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UPDATE - 6/27/11 -
I did get a software update a while back for the A500, and it did fix the screen waking up, this made it so that the battery will now last for a couple of days of light use before it runs out, compared to being plugged in everyday like it was before when the screen would wake up for notifications.
I haven't really noticed any other large changes from the previous version. On the other hand, I did see that a leaked version of the 3.1 upgrade is out on the web today, so we should be getting that upgrade soon, and it sounds like a lot of enhancements are in that update.
One other thing of note, is that I picked up a wireless usb keyboard for use with the A500, and it worked fine for me, but my wife was trying to use it with blogger and she said she was having problems with it. Seems like it couldn't quite keep up with her typing. It doesn't seem to be the keyboard but the A500 that was the limiting factor, because I used the keyboard on a normal laptop, and didn't notice any lag.
I still really like using the A500 over having to use a normal laptop like I was before, it is just so much nicer that it is always on and I can just hit the power button and go! Still very happy with this purchase.
END UPDATE
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I bought this the week it showed up in a brick and mortar store near me. I love having a tablet around, it is much quick to just pick it up and use it instead of having to wake up/start up my computer. I use this for most of my web browsing now when I am at home, and I also take the tablet to work and use it for music via bluetooth (works perfectly with my sony DR-BT50 headphones).
HDMI
I have also purchased an hdmi cable for the tablet and that works awesome. When you plug in the hdmi cable, it will automatically start mirroring the display, and the sound worked through the TV speakers as expected. I have noticed that since the resolution on the A500 is 1280x800 it cuts off part of the top and bottom when it is connected to my tv, which runs it at 720p (1280x720). This is a minor annoyance because I was able to share videos and other content quickly and easily with the tablet, where as with my laptop, it never seems to work as nice.
Sound & Display
The sound on the tablet is really good, I was kind of surprised, for such a small thing to have such good sound. I am not saying I would want to listen to my music over the speakers, my headphones are much better for that, but for sharing music or videos with people around it works pretty well. The display is fine, good, but not great. I think the colors and brightness are fine, but my phone seems better (Galaxy S phone). The viewing angle is good, and easily sharable with a person sitting next to you.
Apps & Software
I really like Honeycomb (Android 3), the G-mail client is much better. The browser is fine, but it is a little on the sluggish side. I planned on using this to replace a laptop for surfing the web while moving around the house, and it is good for that, but I can tell that the browser is just not as fast as the laptop on the same network, so I think it might be a little underpowered by comparison. Most sites load with the full site and not a mobile site (wired for some reason always gives me the mobile... grrrr), and that makes it a much better experience. The on-screen keyboard is ok, I am so used to using swype on my phone, that I miss it when using the A500, but I haven't tried to install it yet. As for the other apps in the android market, I have loaded a bunch of the non-tablet apps, and they seem to work fine for me. Most of them scale great (including angry birds, which is huge on a 10.1" screen). I have also picked up a few tablet only versions, and they worked just as well.
Hardware
Overall the tablet seems zippy, I haven't noticed any slowdowns when running regularly, though I did get choppy video when trying to use a 720p video on You Tube while connected to HDMI. I haven't tried that again, but I have a feeling it just was too much for the tablet. Anyway I love that it has the HDMI port, and the USB micro in for transferring data over, and a normal usb for a keyboard, or flash drives.
WIFI
The wifi works just ok, the signal strength doesn't seem as good as a normal laptop, but it is about the same or possibly a little better than my Galaxy S phone. I have also had times where sitting 10 feet from the router I kept loosing the signal, but after a reboot, it seemed to work fine. I have also wifi tethered the A500 to my phone, and that worked out great. Basically you just turn on wifi-tether on the phone, and the A500 saw it as an access point right away. The only bad part is that it does suck the phone's battery very quickly. I did this while out camping (sadly only getting E :( and not 3G), and it made the trip a lot nicer than trying to use my phone like I had in the past for e-mail and catching up in reader.
Now for the downers....
So I mentioned that there were a couple of problems, and they will probably all be fixed via software updates. First off I had a heck of a time using the market when I first purchased the A500. It would get stuck when it was suppose to download something. I finally did a wipe of the data (fresh install again), and I had the same problem. I realized that I had clicked on the update for google maps when it first loaded up, and after another wipe, I went to the market first, and had to accept the agreement, and then everything worked fine. So, click on the Market icon first and accept the terms.
*FIXED* -- Another thing that is annoying is that the screen keeps popping on when the tablet is not in use. I was reading on some of the forums, that if you turn off wifi, or put the tablet in airplane mode, that it would stop doing this. It seems to be that when it tries to do data updates in the background, it turns the screen on. This is a minor annoyance, but it keeps the screen waking up, and it sucks battery.
I have also had a one lockup that I had to hold down the power button till it turned off, and then turned it back on. And once where the browser wouldn't load anything after clicking on a link in the google reader app. I had to reboot the table to get this fixed.
Overall
I really like the tablet, and I think the issues I had above, will all be fixed by software updates as honeycomb becomes more mature. I had a G1 when it first came out, and it was pretty much a mess when at the beginning. As the software updates came along, it worked much better. Using the tablet as a replacement for a laptop, works pretty good for surfing the web, and watching videos and such, though it could use more power in the browser area. The battery life is better than my phone, but that just isn't saying much. I really like the options that it presented (like the USB and HDMI ports), and the screen resolution, which is why I purchased this over the Asus transformer (need the dock for a normal usb port), and it was much cheaper than the Xoom(Verizon or WIFI) or G-Slate (T-Mobile), or the iPad2. I also was more interested in an Android tablet over an iOS tablet, because I use a lot of Google services (GMail, Docs, Calendar, Reader, etc), and they work better on Android than they seem to on iOS, so it is much more convenient for me. I bet within 3-6 months I will have to upgrade this to a 5 star review, but with the software problems as they are now, I just can't do it, even though I wouldn't get rid of the A500.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Acer Iconia Tab A500-10S16u 10.1-Inch Tablet Computer (Aluminum Metallic)
Product Description
Acer ICONIA Tab A500 10.1" Tablet PC - Tegra 250 1 GHz - Silver XE.H60PN.002 Tablet PCs
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #16 in Personal Computers
- Color: Silver
- Brand: Acer
- Model: A500-10S16u
- Released on: 2011-05-08
- Dimensions: .50" h x 10.20" w x 7.00" l, 1.69 pounds
- Memory: 1000MB DDR2 SDRAM
- Hard Disk: 16GB
- Processors: 1
- Battery type: Lithium Polymer
- Native resolution: 1280x800
- Display size: 10.1
Features
- The Acer Iconia Tab A500-10S16u is a revolutionary new tablet with gleaming 10.1" touch-screen
- NVIDIA Tegra 2, the first mobile dual-core CPU brings the fastest, most visually-rich tablet experience, extreme multitasking
- Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system, specifically optimized for tablets, combined with Acer UI
- 10.1" HD multi-touch display features an astounding 1280 x 800 resolution, advanced flash support, displaying your HD content in crystal-clear form.
- Check updates from your Facebook and Twitter contacts in a single glance!
- Enjoy face-to-face video chats and more with the 5MP rear-facing and 2MP front-facing camera.
- It brings a whole new level of interactivity placing all resources at your fingertips.
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