Acer Iconia Tab A100 review

There are some useful additions, however: the Aupeo! internet radio, Docs To Go document viewer, Kobo ebook reader and nemoPlayer video player are all useful starter apps for users who aren’t familiar with the Android Market, but as they’re installed as system apps you can’t get rid of them once you find your favourite replacements.

Despite its Tegra 2 chipset, the A100 struggled to play 720p YouTube content, which was a surprise. It was snappy enough in everyday use though, and it scored a high 2202 in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, so browsing should be smooth.

Its convenient size and weight makes the A100 desirable as a portable web browsing platform, and its design, while not particularly classy, is still smart. We could do without Acer’s choice of pre-installed apps and the Hubs, but there’s plenty of storage space so they don’t eat into it too much. As the first 7in Android 3.2 tablet to market, the A100 has no real competition. It’s an impressive tablet with only a couple of niggles, such as the slightly tacky plastic back and odd speaker placement. It’s a good value tablet to buy now, but you may want to hold off until the competition release their own 7in tablets.