We begin Acer Iconia Tab A200 review with a detailed introduction.
Introduction
Taiwan company Acer has unveiled their tablet Iconia Tab A200, few months ago. First version was released with Android 3.0 while as we speak, the new shipments are being made with Android 4.0 included (also known as “Ice Cream Sandwich”).
The tablet initial price was $330 and that price is currently sticking around.
The first thing we are touching in this Acer Iconia Tab A200 review is its screen. Acer Iconia Tab A200 has a screen of 25,6 cm (10,1”) and resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. Under the non-removable (by user) enclosure lies a 3.260mAh Li-ion battery. The battery is supposed to provide about 8 h of usage, but in some real battery tests, with playing videos while brightness was set to the max and Wi-Fi on, the tabet’s 3.260 mAh battery only managed to last 6 hours and 45 minutes.
There is also Nvidia’s double core processor Tegra 2, with 1GHz and 1GB of RAM, one USB and one microUSB slot. Its Tegra 2 is hard to compare it with blazing fast Tegra 3 that is quad-core, like the one Transformer prime has, since the A200 would be blown out on the benchmarks. However, in real life usage, A200 runs smoothly with no hiccups. Applications work flawlessly, and there is no delay in switching between several running apps. Web pages are loading very fast, and Acer Iconia Tab A200 has successfully passed multimedia tests – can play 3GP, M4V, MP4, WMV, DivX and H.264 at 1080p resolution. The first reports also say that Google Talk and Skype video chats seem to work better than on other tablets.
Another important thing we are going to cover in this Acer Iconia Tab A200 review is camera. The front camera of 2MP, is the lonely one since there is no rear facing one on this tablet. However, we can’t say that this is necessary negative fact, since taking pictures and shooting videos with large tablets like this, would be kind of inconvenient and probably comical. Wi-Fi connection is supported, along with Bluetooth. The Acer Iconia weighs about 700 grams. The weight and size might arise as a problem if you have used to have long periods of holding your tablet, since your hands might get tired.
This device was made for web browsing, video watching, gaming and “social networking”.
Acer has preloaded a great number of useful apps: Docs 2 Go, Astro File Manager (which has proved to be very useful with handling USB drives) and Evernote. Technically, the fact that this preloaded applications can’t be uninstalled, marks them as bloatware. On the other hand, since we can say that they are somewhat useful and that they aren’t numerous, this shouldn’t be a big deal.
Acer presented this unit just a few days prior to (CES) exhibition that was held in Las Vegas during mid January. Although it was first available in US stores, today you can buy it world wide.
Pros
? Comes with “Ice Cream Sandwich” (Android 4.0)
? Full-size USB 2.0 port.
? Inexpensive
? Reliable and smooth performance.
Cons
? Mediocre display.
? Thick and heavy.
? No USB charging.
? No rear facing camera.
Recommendation
We complete our Acer Iconia Tab A200 review with our recommendation.The new Acer’s Iconia Tab A200 might be somewhat heavy and also tick, but his price is low and it has a decent performance. After adding the fact that it comes with the latest Android OS the “Ice Cream Sandwich,” this device becomes the right choice for budget-minded consumers.
Complete details and specification of Acer Iconia Tab A200 can be found here.
