Acer America today announced the Acer Iconia Tab A500 which is the company’s first 10.1-inch tablet running Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) in the new Acer Iconia family of tablets for North America. It is available for pre-order online exclusively from Best Buy.
The new Acer Iconia Tab A500 tablet features the NVIDIA Tegra 250 1GHz dual-core processor and integrated GeForce GPU and weighs 1.69 pounds and measures 0.52-inches thick. It also includes forward and rear-facing cameras for capturing videos and photos as well as video conferencing.
A Best Buy exclusive, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 with WiFi is now available for pre-order online at bestbuy.com and may be pre-ordered in stores beginning April 14. The Acer Iconia Tab A500 with WiFi will be available in stores and online beginning April 24. The Acer Iconia Tab A500 has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of US$449.99.
“Staying connected and entertained are firmly embedded as a part of our everyday lives – and the Acer Iconia Tab A500 does this and so much more in a performance-minded, sleek and stylish design,” said Sumit Agnihotry, vice president of product marketing, Acer America, in the press release. “This tablet absolutely delivers on the expectation that customers can be entertained, stay in touch with family, friends, colleagues and social networks, as well as keep up on the world around them in a way that is intuitive and fluid, and also incredibly enjoyable.”
Best Buy’s vice president of computing, Jason Bonfig, stated in the press release, “Tablets are paving the way for people to enjoy a whole new form factor in entertainment and connection. We’re pleased to have Acer join our tablet selection and to offer our customers an opportunity to try this tablet out for themselves at any Best Buy store.”
The 10.1-inch capacitive touch-screen has a 1280×800 TFT WXGA display with an 80-degree wide viewing angle. It offers HD 720p video in a 16:10 aspect ratio, a built-in HDMI port, 1GB of RAM, integrated 16GB of flash storage for programs and apps (a larger storage capacity of 32GB is planned for future models), a Micro-SD card reader (supports up to 32GB Micro-SD cards), a six-axis motion sensing gyro meter and comes with two full games: “Need for Speed: Shift” and “Let’s Golf.” The tablet supports eReading and comes pre-installed with Acer LumiRead and Google Books eReading app, while Zinio is pre-installed for reading digital magazines.
The Acer Iconia Tab A500 connects to Wi-Fi networks with Acer InviLink Nplify 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED wireless tech. It is DLNA-compliant. Customers can also set up multiple email addresses in the tablet and open and view Microsoft Office documents using the trial version of the “Docs to Go” app.
The tablet features two webcams, a 5MP rear-facing camera has a flash and is auto-focusing and a 2MP fixed-focused front-facing webcam. The device features built-in GPS, integrated Bluetooth, and houses two 3260 mAh Li-polymer batteries that Acer claims provides “up to eight hours of playback for casual games, eight hours of HD video playback and 10 hours of WiFi Internet browsing.” Acer promises Adobe Flash capability is a “future update” (after the reviews about performance and battery life are published, of course).
The Acer Iconia Tab A500 has a brushed metal aluminum chassis and a “high-gloss finish decorated with engraved patterns” that Acer claims “creates a subtle sophistication.” It measures 10.24″ x 6.97″ x 0.52″. The device looks very similar to the Acer-made Packard Bell Liberty Tab sold in Europe.
MacDailyNews Note: iPad 2 specs: 9.50″ x 7.31″ x 0.34″. 1.33 pounds.
The Acer Iconia Tab A500 will launch with a few accessories:
• The full-sized Bluetooth keyboard. MSRP is $69.99.
• The dock with IR remote with connection for an external speaker or headphone. MSRP is $79.99.
• Protective case. MSRP is $39.99.
• The Americas power adapter set comes with the four connectors used in North, Central and South America as well as the UK and Europe. MSRP is $29.99.
Source: Acer America Corp.
