Acer Iconia Tab A200 Review

Feature set summary for Acer Iconia Tab A200 review

Corners have been cut to keep down costs, so there’s no rear-facing snapper, for instance, but there are lots of ports and a decent display

Style and handling summary for Acer Iconia Tab A200 tablet

The handset feels pretty weighty, but it has solid build quality and looks good

Battery power summary for Acer Iconia Tab A200 review

The battery will last for about six hours, which is pretty average for tablets these days

Performance summary for Acer Iconia Tab A200 review

The Tab A200 has a dual-core chip onboard that copes well with media and apps

User friendliness summary for Acer Iconia Tab A200 review

The Ice Cream Sandwich Android OS offers plenty of customisation options and loads of widgets. We’re not that keen on the Acer Ring, though

Most tablets that come out are trying to compete with Apple’s flagship iPad, but that’s not the case with Acer’s Iconia Tab A200. Instead, Acer is targeting a family audience, with a tablet that can be used if you want to watch a film, play with some apps or surf the net. Acer has cleverly cut the corners of some less vital features in order to keep the price down, which is why the A200 comes in at a neat £299.

First impressions

View the A200 from the front and it looks pretty much like all the other 10,1inch tablets out there. A slim black bezel surrounds the display, offering just enough room to grip it well, without making the body too bulky. It’s a neat device, measuring just 13mm at its thickest, and the reverse has a soft feel, which makes it comfortable to hold.

It feels like a solid device – it weighs a hefty 720g, which is heavier than nearly every other tablet we have looked at, aside from the Asus Eee Pad Slider. You won’t want to hold it one-handed for long – and children won’t be able to handle it for long at all, so it will be their parents holding it if everyone’s watching something together.

The soft reverse, with its textured finish, along with the weighty body, mean that the A200 should stay put if it gets nudged while on a table or desk (good news if there’s kids around). It has a nice burgundy finish that makes it look pretty smart, too. Should you really want a smaller tablet, we recommend the 7-inch Acer Iconia Tab A100.

Give us a ring

Not only is the Acer Ring badly named, but it is not well implemented either. The idea is good – it’s a virtual wheel that offers speedy access to your four favourite apps, along with recently viewed web pages and the volume controls. The trouble is, as you can get to websites and apps using the desktop shortcuts, we never really used it – and the real volume controls sit at the top of the device so are simple to access. It would have been better if this has been used to create some sort of bookmark function for ebooks, movies and podcasts.

The operating system is Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich, which offers five desktops that can be personalised to show all the widgets you could wish for. Social network fans can make the most of SocialJogger, a widget that streams Facebook and Twitter feeds, plus there are real-time inbox updates and to-do lists to keep you connected and organised.

Battery life is pretty much what you’d expect from a tablet these days – we got about six hours from a fully charged battery.

Chip and win

All this is powered by a dual-core nVidia 2 chip and 1GB RAM, which keeps the tablet running nice and smoothly. Even when we tried opening loads of apps at the same time, the A200 showed no signs of even slowing down. We weren’t so keen on the screensaver, which kept popping up every 15 seconds. Happily it stopped doing this after we’d been using the tablet for a few hours. 

If you want to transfer your media onto the A200, it’s a simple process. Just connect the tablet to your PC using a Micro USB cable and you can drag and drop to your heart’s content. Note that you can’t charge the tablet using USB; instead you need to plug it into the mains.

Acer has cut back on anything it didn’t consider necessary – and this includes 3G. And actually, when you look at how much data contracts are, it’s not a bad thing. There is also no rear-facing snapper – just a front-facing camera for video calls. Cutting corners like this has ensured Acer was able to keep down the price of the A200.

Screen star

 The 10.1-inch screen is a bit of a star – watching movies on it is a treat, offering really sharp, true images. Okay, you’re not going to get the clarity of the Retina display on the new iPad, and the screen could be a tad brighter, but HD movies show up all the details you could probably want – and at £299, that’s pretty darn good. If the kids are using the tablet to watch a film, the good news is that the A200 offers great viewing angles so they won’t be pushing each other out of the way to get a better view.

8GB of onboard storage is included according to Acer, although we could only see 5GB of usable space on our review model. You can upgrade this using the MicroSD memory card slot (if you can prise the cover off without breaking any nails, something we failed to do). There is also a full-sized USB port should you wish to plug in a memory stick.

Our conclusion

If you’re looking for a decent priced tablet that the whole family can use, you’d do worse than choose the Acer Iconia Tab A200. It’s a bit weighty and is missing a couple of features, like a rear-facing snapper, but it is a price worth paying for a device that offers great web, movie and app functionality. Look out too for a special deal on the A200 at Carhouse Warehouse in the near future.

By Simon Thomas on 21st March, 2012

Tags: Acer, Acer Iconia Tab A200