Acer Iconia Tab A500 review

Whether it likes it or not, Acer's got a reputation in the consumer electronics business: its computers are rarely the most well made, but they're always the most affordable on shelves. It's exactly what launched Acer to become a top computer manufacturer a few years ago and what made the company so successful in the netbook market. The 10.1-inch Iconia Tab A500 is Acer's first attempt at applying that thinking to tablets, and as the majority of Honeycomb tablets cost north of $550 and are being sold with pricey 3G plans, the $450, WiFi-only tablet comes at an absolutely perfect time. The A500's specs match the rest of the Honeycomb tablets – it's got a dual-core Tegra 2 processor, 16GB of storage, dual-cameras, and a 1280x800-resolution display – but for $150 less than the others, does it suffer from Acer's typical sacrifices in screen and manufacturing quality? Can the Taiwan company succeed at taking on Motorola's Xoom and LG's G-Slate not only in price but in actual usability and features? Hit the break to find out in full review.

If you have your heart set on a Google-powered tablet, the Iconia blends quality and affordability

To be honest, the Iconia Tab A500 exceeded my expectations. After years of reviewing Acer laptops with crappy LCDs and cheap plastic parts, I expected the company to take a similar route with its tablets, but instead, I was impressed with the manufacturing quality (at least for the price), the bright and crisp display, and rather-untouched software experience. Sure, the cameras aren't great and it trails other tablets in battery life, but for $450 those things seem forgivable, especially when you consider the LG G-Slate's or the Xoom's respective $630 and $600 price tags. Of course, the real question is, does it make sense to shell out an extra $50 to snag the iPad 2? At this point, that $50 makes a load of difference in usability since the Honeycomb app ecosystem is still miles behind iOS and Apple's tablet is much thinner and lighter, but look, if you have your heart set on a Google-powered tablet, the Iconia blends quality and affordability, which is something I haven't been able to say about an Acer product for a long time.

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