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Acer Iconia Tab A500 is cheapest Honeycomb tablet

We’ve been playing with the Acer Iconia Tab A500 for over a week now and I must say this is a pretty decent Honeycomb tablet and probably the cheapest dual-core tablet in the Philippines with street prices as low as Php18,500.

Yugatech 728x90 Reno7 Series

The Iconia A500 is actually the first dual-core Honeycomb tablet to be released in the Philippines, sporting an NVidia Tegra 2 chipset. The Asus Transformer and the Samsung Galxy Tab 10.1 have been announced and previewed with the members of the media several months ago but have not yet been sold to the general public.

This 10-inch tablet isn’t the thinnest or lightest we’ve tested in its category but Acer managed to put in a decent effort with their first Honeycomb tablet and at a price point that’s very affordable (currently the cheapest) to most consumers looking for one. And for those who just want a taste of Honeycomb to play with (read: hack) and not put a big dent on the wallet, this could be the appropriate device.

And since the Iconia A500 is powered by an NVidia Tegra 2 chip, expect a slew of really nice HD games on the tablet that’s close to the quality of console games. Of course, that will still depend on how good the display is — and IMO, the Iconia A500 does it well enough (a bit washed out and hard to use outdoors even at brightest settings).

Acer Iconia Tab A500
10.1″ capacitive display @ 1280×800 pixels
NVidia Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor
16GB & 32GB internal storage
HDMI port (1080p output)
Android 3.0 Honeycomb
Acer UI 4.5
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1,
GPS w/ aGPS support
HDMI with Dual Display
USB Host
microSD slot
micro USB port
5MP rear camera w/ flash
2MP front-facing camera
Android 3.0 Honeycomb

I wanted to do a full review of the unit in its stock form but this one that I borrowed was loaded with a custom ROM. If you want to check out the details of the tablet, I’ll just point you to the review over at Gizmo Owl (the nice dude who lent us this unit).

The Acer Iconia Tab A500 has a suggested retail price of Php21,900 for the 16GB and Php23,900 for the 32GB but you can get units for as low as Php18,500 on cash purchases. Until the Asus Transformer and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 finally arrives, looks like the Iconia A500 will be our only choice for a Honeycomb tablet.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

40 Responses

  1. Avatar for NongN NongN says:

    got mine last saturday sa complink mega mall: 18k s’tin ung 16GB at ung nabili ko ay 21k na 32GB

  2. Avatar for dtnavida dtnavida says:

    san po mkabibili ng cheapest n acer iconia a500 d2 sa philippines at mgkano po??? san po ung 18.5 k?? anung shop???

    thanks in advance.. :))

  3. Avatar for Raphael Raphael says:

    I’m starting to know about different tablets.

  4. Avatar for leypascua leypascua says:

    What’s good:
    – screen quality
    – performance and stability (after updating to Honeycomb 3.1)
    – build quality
    – price

    What’s bad:
    – availability of apps (most are not optimized for tablets)
    – microphone is the worst I’ve used (tried it with Skype, it was just horrible!)
    – camera is mediocre
    – WiFi adapter is rubbish (as most Android devices are) a
    – Tethering with Bluetooth-DUN/PAN with non-Android devices is a no-go. I own a Nokia E52 and able to use it with my MBP but not on this one. Google hasn’t enabled Android to do this after all these years!!!

  5. Avatar for itsmeagain itsmeagain says:

    A very bad review of an exceptional device. With respect to comments, firstly who cares about weight, I see my wife and daughter use an ipad and rarely would they use it without the ipad resting on something. Next, so what about the looks of the device other than the screen, most tablets are covered with a case anyway so its only the screen that matters. Now heres the beauty of the device;

    1. Truly customizable screens, I mean really better than an ipad.

    2. A web browser that os faster and MUCH ;ess cumbersome to use than safari on ipad.

    3. Connect USB keyboard to type, USB flash drive, usb mouse, even (in my case) USB 500 GB drive.

    And there’s more. Yes Ipad admittedly has a better screen, but it what you can do with the ICONIA that makes it great. iOS 4 is still behind, iOS 5 may catch up but by then there’s Icecream Sandwich.

  6. Avatar for qwertbvcxzi qwertbvcxzi says:

    this tablet + bb phone = happiness

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