Accessories
Acer computers aren’t known for their premium quality. While the tablet itself feels sturdy and well-built, the included Micro-USB cable feels a bit cheap. Additionally, the power adapter/charger is a generic and ugly affair – I was hoping for something sleek and glossy that matched the shiny looks of the tablet.
While the tablet also has a Micro-HDMI output, a docking station conenctor, and a headphone jack, none of those accessories are included. A Micro-HDMI to HDMI cable would have been great.
Quality, Design, and Screen
Overall, the Acer A100 feels well built. It doesn’t at all feel flimsy or cheap, even though it is made out of plastic. If you hold it just right, however, the plastic does creak a small amount. The biggest concern of mine is the charging port. The connector from the power adapter moves around in there a little bit more than I would like. Acer should have simply done what everybody else does – use a 5V charger and simply allow the tablet to charge through the Micro-USB port.
The Iconia Tab A100 looks quite nice too. It’s a rectange, with the longer sides slightly tapered toward the ends. The display bezels are clean; on the left side (when holding the tablet in landscape orientation with the volume buttons up top) is the small front-facing camera, while on the other side has the Home button on it. Honestly, the home button is quite useless, given that there is the software home button on the screen at all times anyway. While it is easier to access in a few situations, it’s more prone to accidental presses. My personal preference would have been to make the bezel thinner and omit that hardware home button.
When holding the tablet in landscape orientation with the volume buttons up top, the top has the rotation lock switch and the volume up/down buttons on the left side, and the MicroSD slot cover to the right. One neat feature is that when you hold the tablet in portrait mode with the home button at the bottom, the volume up/down buttons swap their actions, to keep it intuitive. It’s quite clever. Also, in that orientation, at the top is the power button and the headphone jack. On the bottom are the ports, (Mini-HDMI type D, Dock Connector, Micro-USB, and the power port), along with the two small speakers. The speakers are surprisingly good for a tablet, but at loud volume sound quality deteriorates noticeably. The Dolby settings tab in the Settings app does help the sound quality a little bit, though.
The 7″ TFT-LCD screen has vibrant and clear colors. The 1024×600 resolution isn’t anything mind blowing, but it’s the standard and it’s plenty for most tasks. Web browsing and games are fine; however, sometimes, small text in images is difficult to read, due to the resizing of photos. The touch screen is quite sensitive, even though sometimes it is a little too sensitive and sometimes it isn’t sensitive enough – it seems after it’s “warmed up” it works a lot better. It’s not a big deal but it’s a minor annoyance that could have been avoided. However, my unofficial update to Android 4.o “Ice Cream Sandwich” seems to have got rid of that issue, so it’s most likely some sort of bug in Android or a driver issue.
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