Thickness and weight: Acer Iconia Tab A500 vs. Apple iPad vs. other pretend iPads:
MacDailyNews Take: So, how many apps can Sir Fat Fugliness run? Is it still 16 or have the various Android marketplaces collectively hit 17 by now? Not counting malware, of course. And how many of these Android tablet apps are specifically designed for 7-in. pretend iPads and how many specifically for 10-inch fake iPads? Fragmentation is a bitch. We can’t wait for the reviews, but we’ll bet you one thing, in head-to-head performance tests it’ll get its ass soundly whipped by Apple’s A5.
Related articles:
Apple’s iPad: 60,000+ apps vs. Android 3.0 tablets: 16 apps – February 25, 2011
I cannot stand when they try to call something a “killer” before it actually has “killed” anything, no less an iPad.
Oh I agree. It will fail to capture much market like all the other “iPad Killers.”
Oh I agree. It will capture very little market like all the other “iPad Killers.”
Don’t get your pants on a knot; MDN writes the headline. We used to read about iPod killers and then iPhone killers.
The iPad2 will die laughing.
Yes it should be iPad Killed or iPad Wannabe. Or iPad CSTBE (Copy Soon To Be Extinct). Or iPad Poseur. Or iPad Road Kill.
I pity the fools.
I love this website. I come here because I know in advance that no matter the story, this site will find some way to trash anything that doesn’t come from Cupertino. It’s entertaining and this visit didn’t disappoint. Just when I think that maybe Mac isn’t a religion and is just a choice or preference, this site keeps the faith going!
You are entirely correct. Why can’t MDN just wait a few weeks for the roadkill, when the blood flows, when the model is retracted for redesign? Then they will have the right to speak. At this point we don’t even know whether this tablet will last 4 or 6 weeks. Of course they may remain available much longer, waiting on dusty shelves for a customer.
Because there is never any announcement that a company is pulling a product because it sucked at sales. The product just disappears, or is replaced by a new, “improved” model.
Plus, MDN wouldn’t be able to gloat over its prediction of crash and burn.
Is truth any less truth becomes it comes from the faithful?
I enjoy this web site too. The take downs of other equipment can be very humorous. But you lose points when you imply that its just Apple fans.
Go to a pc or pc hardware web site. The anti-Apple sentiment is thick as mud. But even there, the appreciation for good products coming from Apple is growing.
Just an open minded thought, 🙂
en
exactly.
So, Rick….instead of drivel, tell us why this product should be a choice for ANY tablet user. It has ZERO competitive advantages, unless you’re willing to throw usability out the window for a measly $50. And if you’re too stupid to realize $50 is a small price to pay for what an iPad 2 does, then I just can’t help you.
People like you catagorize Apple fans as a cult. Instead, it really is millions of discriminating consumers who are willing and able to buy the best product on the market. And their continual good experiences with the company give them reason to tell others. You have a favorite restaurant that serves great food? I bet you tell people about it.
ZERO competitive advantages?? thats what i would say about the Ipad! NO flash support, NO connectivity to anything that does not have that ridiculous Itunes installed. NO hdmi, NO usb, NO extra memory, but oh yeah, it looks nice and is the lightest, and it forms a nice little team with your ipod and iphone….. and every other inconnectible device that starts with ”I’.
apple users are just being suckered into compulsive collective behaviour for everything that has that little apple on it
zero competitive advantage? really? lets see, from what im getting, i dont need to sign up my mom in law for a new service for this Acer where i would with an Ipad…the cameras are better resolution MP and results wise..(if im gonna throw down $500 for a freakin tablet, i had BETTER get crisp and clear visuals out of any camera installed)…as for hailing Apple as the gospel of technology..lets look back to the “you have to hold the iphone a certain way or get a special cover to improve the reception…F*** that…hell,i heard you need a note from the Pope to even try and return an Apple product..and since someone mentioned PC’s…if apple makes such great PC’s, why can you STILL not buy one for under $1000? nuff said…
Dear Rick:
I’m sure we all love you back for your sarcasm free love for MDN, and appreciate your visits/inputs etc.
