you the truth, we’d stick with the stock one simply for the reason that its presentation is more refined looking – but besides that, they offer the same exact functionality. Blessed with stereo support, thanks to its two speakers, volume output is right there in the comfortable middle position without any evidence of crackling or strain.


For those fortunate enough to have DLNA compatible devices, you’ll be able take advantage of the tablet’s DLNA functionality to stream multimedia content. Conversely, there’s always the quick and effortless route of falling back on using its microHDMI out port, which provides us with a mirrored experience.

Going below the norm, the Acer ICONIA TAB A100 packs only a measly 8GB of internal storage – however, it can be supplemented with microSD cards up to 32GB in capacity.

Internet and Connectivity:

Not surprisingly, the web browsing experience is more than agreeable to our tastes since it exhibits all the lovable qualities that make it a fine experience. Not only is it able to render our site quickly and properly, but it doesn’t flinch in the presence of Flash content – plus, its navigational controls are smooth and responsive. So yeah, we’re undeniably tantalized by its performance.


As it stands right now, the ICONIA TAB A100 is only available in Wi-Fi form, but we’ll more than likely see cellular enabled versions since it already has a placeholder for what appears to be a SIM card slot. Connecting to a wireless hotspot, it’s able to retain a solid connection while using it in an adjacent closed-off room. Meanwhile, it also packs other connectivity items like aGPS and Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR.

Performance:

At first, we were appalled to read that the tablet tucks away a 1,530 mAh battery, but later on, we learn that it’s packing two of them actually. Charging it completely to its fullest and using it lightly, we’re able to get at least one day of usage with the tablet – but we find it at the 25% level by the time we’re hitting the sack. Separately, we’re able to get close to 12 hours of continuous juice with heavy usage. Needless to say, it’s not spectacular, but it should suffice in getting you by through a workday. Nevertheless, it’s still something that’s going to require nightly charges.

Conclusion:

Without a doubt, if this tablet were released even a month ago, we’d totally be all over it in a heartbeat, namely because of its tasty $329.99 pricing. Of course, it’s tastefully competitive on so many levels knowing that we’ve seen previous 7-inch tablets priced at the $400 to $500 range. However, now that we’re beginning to see some other similarly spec’d tablets making the exodus to the $300 and under club, it’s going to be a tough challenge to attract leery buyers to see the value of this one. Still, when compared to its bigger brother, we actually prefer this one so much more because of its better build quality and overall performance. Honestly, it’s definitely a decent Honeycomb tablet, but it’s very hard to accept it concretely with open arms knowing that there are cheaper ones out there that offer better performance in all categories.

Android Version: 3.2
Build number: Acer_A100_1.018.05_COM_GEN2
Kernel Version: 2.6.36.3