Acer Iconia A200 is official, mindblowingly underwhelming
When it comes to Android, there are many different tablets to choose from. Whether you like the iPad-ness of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the netbook-ness of the Transformer tablets or the digitizer-ness of the Flyer and Jetstream tablets there always seems to be some reason why a tablet is on the market. Acer apparently didn’t get the memo. I’m sorry, Acer, but when you announce a tablet that’s as mindblowingly underwhelming as the A200 I cannot find anything positive to say about it.
The A200 runs on a Tegra 2 SoC, which by now is severely outdated both in terms of the Tegra family itself and other chips. 1GB of RAM is fine, but storage options of 8 and 16GB is rather low. At least there’s a microSD slot and even a full sized USB slot. That last part should worry you though; there’s a reason why most tablets today don’t have that, they’re not thick enough at 8-9mm. That’s not an issue for the A200, clocking in at a ridiculous 12.4mm. The thickness also comes with a bonus feature, a whopping 720 gram weight. That’s 150 grams above the Galaxy Tab 10.1/Transformer Prime. That weight and bulk isn’t because of the battery though, as that will only last you up to 8 hours on video – and video is a rather easy task where other tablets often clock a couple of hours above the rated battery life of 10 hours. The back camera is simply not there, but a 2 megapixel front camera somehow got to stay. At the very least, this piece of..tablet runs Android 3.2.
Products like this is what makes me want to permanently add a company name to the censor list of this site, because I know that it will sell some units to unsuspecting consumers who haven’t done enough research, and that just gives the entire tablet segment a bad reputation. The price isn’t listed, though I assume it’s a budget tablet, but even so this has no business on the market unless they sell it for $250 – which I doubt. Just a few days ago the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was on sale for $320 at Woot.com, and similar deals pop up all the time for the tablets that are now getting outdated in the wake of Tegra 3, Exynos etc. Any of those six+ month old tablets will be a better choice than this brand new model, and that should scare people off Acer for good if you ask me. Budget models only make sense if they compete with sale prices, and I very much doubt that this thing will.
[Netbooknews]
