Acer Iconia Tab A100 (8GB)

As one of the first 7-inch Honeycomb tablets, the Acer Iconia Tab A100 attempts to make a case for the viability of 7-inchers, but does the fact that larger tablet alternatives are less than a hundred bucks away diminish its appeal?

Design
From a purely aesthetic perspective, the Acer Iconia Tab A100 looks a lot like the A500 we reviewed a few months ago. From its sloped edges to the placement of its front camera and SD card implementation, it's clear that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. However, due to the smaller form factor, the A100 has to settle for micro versions of ports instead of the full-size versions included on the A500.

On the bottom edge of the tablet sit the bulk of its ports, including a recessed reset button, Micro-HDMI, Micro-USB, a power adapter port, and a port for connecting to a dock accessory. On the opposite edge, from left to right, are the headphone jack, the power button/screen lock, and a microphone pinhole. On the top edge are the volume rockers, lock switch (which keeps the screen from rotating), and a compartment that opens to reveal the microSD card slot. The front left bezel houses the 2-megapixel camera with an iPad-like hardware home button located on the far right side of the bezel. On the back near the top edge sits a 5-megapixel camera with a flash bulb.

The Acer Iconia Tab A100 sports a glossy screen and piano-black bezel that attract fingerprints like a "CSI" crime scene. The back panel is gray with a silver Acer logo embossed in the middle and some wire-frame swirl designs to style things up a bit.

Though it weighs only 0.88 pound, the Acer Iconia Tab A100 feels fairly substantial in our hands. Its proportions are about on par with other 7-inch tablets, but instead of writing a bunch of boring text about dimensions, I've instead slapped together a well-researched table showing how the A100's measurements stack up against other popular 7-inch tablets, with an 8.9-inch tablet thrown in for good measure:

Holding the tablet in landscape mode felt comfortable enough, although the power button on the left would be better placed in a higher position along the edge. In our use, we were prone to accidently pressing the power button, especially while attempting to take pictures with the device.

The chassis feels like plastic and unfortunately can't match the expensive feel of the HTC Flyer and doesn't feel as solid as the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Features
The Acer Iconia tab A100 has a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and 1GB of RAM. It also boasts 802.11n Wi-Fi, support for Bluetooth 2.1, and an accelerometer, a gyroscope, GPS, a digital compass, and memory expansion via microSD.

The A100 sports a 7-inch, 1,024x600-pixel-resolution Twisted Nematic (TN) display. Onboard storage options include 16GB and 8GB integrated, with a microSD card slot compatible with up to 32GB cards.

The aforementioned home button works as you'd expect it to and can be useful for quickly getting back to the operating system's home screen.

Performance
While most Honeycomb tablets released recently--including the Acer Iconia Tab A500--use In-Plane Switching (IPS) screen panels, Acer has opted instead to offer the cheaper TN alternative, which gives much narrower viewing angles. We're guessing Acer wanted to save on costs here, but since the bulk of the tablet experience is connected to the screen, it's not the right place to cheap out.

The A100 comes with Android 3.2 installed. Navigating the OS on the device feels just as zippy as on larger Honeycomb tablets, whether you're sliding through screens, launching apps, or using the camera.

The real-time camera view sports a smooth frame rate while recording video, and smooth playback. Picture quality from both front and back cameras was disappointingly low, offering a washed-out look with drab, lifeless colors that couldn't match the quality offered by other, larger Honeycomb tablets, the BlackBerry PlayBook, or even the iPhone 4.

With Wi-Fi turned on and the screen at full brightness, the A100's battery drained at near smartphone levels of quickness. Here are our official CNET Labs-tested battery life results. More tablet testing results can be found here.

Conclusion
As 7-inch tablets go, the Acer Iconia Tab A100 is one of the most feature-rich we've seen, with a full Honeycomb experience (upgradable to Ice Cream Sandwich), HDMI-out, and expandable memory. If your preference is for 7-inch tablets, the A100 has a low price ($330 for the 8GB version and $350 for the 16GB versions) and isn't likely to induce buyer's remorse given the quality of its Android OS implementation.

That said, it's still a 7-inch tablet, and larger, better tablet experiences are less than $100 away.

Update, October 10 at 1:07 p.m. PT: CNET Labs' battery life test results were updated.

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