Acer Iconia Tab A700 10.1-Inch Tablet PC – 32GB (Silver/Black)

Acer Iconia Tab A700-10s32u 10.1-Inch Tablet PC Features

The new generation of flagship Android tablet PCs will be as powerful as you PC the unstoppable rise in the speed and power of tablet PCs continues. Acer has unveiled new Acer ICONIA Tab A700 Series with quad-core mobile processors, delivering the kind of the performance previously only seen on a PC. The specifications will certainly be giving the competition something to think about. There is a 1.3GHz quad-core processor supported by 1GB of RAM. The Acer ICONIA Tab A700 tablet PC uses NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chip. The innovative ‘4-plus-1’ chip actually includes a quad-core CPU with an extra fifth core designed to handle low power functions such as pulling in emails and text messages, or sitting in standby mode. This means that quad-core tablets should be more battery efficient than current dual-core devices, while still offering significantly more power when it is needed.

Combine that processor with an exceptional 10.1-inch, 1920 x 1200 resolution display with outstanding aspect ratio of 16:10, making the Acer ICONIA Tab A700 a great tablet PC for your ultimate 1080p movies, web browsing, gaming, you can see every detail in brilliant clarity and detail. Yet in spite of all this it is still not quite as simple as saying that quad-core is faster than dual-core. Software needs to be optimised to take advantage of multiple cores. Ice Cream Sandwich is, meaning that browsing the system, using the main Android apps, and multitasking should all be noticeably snappier. The quad-core processor delivers unbelievable power for fast performance and smooth multitasking while productivity boosting apps let you work harder than ever, the A700 can handle it. Battery life is excellent.

With the tablet turned to max performance, the battery can provide up to 11 hours of video playback with Wi-Fi on, and up to 13 hours of use with Wi-Fi off. This is a full working day. You will get less if you push it, potentially more if you are conservative. The ICONIA Tab A700 serves not only as a tablet solution, but also as a suitable entertainment solution and game console. Takes the tablet experience to new limits with the ICONIA Tab A700, now you can enjoy rich multimedia and easily complete tasks.

The ICONIA Tab A700 is slim with metallic silver finish at the back. The tablet is comfortable to hold in the hand thanks to its a textured back cover that is soft to the touch, subtly making all your entertainment activities even more pleasurable. There are two cameras. On the front is a HD camera, while there is a 5MP lens with auto focus on the back. The 5MP camera is pretty solid and the shots looks better than expected.

Acer adds a range of apps to Android 4 to help you make the most of the ICONIA Tab A700. There are the Kindle app, Netflix, Google Play Music, games, and more. With its Android 4.0 OS, the performance feels smooth when it comes to both web browsing and playing games. The Google Play is present, and that has thousands of apps on offer including a full range of favourites.

Speaking of videos, Acer has laden the device with its own suite of multimedia software including Dolby Mobile 3 that brings compelling surround sound and cinematic impact to movies, shows and videos. The audio is loud enough.

With 32GB of on board storage there is plenty of internal space for music and other types of media, and if you need more you can add a microSD card. The slot is discretely hidden under the hinged cover. The Acer ICONIA Tab A700 is equipped with a micro-HDMI port then you can hook it up to the HDMI port of your HDTV. To achieve this you will need a HDMI cable (sold separately) connecting to your HDTV via the micro-HDMI out port, delivering support for 1080P, dual displays and 5.1 channel surround sound for crisp high-quality visuals and high-fidelity audio through a single cable.

Just as exciting is that the Acer ICONIA Tab A700 has a NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processing which actually has five cores. The quad-cores kick in for demanding applications like video editing and console-quality gaming, and the fifth one kicks in to handle your simpler tasks. Additionally, an ultra low power (ULP) NVIDIA GeForce GPU delivers the world’s only 4-Plus-1 mobile quad-core CPU and 12-core graphics performance. Twelve-core graphics powers the 224ppi, 800:1 contrast, 10-point touchscreen, or use dual displays or HDMI to HDTV.

For business users, a bundled copy of Polaris Office 3.5 allows you to create and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatible documents in high resolution. The Evernote app is the ultimate note-taking app, you can create and store as many notes as your tablet can handle. In addition, you can connect Acer Print wirelessly to a variety of Wi-Fi printers to generate documents, photos and more with the push of a button for better productivity. The unique interactive Acer Ring allows you to customize your tablet experience, simply touch open the Acer Ring by placing five fingers on the screen and making a grab gesture and scroll effortlessly through your favourite applications and features, selecting your most common used applications and keeping them in one spot.