Any-who, have you had a chance to take a look at the said device from Acer? It’s right up there, and for many of us not vision impaired, that picture alone was all we needed to see.
Overlook all the software differentiating factors (celebrated intuitive UI made for humans, Apps both qualitatively and quantitatively, iTunes Store with legal movies and music, custom SoC designed for speed, battery-life flash-free and optimised through vigorous in house research, full backups of contacts and contents, compatibility with iPhone/iPod touch echo-system, AirPlay, and the list goes on), even forget about most things related to the hardware look (iPad is gorgeous enough, some feel, to make everything else look like cheap plasticy tanks leaking lead paints), but just concentrate only on the dimension factors alone, as pointed out by MDN, particularly the thickness.
If you don’t think that matters, go ahead, hold them both for about a minute side by side, and then feel free to come here and cheer all your want about the so called iPad killers, and jeer MDN earnestly. We dare you.
of course it is the lightest and smallest. no usb portal, no hdmi connection, no extra memory slot…no nothing, I’m no apple hater, but it took apple 20 years to even become profitable, and thats not without reason. they had some very good ideas and visions, eventually, but their nazistic view on the computermarket, will eventually be the cause that they will be catapulted back to square one. mark my words, I know many people, adepts from day 1, who decided to stop giving apple their money, because in todays computermarket you need connectivity, and not only to your own stuff.
but its not only about this… how can you, in these days, have the arrogance of not allowing extra memory????? how can you outlaw a friggin memory card????
When I first visited MDN, I noted the partisan flavor, although to say “religion” is hyperbole. After a time, however, you discover the highly accurate level of predictability here, vastly beyond any pundit, analyst, reviewer, commentator, etc. Beyond the enthusiasm, MDN’s vision, shared by many of its readers, most frequently grasps the actual nature of Apple’s products and competition.
Sometimes balanced objectivity will yield seemingly partisan conclusions.
I like coming to this site because I can freely spew my hate and revulsion for all non-Apple products and almost nobody seems to mind. Unite, brother’s-in-arms and cast out all the wannabes, copycats, Apple-killers, Flash-tards and what have you. I can already feel catharsis taking place.
Maybe not religion – MDN is more like the Smithers to Apple’s Mr Burns.
I’m sure there is a name for your particular pathology of visiting sites you have no intrinsic interest in…
Hey Rick, did it occur to you that MDN “trashes anything that doesn’t come from Cupertino” because anything that doesn’t come from Cupertino is sadly trash in general?
Seriously, just look at that thing. It’s a flop before it even hits the store shelves. The operating system it’s running hovers somewhere between being an alpha and a beta, and even if it were ready for prime time it would still be far less than great. It’s specs? Regular people don’t care about specs, they only care if the OS and apps are easy to use and run smoothly without crashing. Honeycomb is screwed in both these regards. Its price? It needs to be at least $200 cheaper to give it some kind of tangible advantage.
How is it that people like you never come back and admit we were right whenever some DOA dud(like the Iconia Tab) from a clueless tech company(like Acer) is announced and our predictions of its failure turn out to be right on the money? How come it’s always “lol, look at the Mac cultists bashing the Zune/Kin/Xoom/Iconia/etc.” and never “oh, so the Zune/Kin/Xoom/Iconia/etc. flopped after all. You guys weren’t mindlessly bashing it, you knew it would fail because you recognized it had crippling flaws. Your dismissal of it as a failure was less like an ‘Apple fanboy’ thing and more like an ‘observing reality’ thing”.
Will you break the pattern, Rick? When the Iconia fails to be a success, and it will, are you going to come back and admit we had valid reasons for mocking it? That we weren’t expressing a mindless bias, but an actual recognition that the Iconia was flawed in ways that would prevent it from selling well?
