Tablet World.pdf

REVIEWS Acer Iconia Tab A510
Acer Iconia Tab A510
The games are over, but this special Olympic Edition tablet with winning
battery life could still be a gold medallist in your eyes
● PRICE FROM £370 ● COMPANY ACER ● WEBSITE acer.co.uk
PROS
Usable performance;
strong battery life;
good image quality;
expandable storage
CONS
Olympic branding;
heavy; glossy screen;
poor camera quality
VERDICT
The Iconia Tab is
looking dated now the
Olympics are over, as
is its spec. This tablet
simply can’t compete
with newer rivals
OVERALL SCORE
38 TABLETWORLD
Style-wise, the A510 looks and feels much like the original iPad, although its
10.1in screen has a wider aspect ratio. The resolution is higher at 1280x800,
but this is standard for an 10in Ice Cream Sandwich tablet.
At 680g and 11mm thick, it's no featherweight and isn't all that comfortable to
hold after a while. The plastic back panel looks like metal, but lacks the reassuring
feel you get with real aluminium. This panel proudly displays the Olympic rings,
but these look dated now the games have fi nished.
A quad-core 1.4GHz nVidia Tegra 3 T30 processor powers the A510. This
quad-core chip means Android runs smoothly, even with several apps open. It's
also adept at playing games – even intensive titles such as Grand Theft Auto III.
The Acer averaged 1,258 points in GeekBench, making it a fair bit slower
than the Toshiba AT300. In real-world usage, though, web pages load quickly and
browsing the web is a decent experience.
Image quality is good, but the screen's brightness is average and colours are
slightly more muted than some Android tablets. Viewing angles aren't restrictive;
it's the glossy, refl ective screen fi nish that's the main problem.
There's 32GB of internal memory, which can be expanded via a microSD slot,
while a micro-HDMI output lets you hook up the A510 to a large-screen telly.
The rear 5Mp camera and front-facing 1Mp twin aren't great. Technically, the
rear snapper can capture 1080p footage, but the resulting quality is good only for
Facebook or YouTube. Similarly, photos lack detail, and the sweep panorama mode
produced blurry images with conspicuous joins.
Acer has made several changes to Android, including an HTC-style lock screen
where you can drag the lock icon to one of four customisable apps to instantly
launch them. Another addition is the ring interface, which is launched by a circular
icon in the bottom status bar. This also provides four shortcuts, which are
customisable, but default to screenshot, Gallery, Settings and Browser.
Both Wi-Fi (802.11n) and Bluetooth 2.1 are integrated, as is a GPS receiver.
Battery life is respectable at 9.5 hours of video playback.
“The A510
proudly
displays the
Olympic rings,
but these look
dated now
the games
are over”
SPECIFICATIONS
10.1in (1280x800)
capacitive multiotouch
screen; Android 4.0 Ice
Cream Sandwich; 1.4GHz
nVidia Tegra 3 T30
quad-core processor; 1GB
RAM; 16/32GB storage;
microSD; 802.11n;
Bluetooth 2.1; GPS;
259x10x15mm; 680g