This is a SIM-supporting tablet, and Acer has included a good range of expansion options. Under a hinged cover on one of the long edges, there is a SIM slot and a microSD card slot which can be used to expand the 32GB of built-in storage. The HDMI slot is also on the same side. On one of the short edges there is a headset slot and a power button. There is Micro-USB 2.0 port for PC linking and the ability to connect USB flash drives, USB media card readers and even a portable hard drive. Acer also offers twins speakers and Acer has built Dolby Mobile 3 into the device.

Overall, the Acer ICONIA Tab A700 is still more than satisfactory, Acer has produced a clever little tablet here. It feels like a functional tablet rather than a fashion accessory. Plenty of features on the device, with the supplied software is more than adequate, with Kindle, Netflix, Polaris Office 3.5 for office use supplied. The specifications and software extras impress. You can read from and write to both microSD can USB sticks. The ten-inch tablet makes the ICONIA Tab A700 ideal for web browsing with excellent battery life. It is worth considering if you want a tablet PC for work and play.

Pros:

In term of design and features, the Tab A700 is almost identical to the Tab A510. However, there are some changes that have been improved from A510 including the new 1080p display, redesigned AC adapter, and some new Acer software modifications to Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

The performance is decent, this A700 can easily handle basic task such as swiping, looking through apps, and opening programs. It is noticeable that the tablet is working harder when multi-tasking and running processes in the background. It is probably that the Tegra 3 might have some issues handling the 1080p resolution, which is considerably higher than before. The combination of processor, RAM, GPU and operating system is not fully optimised to handle the higher resolution.

The 1080p display delivers very clear and legible texts.

The performance is good. Playing videos, web browsing, and other related tasks still run smoothly.

It runs Android 4.04 out of the box, which improved the screen rotation, overall stability, and better camera, as well as better performance.

The Acer ring provides shortcuts to access volume, search, settings, browser, gallery, screenshots, and handy preview of favourite websites to visit.

The A510 had a pretty big issue with the “grid effect.” However, it is good to report that the new display on A700 resolved all of the issues. The screen delivers bright with brilliant colours, great viewing angles, nice colour balance, and best of all, no grid effect.

The wireless connection works well. The A700 is on par with all of the other tablets. Bluetooth works fine without a problem, pairing up to Bluetooth headphones without an issue. GPS is also still excellent.

There are two stereo speakers on the bottom edge of the device and they sound great. You can adjust Dolby settings to make them sound better.

The build quality is excellent and has a solid feel. There is plenty of easy to use buttons.

The MicroUSB port doubles as a proprietary power charger for the device. There is also a full-sized USB adapter that lets you connect your tablet to USB devices such as keyboards, mice, game controllers, or USB Flash drive.

The 9800mAh battery can last longer than other Android tablets. You can use it all day long with various tasks such as playing games, running apps, browsing the web, and downloading. Actually, the results will vary, depending on your usage.

Cons:

The A510 is thick and heavy, because of its soft-touch backing, but it is comfortable to hold for extended periods of time. Additionally, the 9800mAh battery also added more weight to the tablet. The right-side of the device is becoming hot because of this.

When you play a power-hungry games, such as ShadowGun, GTA, Siegecraft, Zen Pinball, and Glowball. The games looks good, but you can notice a slightly lower frame rate here. This could be a hardware limitation.

No Flash for Camera

The tablet comes with a lot of bloatware apps.

Conclusion:

Overall, the Acer Iconia Tab A700 may not be as fast at web browsing as a PC is, but it is still fast enough to serve many tasks you throw at it. The heat can be a big deal for some users. However, this A700 still has a lot of pros.

Acer Iconia Tab A700-10s32u 10.1-Inch Tablet PC Specifications

Acer Iconia Tab A700-10s32u 10.1-Inch Tablet PC Images

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Disclaimer Notice: All photography is owned or licensed by Acer.

Acer Iconia Tab A700-10s32u 10.1-Inch Tablet PC is now available on Amazon.

Date first available: June 13, 2012
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