I kind of doubt it.
iPad killer? It is more of Xoom killer, Playbook killer, HTC killer, Samsung. Come on, let’s join “race to the bottom” championship. To those Android OEM, it is deja vu of netbook, PC.
What’s with the trap door thing on the back?
It’s to feed the fairies who power the POS…
It’s a pencil sharpener…
It’s how it poops.
it’s been rumoured Best Buy is in hot water with Apple for withholding sales of iPad even when they have stock.
they must have pre-bought a whole bunch of these losers and with piles of unsold xooms, galaxy tabs etc are worried they can’t ‘sell’ them (i.e unload them to unsuspecting morons)…
That’s why Apple had to start Apple Stores after being shafted by retailers for years and why Android phones are selling (due to carriers pushing them).
Showing up to an Indy car race with an AMC Gremlin…
The only ‘killer’ here is the iPad — the Android Killer
At least it doesn’t look like an iPad. It actually looks okay.
Are you serious? Looks like a behind-the-seat dvd player.
Yawn, another Android POS. MDN is got to stop boring us with this crap. The only tablet news I want to hear about is the IPad 3.
It’s fatal flaw is android. And flash. And it’s ugly. And late. And lame.
The problem with all Best Buys in the country is that the salespeople will relentlessly push customers to purchase the gadgets which gives them (the salespeople) the biggest “spiff” (or commission) on the item. Apple give ZERO SPIFFS at all, so Best Buy salespeople will NEVER recommend ANY Apple product EVER to ANY customer. However, Acer gives about $50-$100 for each computer sold, so the Best Buy salespeople push those pieces of crap relentlessly.
That’s why Best Buy is in hot water with Apple. You mess with the bull you get the horns!
Forgive me if I am wrong, In Canada we were given the impression that the employees at Best Buy were not on commission. This how they different themselves from The Future Shop, also own by Best Buy.
Commissions and bonuses (“spiffs”) are two different things. True, that Best Buy employees don’t get commissions, but they do receive spiffs.
This is spot on. I worked at some Circuit City stores back in the Apple promo days and watch salestaff steer people away from Apple products to get their little kickbacks (spiffs). Made me sick and pissed. Spiffs should be illegal.
That’s why Apple absolutely had to go with their own retail stores because of double-dealing assholes who are more interested in getting kickbacks instead of giving all brands a fair shot (I understand why but I still don’t like it). I’ll bet the corporate world worked the same way. The corporate dude in charge of ordering 10,000 Dell Windows PCs cut a sweet back-office deal. Well, those guys are gonna get screwed when employees are allowed to choose their own computing devices.
It’s funny when I saw the word “spiffs”. At first I thought that they were getting “spliffs” (A nice fat, roll of fine marijuana and tobacco)
I am a current Best Buy employee and we never receive spiffs from other companies. I am the Apple Expert at our store and the first question that all employees (in my store) ask is if they are interested in a Mac. We love Mac and understand the complete benefits they offer! Best Buy is just getting carried away because they can sell little to no extra services on Macs. That will never change how I sell! Apple for life!
“After all, you can’t make a living off a user base that consists of cheapskate BOGOF pigeons, elderly Consumer Reports subscribers, and pseudo-freetards.”
That pretty much says it all.
I just showed a photo of the Acer tablet to my wife. She is not a techie per se, but she is an iPad (first generation) user. She dismissed it saying, “Why would I want that?” On pure aesthetics alone, she dismissed it. Now, I just have to figure how to keep her hands off my iPad 2… 🙂
Hide the iPad 2 in the front of your pants. My wife hasn’t gone near that region since our first year of marriage.
Ah yes, another arrival in the parade of iPod, I mean iPad killers.
Anyone notice how Microsoft is completely out of the running in the tablet market ?
Looks like a tablet for Zune Tang!
They are bundling software. That’s how they are able to get the price down. They are bundling games, e-reader apps, as well as a free trial of MS Office reader. Nice to know they didn’t learn from all of the bloatware on Windows PCs.
