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| 1280 x 800. Plenty of room! |
Acer's 10.1" Honeycomb tablet weighs a bit more than most competitors. For that small weight penalty you get a tank of a tablet with more features than most. I've had my A500 for a few weeks now (
Target.com) , and am greatly appreciating the included full-sized USB port, 5mp Camera (with flash), and solid construction. You can find more information about it at
Acer.com.
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| Brushed Aluminum Back. Stereo Speaker. |
Audio output is surprisingly good with the two built-in speakers. Not the best for music as there is no low frequency output, but fine for podcasts, audio books, and even movies. There is a standard headphone jack on the left end. The A500 also sports an LED flash next to the 5mp rear camera!
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| MicroSD slot under the top-edge flap. Future 3G SIM slot on the right. |
You get a volume rocker and screen rotation lock on the top edge, left. The power button and headphone jack are on the left end near the top. That is a
Micro HDMI jack near the bottom of the left end (below).
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| Power, Headphone jack, and HDMI jack. |
The right end holds the rest of the goodies. The AC power jack is near the top, with microUSB and standard USB ports near the bottom (below).
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| USB, microUSB, Reset, and Power jack. |
You can enjoy ALL of the web with Adobe Flash support and full sized web pages on the large screen. Angry birds is a joy to play on the 10.1" screen, and even more to watch on your HDTV via the HDMI out port. The USB port supports
USB keyboards,
USB mice, removable storage devices, and (when android 3.1 arrives)
USB joysticks and game controllers.
 |
| Google. Not their Mobile version. |
 |
| Angry Birds Rio! |
Music and Video are well served by this Iconia. The 16:10 screen is far better than any 4:3 screen on a tablet for wide screen movies. The Google Music app works great! Photos look wonderful in portrait or landscape view.
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| A scene from Mulan fills the screen. |
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| Google Music app. Now-Playing portrait view. |
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| Photo of a Rocking Hammock. Designed by Lydia Palma. |
Conclusion:
Acer's Iconia A500 is a winner here. At $449 for the 16gb version it is $50 less expensive than a comparable
Apple iPad 2 yet far more capable. You can easily expand its memory with up to a
32GB microSDHC Memory Card. Access media or documents off a connected
USB thumb drive or
external USB hard drive. You'll find thousands of
Android apps certified to work with Honeycomb (Android 3.0/3.1). I was able to find parallels of every critical app I have on my iPad2. The dual-core Tegra 2 processor inside will play any game on the android market with ease. Plug in a USB keyboard and get some work done with the included Document to Go programs. Put your inner artist to work with
Autodesk's Sketchbook or any of a dozen other drawing programs for Android. Send your sketch over Bluetooth or in an email to your friend's phone or tablet. If you are looking for a great tablet, this is a serious contender. Acer has promised an update to Android 3.1 before the end of June (2011).
I'm keeping mine!
4D
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Now that Archos put Android on one of their touchscreen monsters I thought it was worth a look. The Archos 5 Internet Tablet (with Android) comes in 8gb (Radio Shack), 16gb and 32gb flash memory models, as well as 160gb and 500gb hard drive based models. The 500gb model is roughly $500 and a great deal per gigabyte. I don't have any need for that much space so I picked up the 32gb version. The flash memory models are thinner and have a microSD slot for add-on storage.
Source: BHPhotoVideo.com. Amazon.com and Newegg.com have them as well. Typically $380 for the 32gb model.
- Video: MPEG-4 HD (up to 720p), MPEG-48 (ASP@L5 AVI, up to DVD resolution), H.264 HD (up to 720p), WMV (MP@ML, up to DVD resolution) including WMV protected files, MKV (up to 720p, 2500kbs, 23fps), M-JPEG (Motion JPEG Video) in QVGA resolution. Up to 7 hours. 
- Photos: JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
- Flash Games
The User Interface: Sensitive and reliable. Some actions take awhile to process and that can make you think the UI is sluggish, but once you are at the Home Menu or within the photo app you'll see there is plenty of horse power for smooth graphics and quick response when it is most important. The body has only three external buttons. Thankfully they included VOLume Up and VOLume Down along with the Power button.
Quality: As a media player this Archos has what it takes. Music, Video, and photos all take advantage of the hardware, sounding and looking great. Using Wifi you can also access shared folders on your home network to find far more than you might have stored locally on the 5. As a pocket computer the 5 is not completely there, but it's got the tools to improve with firmware updates. Support for a bluetooth keyboard and network printer would be all that's needed to eliminate one's need for a notebook PC. The 5 tends to attract fingerprints front and back, but so do most touchscreen devices I've tried. Seams between body halves are a little sharp. The built-in stand is a nice touch and is mounted stiffly enough to be adjusted to variable viewing angles. It will also prop the 5 up on it's right end but the 5's rounded end makes for a teetery perch.
That's right. I plunked down my money for the SDK and 32gb Zii Egg, and here are my first impressions. The bottom end is where you'll find the headphone jack, Mini, USB jack, and Zii proprietary connector jack. The top edge shows the power button, and you can see the HD camera lens near the top on the Zii's back. I've left the little plastic protection tab on it until I see an app that can actually make use of this camera.
According to Zii Labs, this is very impressive hardware. However there is no way to demonstrate or evaluate many of the features at this point. No Apps to use the cameras. No apps to use the GPS. Not even a setting to turn bluetooth on. What we did get is a Music app, a Video app, a Photo app, a web browser, a some basic settings to play with.
It's a case of Amazing Potential that is still Undeveloped.
The Music App handles MP3, M4a, and WAV files so far. Sound quality is great when using decent headphones. I haven't seen the screen display cover art yet. You get all the necessary controls within the music app. There are no preset or user definable equalizer options. You can sort by Album, Artist, Genres, or All Tracks. The now playing screen can cycle between three sets of options including with track position slider, with volume slider, and just album art to view. I'll state again that so far I haven't been able to display any album art in the Music app though.
The Video app is quite capable. I threw AVI, MP4, and WMV movies on the Zii and all played fine. No audio/video sync issues. No frame drops. The Zii came with a sample MP4 video that was 1280 x 720. I tried 540 x 360 WMV and 320 x 180 AVI movies with no difficulty. There is certainly room for improvement in the Video app, but those would only be settings for brightness and perhaps playback speed. This Zii should be able to output HD movies directly to your TV over HDMI. I've got the required HDMI cable coming, so we'll see. I don't know where I'll find any 1920 x 1080 video content, but am confident the Zii's processor is up to that task. Below is a scene from Mulan. You can see a reflection of my Camera lens on the very glossy screen. 
UI. There is not much to say about the User Interface. You've got app icons. You tap on those icons to open the app. When done with the app you hit the Home button to return to this home menu. Nothing innovative or creative here. Screen response is at times hesitant, as if the Zii is not paying attention. Yet when it wants to the response can be instant. There is NO multitasking yet. Even the Music app stops playing if you return to the Home menu.
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