Acer Android 2.2 Tablet PC

If you're used to the sleek metallic edges of the latest Asus or Toshiba tablets, the A500 will be a bit of a disappointment. At 6.9 by 10.2 by .4 inches (HWD) and 23.5 ounces, it's slightly thicker and heavier than its top competitors. For instance, the Asus Transformer TF300 ($399, 4 stars) is just a little slimmer at .38 inches and lighter at 22.2 ounces, and the Asus Transformer Prime ($499, 4 stars) is slimmer and lighter still. But it's not the size that's the issue here. Acer uses a lot of plastic and not much metal in the black-and-silver case, leading to a slightly chintzy feel. The mildly textured plastic back is practical, but doesn't feel premium, even when compared to other plastic tablets like the Samsung Android 2.2 Tablet PC ($249, 4 stars). The A510's odd-looking MicroUSB jack comes with an adapter that turns it into a full-sized USB port. The tablet supports external USB keyboards and storage, as long as that storage is formatted as FAT32. That's pretty hot; it means you can play videos off an external hard drive on this tablet. Asus and Toshiba tablets have that feature too. There's also a built-in mic on top, a rotation lock, and dual speakers on the bottom. Acer touts its 9800mAh / 36.26W battery as a cure for battery-life blues, and we got strong performance with it: 9 hours, 34 minutes of continuous video playback with Wi-Fi on and brightness turned to max. That beat out the 7 hours, 53 minutes we got on the Asus TF300 $379.00 at B&H Photo-Video, not to mention the five and a half hours the new 7 Inch Tablet PC achieved. 10-inch Android tablets still have a problem with finding good apps in Google Play. As most apps are designed for small phone screens, many prominent apps look pretty awful on large Android tablets. The A510 offers two options to help with this problem: You can download either Tablified Market ($1.49, 4 stars), with a list of 1,500 or so top-notch tablet apps, or Nvidia's Tegra Zone, with a few dozen high-quality games designed for Tegra-powered tablets. Those outlets improve the situation, but app availability still falls far short of the Apple iPad, which has over 200,000 third-party apps with UIs designed specifically for tablets. The A510 connects to the Internet using Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (albeit only on 2.4GHz, not 5GHz). It had no trouble connecting to our WPA2-protected networks. It also supports Bluetooth 2.1. And there's a blocked-off SIM card slot behind a door on the side, a sloppy touch—either eliminate the slot or make it active. Multimedia and Conclusions The A510 has 32GB of built-in storage as well as a microSD card slot that supports 32GB cards, hidden behind a door on the side. It plays all the usual audio and video formats, including MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG, WAV, WMV, H.264, MP4, DivX and Xvid (in AVI containers). Video files up to 1080p resolution looked sharp and clear. Oddly, though, the built-in micro HDMI port only put out 720p resolution to our TV. Unfortunately for the A510, you can get more capable tablets for less. The Asus 9.7 Inch Tablet PC, at $399 for a similar 32GB model, gives you 95 percent of the A510's speed, along with a better camera and slimmer form factor, for less money. The Apple iPad 2, currently running $399, is another prime competitor—it isn't as fast as the Iconia 510, but it has far, far more tablet-optimized apps. I'd also keep an eye out for Toshiba's upcoming tablet line, which we did a recent hands-on with. It promises Tegra 3 power and Android 4.0 with USB host mode in a sleeker body.