Acer has just announced that its 4G 10.10.1-inch tablet, the Iconia Tab A501 is now exclusively available at WIRELESSWAVE, Tbooth wireless, and WIRELESS etc... stores across Canada.
The tablet works on Rogers wireless network and is delivered with Android 3.2 Honeycomb on board, as well as Acer's unique user interface.
Potential customers can purchase the Acer Iconia Tab A501 for as low as $199.99 (145 EUR) on select 3-year plans.
The tablet works on Rogers wireless network and is delivered with Android 3.2 Honeycomb on board, as well as Acer's unique user interface.
Potential customers can purchase the Acer Iconia Tab A501 for as low as $199.99 (145 EUR) on select 3-year plans.
The slate has been especially designed with entertainment in mind. The 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen that supports 1280 x 800 high-resolution provides an optimal 80-degree wide viewing angle and a 16:10 aspect ratio, which is perfect for watching movies.
Equipped with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor, the Iconia Tab A510 embeds a GeForce graphics processing unit that allows users to enjoy HD video, blazing fast browsing, multi-tasking, as well as a smooth gaming experience.
“The Acer Iconia Tab A501 with Rogers 4G HSPA+ connectivity provides our customers with a fast and fluid way to stay on the cutting-edge of technology and at the centre of what's happening in the world today. The Iconia Tab A501 is not only intuitive, but it's fashionable, which is important to consumers,” said Sumit Agnihotry, vice president of product marketing for Acer America Corp.
Furthermore, the device is stuffed with Fun on the Run Dolby Mobile technology, which offers an improved audio quality while listening to online music when connected to a pair of external portable speakers.
With the mini HDMI port, users stream full HD movies on high-definition big screen TVs or monitors.
In addition, the Iconia Tab A501 sports two integrated cameras, including a 5-megapixel rear-facing model with flash and auto-focus, and a 2-megapixel fixed-focused front-facing webcam for video calling and HD video recording.
It also packs 16GB of flash storage, as well as a microSD card reader that supports memory cards with capacity up to 32GB.
Equipped with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor, the Iconia Tab A510 embeds a GeForce graphics processing unit that allows users to enjoy HD video, blazing fast browsing, multi-tasking, as well as a smooth gaming experience.
“The Acer Iconia Tab A501 with Rogers 4G HSPA+ connectivity provides our customers with a fast and fluid way to stay on the cutting-edge of technology and at the centre of what's happening in the world today. The Iconia Tab A501 is not only intuitive, but it's fashionable, which is important to consumers,” said Sumit Agnihotry, vice president of product marketing for Acer America Corp.
Furthermore, the device is stuffed with Fun on the Run Dolby Mobile technology, which offers an improved audio quality while listening to online music when connected to a pair of external portable speakers.
With the mini HDMI port, users stream full HD movies on high-definition big screen TVs or monitors.
In addition, the Iconia Tab A501 sports two integrated cameras, including a 5-megapixel rear-facing model with flash and auto-focus, and a 2-megapixel fixed-focused front-facing webcam for video calling and HD video recording.
It also packs 16GB of flash storage, as well as a microSD card reader that supports memory cards with capacity up to 32GB.
Specifications
Processor / Chipset / Performance
Acer has been quite generous in the performance department by providing a 1GHz Tegra 2 processor, with 1GB of DDR2 RAM. Sure enough, the tablet did not disappoint at all. We had constantly tested the Iconia Tab A501 for a week, and the tablet did not hang or get stuck up anywhere for even once. All the special effects and transitions have been smooth as butter.
The A501 played 720p video like a charm (though not 1080p) and did well in Android 3.0's handful of graphically intensive games, but on rare occasions we noticed some graphical corruption when playing certain videos in RockPlayer.
Touchscreen DisplayThe TFT LCD Display of 1028x800 resolution has a mirror-like finish. While that does make the tablet looks very stylish, the display also becomes a fingerprint magnet and there is a lot of glare in the screen if its kept under direct light.
Nonetheless, the videos on the display are very crisp. It has a very high viewing angle and gets washed out marginally when viewed from very oblique angles. The clear texts make reading on the Icnonia a pleasure.
Keyboard/Typing
The keyboard is the default one shipped with Honeycomb. The keys are spaced out comfortably, and are pretty large to type. However, as with any other 10-inch tablet, they are a little too big to manage. It is during these times that one is reminded of the thoughtful split keyboard designed by Microsoft for their new Windows 8 tablets. Anyway, if you wish to type with just your thumbs, then you are advised to rotate the tablet in portrait mode. That sure makes life a lot easier. In addition, there is also a XT9 keyboard provided by Acer. Of course, if you are comfortable with neither, you can always download another keyboard from the Android Market.
Battery LifeThe battery life is one aspect where no Android device could ever impress the author. And the situation is even worse in the case of Iconia Tab A501. While other Honeycomb tablets like Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 750 easily last for over 8 hours, the Iconia Tab struggled to survive for over 6.5 hours, thanks to the 3260 mAh battery. It’s a shame that with all the horsepower provided with this stunning the tablet, they couldn’t provide a fatter battery in their effort to keep the tablet’s guts slim.
AudioAs already mentioned above, the Iconia Tab’s audio is hardly praiseworthy. It is actually tinny, at its best. The only silver lining is that the sound is much louder than many other tablets in the market, and definitely better than that of the iPad 2.
Voice Activated SearchI am very excited at the way Google’s developing its speech recognition software. I remember getting blown away by the first Speech recognition demo given by Google at the launch of Nexus One. Sadly, all my excitement was blown to bits when the speech recognition software had gone for a toss during my tests. I realized, like any other speech recognition software, I needed to be an American or a European to be able to make efficient use of them.
