Acer Iconia Tab A500 review

The rounded off corners and edges make it comfortable to hold, but a weight of 765g makes it the heaviest of the new generation of Honeycomb tablets. It’s 85g heavier than the Asus Transformer, despite being pretty much the same size. Sat in your lap this isn’t a problem, but you won’t want to hold it in one hand for very long. That’s not unusual for 10in tablets, but it’s surprising how much heavier this feels than the iPad 2.

As with all the latest Android tablets, Acer has opted for a 10.1in widescreen display with a 1,280×800 resolution. This gives you more screen space and more pixels than the iPad 2. Surprisingly, though, the A500 comes with a bog-standard TFT display, rather than a superior IPS panel. The screen here isn’t bad, but the viewing angles do suffer in comparison with the Eee Pad Transformer and iPad, and colours aren’t quite as vibrant. We also noticed that it was rather heavy handed in its automatic brightness adjustment, with distracting jumps in the level, rather than smooth adjustments.

On the left-hand side of the A500, holding it in portrait mode, there’s the power button, headphone port and micro HDMI output – with the latter providing Full HD video output.

On the right are the power socket and two USB ports (that sticker peels off easily by the way). You have to charge using the power socket, with no trickle charge via the micro USB port on offer; that port is reserved then for connecting your A500 to your PC for syncing and transferring files. In a very practical move, Acer has also supplied a full-sized USB host port, so you can attach USB memory sticks (or a memory card reader or digital camera) to the tablet and transfer files directly – quite handy if you’re on the go and want to touch-up or upload photos.

A volume rocker and small rotation-lock switch are positioned on the top edge to the left. Next to these is a flap that hides the memory card slot, which takes micro SDHC cards to expand the 32GB of onboard storage already provided. Here also is where you’d fit a full-sized SIM card if you had the 3G capable A501 variant. As with the iPad 2, this adds a fairly steep £100 to the asking price, plus of course any monthly costs you incur from an additional data contract. Smartphone users, who want occasional 3G use from their tablet, will be better off using their phones as mobile hotspots and tethering their tablet via Wi-Fi. Speaking of which, the A500 comes with the usual 802.11b/g/n capability plus Bluetooth.