Review: Acer Iconia Tab A100 7-inch 8GB Honeycomb tablet

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

The Acer Iconia Tab A100 is a unique device in a sea of Android tablets. Designed for users on a strict budget or perhaps techies looking for an affordable tablet that runs Honeycomb in a 7-inch form factor, it combines a solid feature set with no frills aesthetics geared towards functionality.

Selling at $299 for the 8GB job (with microSD expansion) and with 1GHz of RAM backing up the dual core 1 Ghz Tegra 2 processor and the latest Android Honeycomb 3.2. In terms of specs and pricing, the Iconia A100 blows away any of the current 7-inch Android tablets who cost much more and are still mired in the smartphone version of the OS which is Android 2.2.

We think that the Icona Tab A100 is also a great option to the overpriced and heavy 10.1-inch Android Honeycomb devices that start at $399 and go upwards to $500 for the base model. Acer's approach is really clever. Offer users a great base device and let them buy their own memory. This keeps pricing low and gives great latitude to consumer wanting more space for media or apps.

The Tab A100 has a 5 megapixel rear camera, a 2 megapixel front facing camera and HDMI-out, DLNA, G-Sensor; E-Compass; Light Sensor; Gyroscope as well as a 4.5 hour battery life.

But where we see the Acer Iconia A100 really making some waves is as an eBook reader. The screen is backlit but clear enough to read Kobo, Kindle, Sony Reader or Nook books in (Android has free apps for those platforms, and more). You can easily hold it in one hand, easily tuck it into you vest pocket and  if you want to tablet around with apps or whatnot then you also have a full functioning tablet. This will run rings of fire around the Kindle Fire.

While a lot of focus has been on the 10.1 inch tablet market, we've always preferred the smaller models. We owned and loved the first Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 and it was perfect for taking anywhere and although it really was a big phone you couldn't make calls with, we loved it as a reader and as Twitter device.

Now, the Iconia Tab A100 is so much better than the Tab 7 in terms of hardware and software. It is more portable than our favourite 7-incher, the BlackBerry PlayBook, and of course it runs more apps.

We see the $300 price point as acceptable, weren't people buying PMPs and MP3 players at $300 not too long ago? Acer priced this device right, and so it really offers tablet buyers the most bang for their buck.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5