I went into a Best Buy store once:
Me: “I need to connect my LCD TV to my stereo system.”
BB Drone: “You need a home theatre system.”
Me: “I already have speakers. Do you have something that will connect my LCD TV to my stereo system?”
BB Drone: “You need a home theatre system.”
Me: “Look, I’m an electronics technician. I know better than that. What I need is some sort of an audio or optical input device for my stereo system.”
BB Drone: “You need a home theatre system.”
Me: “It sounds like you’re speaking English, but apparently you aren’t. I give up. Goodbye.”
Pimply faced kid at BB kept telling me USB 2 was the faster than FireWire 2.
He wouldn’t listen about the differing ways USB is measured vs FireWire. Or when I explained my studio tested the connections applied to Photoshop and video and found that even FireWire 400 is faster than USB 800. What will he say about T-Bolt?
I decided to buy external drives elsewhere.
Zeke, if you really need something to convert optical/coaxial digital to analog line-level (RCA/Phono) output, take a look at the Geffen DA converter.
Thanks. Will do.
Another scam by WS shysters. Theyget their management friends to buy these products (best buy) at the expense of longterm shareholders. Theypromise both acer and best buy that they will push their stock pps to new heights.
It is obvious to me that first, they planted the bestbuy story of a dispute with apple. Now thru have this acer story. Next, they will say that apple’s arrogance withchannel partners will give an opportunity for the iPad killers. All in the name of keeping apple pps down fir weekly options gains.
It is all a cover to justify the manipulation by the market makers.
DOA….. moving on…..
Here’s a link to a high quality image:
http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=224699&page=1&zoomIdx=1
Call me crazy (I know you will), but it doesn’t look DOA to me. NIce to have an SD Card slot. HDMI seems like a nice feature. The screen size is bigger. Much better camera. Flash and Flash. Better screen resolution. Same general price…
All those things will make it worth a look for many.
BTW, the debut of tablets like this make the introduction of an iPad 3 before Christmas seem very likely. Or at least an iPad 2 bump.
ANYONE who thinks that a 16:10 wide=screen ratio is good for a tablet that should be capable of doing anything other than watching wide-screen movies is an idiot. There is a good reason why the iPad is 4:3 and why HP copied that form factor.
BTW – This screen is NOT ‘much bigger’, just the wrong aspect ratio for a tablet. This is one of the big reasons the XOOM is so awful, and why this POS will not sell at all.
Exactly. The iPad ratio makes it natural in both portrait or landscape, but a widescreen aspect ratio makes for an awkward portrait orientation experience. Legal pads have their place, but they are just not commonly used as notebooks. There is a reason for that.
Other substantial shortcomings aside, no device that looks like a chewable laxative will ever be an “iPad killer”.
The iPad 2 has an A5 processor. The Acer tablet is called the A500. Coincidence? Nope. Acer is trying to confuse the consumer to believe their POS is the same as an iPad. Pathetic, but not unexpected. That’s their whole business model, right? Convince the masses they make a cheaper iPad?
No, they’re trying to use the halo effect of the Commodore Amiga A500. 😉
I would just like to thank companies that have the b@lls to go at Apple like this. Competition is good for everyone. It makes good devices better and it can be a good/bad case scenario for why certain features are pushed or heldback.
There are features in the Droid I wish I had on my iPhone, but (and this is a big but) new features don’t exist I’m a vacuum there are trade-offs–whether it be battery life, performance, etc.
For me the iPhone is the percect sweet-spot. The one are where Apple is heads above all other handset makers is user experience–the others JUST DON’T GET IT. And that’s where they loose me.
first of all I (and mdn) said this many times apple is it’s own competition. Apple is all the competition that apple needs and so far it’s the only competition around. Also I agree with u that android has some cool features. In fact if they combined the two OSs with all the best features it would be exactly like iOS except with the option for the android lock