I didn’t really need a new tablet, but I did want one. My Elocity tablet is almost 4 years old, and cannot be updated since it is rooted. Gives me little troubles like freezing. Can’t use the new Play Store. No accelerometer. Others. I decided to take some of that sweet sweet birthday cash and get a new tablet.
I also di not want to spend more than $200, not for the amount of time I really use it. I considered the Nexus tablet, but it has no memory card slot, and that’s a 100% requirement. Had to have GPS and accelerometer. I ran across the Acer on Best Buy’s website, and looked interesting.
Many of the external reviews are so so, but, really, in context of the $129 price tag, it has worked well.
Many of the complaints are about a dull screen and being slow. I’m really not seeing that. Decent processor (1.6mhz) and the screen looks great at 1280×800 (720p). Unfortunately, like so many tablets and laptops, the screen is barely viewable outside. The light sensor is so so, and I had to add an app to control it. Still, $129.
The battery is somewhat so so. It takes awhile to charge, and can only get about 6 -7, much less than my Elocity, but, then, it is doing more, and I’ll just throw it on charge. Did I mention it was $129? Have to be careful about it running stuff in the background, battery went dead overnight.
That said, I am impressed with the overall conditions and capabilities with the Acer. I was disappointed that the first one had to be exchanged immediately due to a dead spot in the screen that stretched all the way across. The replacement had to be replaced due to a noisy back. I considered replacing it a 3rd time with a different model for battery life, but unless I was willing to give up certain things and pay $50+ more, wouldn’t make a difference.
It has 1gb of ram. There’s a Dell tablet with 2gb, but a slower processor. Acer has 16gb of internal memory, but does not let me store apps to memory card (that I’ve figured out yet), but I back up every couple of months to MMC, so it is easy to reinstall. I like keeping all my music, movies, and other stuff on the MC, rather than the device. One interesting thing is that it won’t play some WMA songs, but will play others. Songs that were burned from CD in exactly the same way. Could be a difference in the Windows Media Player version I used to burn? It’s a device issue, not app player issue.
I’ve compared the speed it loads apps with that on my HTC One S, and it is quicker. Game play is excellent, sound is great, was able to link up DLNA with TV and laptop easily.
The front camera is supposedly 5mp, though I’ve seen some reviews say 3, and the persine facing camera is VGA or 2mp, depending on the review. Regardless, matters little to me, since I won’t use a tablet for photos. I have my phone, a nice Elf digital, and two nice non-digitals.
Sadly, it is running 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, no updates to Kit Kat yet. Interestingly, some have complained about it being so stock, with mostly expected apps included. Fine with me, one of the things I love with Droid is customization.
Personally, I like the charging port on top, a complaint of many reviewers. As long as not on bottom, I’m fine.
The GPS and eccelerometer have worked quite well. I actually downloaded a stand alone navigation program, and tried it on a little trip.
Altogether, I think I got more than my monies worth.
