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