Acer Iconia Tab A100 Android Tablet Review

I got my hands on an Acer Iconia Tab A100 Android tablet a few weeks ago and since that time, it has received approximately 2 official updates. Originally, if I remember correctly, the Acer Iconia Tab A100 out of the box came with Honeycomb (3.2.1). The first update brought it up to ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) and then a few days ago there was another update that brought it to 4.0.3. I believe that the first update brought it to 4.0.1 if I'm not mistaken.

The Acer Iconia Tab A100 is a 7" Android tablet with a resolution of 1024 x 600. Mine is currently running 4.0.3. I had previously rooted it when it was running Honeycomb since it was so easy to do with this tablet but since upgrading it to ICS, I haven't rooted it yet because it requires the use of a computer to root it. With Honeycomb, it didn't require the use of a computer. All you needed to do was get ~3 files onto your tablet and then run a command. Since I only use 1 program that requires root access, there is no urgent need on my part to root it.

Previously, I was using a no-name resistive touchscreen Android tablet which I found to be okay but didn't like the fact that it was slow and that the screen was resistive (and not multi-touch capacitive). For anyone unfamiliar with resistive screens, they require pressure on the screen in order for the system to register that you want to do something. Because of this, they are usually slower and don't allow for the "2-finger zoom". I didn't really mind the size (it was ~10") and I did like the Android OS so when I received the A100 at a deal too good to pass, I got it.

I use the Iconia Tab A100 most of the time to read PDF documents/books. I find that it works very well for this because of the size. It is also very responsive. I also use it for the occasional browsing, Slingbox viewing, Netflix viewing, Facebook access, etc.

The battery life on this tablet is what I would consider as "okay". I can watch an entire online/streaming movie from Netflix and still have enough power to do other things before requiring a charge. I say that the battery life is not as good as the HP TouchPad tablet that I reviewed earlier *HERE* but it is still good.

It also connects to my all various routers without any issues. The A100 has a dual core CPU but at times I find it very sluggish. Excluding the sluggishness, I have not had any major issues with my A100 such as random reboots.

The A100 has a slot that supports a micro-SD card and it also has a micro-HDMI port. I routinely connect my Acer Iconia Tab A100 to my HD television in order to watch Netflix using a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable and never had any issues.

The unit comes with a front facing camera (2 MP) as well as the main back camera (5 MP). I really haven't used either of the cameras often so I can't really comment on the quality of the pictures. Suffice it to say, if you wanted to take a very good picture, you wouldn't use a tablet to take that picture.

I'm not sure if this is Acer's customization of ICS since there is no such feature on my Samsung "true" Android Nexus-S but there is a setting for encryption that allows you to encrypt the entire filesystem. Once you encrypt your filesystem, you will need a password or PIN every time you power it on (separate from the screen password/PIN if you activated this). I encrypted it a few days ago and didn't notice any issues with speed or performance. The only thing is after encrypting it, I'm not sure if you can unencrypt it without wiping out the system since during my brief look at the setting menu options, I don't see an option to unencrypt the filesystem.

One negative comment that I have regarding the Acer Iconia Tab A100 (excluding the sluggishness which I've already mentioned) is that it charges via a what appears to be a proprietary charger. For me, I would have preferred it to charge using a standard micro-USB (or any type of USB) cable.

Another negative comment that I have regarding the Acer Iconia Tab A100 is that even with ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich), it does not allow you to transfer applications to an external microSD card. In order to do this, you will have to root your device.

There is not much I can say/write about the Acer Iconia Tab A100 tablet since it functions to my expectations and the Android applications that I use with it work relatively well so if you have any questions/comments regarding this review, please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section. Please note that comments are moderated and any comment that contain a hyperlink will be flagged as being spam and will not be posted.