I am proud to announce that the voice activated commands provided with Honeycomb is much more efficient and I managed to achieve a success rate of about 90% on it. I admit that I have a neutral accent. But then again, it was me who had tried out the software 2 years ago and was miserably disappointed.
I am hopeful that in another 2-3 iterations of the speech recognition software that ships with Android, it shall be more useful than the keyboard in cases where I shall need to speak just 3-4 words at a time.
Android 3.0 Honeycomb
The A501 played 720p video like a charm (though not 1080p) and did well in Android 3.0's handful of graphically intensive games, but on rare occasions we noticed some graphical corruption when playing certain videos in RockPlayer.
Touchscreen DisplayThe TFT LCD Display of 1028x800 resolution has a mirror-like finish. While that does make the tablet looks very stylish, the display also becomes a fingerprint magnet and there is a lot of glare in the screen if its kept under direct light.
Nonetheless, the videos on the display are very crisp. It has a very high viewing angle and gets washed out marginally when viewed from very oblique angles. The clear texts make reading on the Icnonia a pleasure.
Keyboard/Typing
The keyboard is the default one shipped with Honeycomb. The keys are spaced out comfortably, and are pretty large to type. However, as with any other 10-inch tablet, they are a little too big to manage. It is during these times that one is reminded of the thoughtful split keyboard designed by Microsoft for their new Windows 8 tablets. Anyway, if you wish to type with just your thumbs, then you are advised to rotate the tablet in portrait mode. That sure makes life a lot easier. In addition, there is also a XT9 keyboard provided by Acer. Of course, if you are comfortable with neither, you can always download another keyboard from the Android Market.
Battery LifeThe battery life is one aspect where no Android device could ever impress the author. And the situation is even worse in the case of Iconia Tab A501. While other Honeycomb tablets like Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 750 easily last for over 8 hours, the Iconia Tab struggled to survive for over 6.5 hours, thanks to the 3260 mAh battery. It’s a shame that with all the horsepower provided with this stunning the tablet, they couldn’t provide a fatter battery in their effort to keep the tablet’s guts slim.
AudioAs already mentioned above, the Iconia Tab’s audio is hardly praiseworthy. It is actually tinny, at its best. The only silver lining is that the sound is much louder than many other tablets in the market, and definitely better than that of the iPad 2.
Voice Activated SearchI am very excited at the way Google’s developing its speech recognition software. I remember getting blown away by the first Speech recognition demo given by Google at the launch of Nexus One. Sadly, all my excitement was blown to bits when the speech recognition software had gone for a toss during my tests. I realized, like any other speech recognition software, I needed to be an American or a European to be able to make efficient use of them.
I am proud to announce that the voice activated commands provided with Honeycomb is much more efficient and I managed to achieve a success rate of about 90% on it. I admit that I have a neutral accent. But then again, it was me who had tried out the software 2 years ago and was miserably disappointed.
I am hopeful that in another 2-3 iterations of the speech recognition software that ships with Android, it shall be more useful than the keyboard in cases where I shall need to speak just 3-4 words at a time.
Android 3.0 Honeycomb
The Honeycomb homepage actually offers up a great deal of functionality - it isn’t just a collection of your apps. The top left-hand corner offers a Google search area, comprising both text and Voice Search. The text search is a straight Google search returning the results you’d expect. If you’ve not experienced Voice Search before it is worth playing around with.
Move over to the top right-hand corner and it is here that you’ll find the apps menu and the customise “plus” icon we’ve already mentioned. The apps menu simply opens up the full-page menu which scrolls left to right. Again, you can see you have something over the page by an outline of the app icon, which is pretty smart.
The bottom System Bar on Honeycomb swings in and offers some of the (usually) persistent top notification bar you’ll be familiar with in Android on your mobile phone. On the left-hand side it offers three major navigation icons: back, home and recent apps, which pops-up so you can easily switch to something else. These three icons exist in most Honeycomb windows and are always in the same place so you pretty much know what you are doing all the time.
The bottom right-hand corner of the System Bar is all about information. It is here you’ll find the time, the connection status, battery life and notifications. Honeycomb is lightyears ahead of iOS when it comes to notifications. Notifications will appear as icons in the bottom right-hand corner, so will inform you of emails, tweets, app updates and so on. These can be tapped to pop them up and deleted individually, or again tapped on to open up the relevant app.
It’s a sensible approach to notifications, meaning you can be getting on with whatever it is you do and deal with those over events as and when you like - be that an IM chat over Skype, checking your new emails or a reminder from your calendar. It is similar to the existing Android notification system, but given the extra space, there is more information which is exactly what you want from a tablet.
Like Chrome for your PC, you can opt to have the start page of the browser open on your most visited websites and you have the option to open an Incognito window which will let you research nefarious content without that activity finding its way into your most visited sites or search history.
It is incredibly fast to load pages and because this is Android, it will also offer up Flash content once you’ve downloaded the update from the Android Market. At the time of writing Flash Player 10.2 is classed as a beta build for Android 3.0.1, and we found it to be mostly stable, but not entirely adept at controlling the Flash content it was dealing with.
We love Honeycomb and there are so many things about it that feel right and it is useable at the moment, but it isn’t the polished experience that iPad owners get, and Android users expect. Yes, the iPad is a year older, the OS is more established, but Apple would never put a product on sale that failed as often as the Honeycomb tablet we’ve been using.
No comments:
Post a Comment