Acer Iconia Tab A100 vs Iconia Tab A500 [Brothers in Arms!]

When you take the time to consider purchasing an Android tablet today, you may well come across a set of Acer devices both called Iconia Tab, each of them then having a more specific name with either A100 or A500. We’ve got reviews of both of these devices as well as a full spec rundown so that YOU can make the right decision if the decision is indeed staying inside the Acer family for a tablet this Summer/Autumn. Will you go with the big-time 10-inch tablet, or the uniquely sized 7-inch tablet, both of them featuring Android Honeycomb?

The breakdown of these two devices is about to look rather odd to your eyes as several of the specs are exactly the same. Where these devices differ is in their RAM, the size of their display, the dimensions of the actual tablet surrounding the display, and the battery. Everything else is pretty near the same when it comes down to it. And of course, they’re both powered by the same awesome SoC, the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz, capable of awesome feats such as playing Pinball HD and Riptide GP. First, the similarities:

Processor: 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core
Android Version: A100 has 3.2 Honeycomb out of the box, A500 will have 3.2 on August 25th
MicroSD card support: up to 32GB
Display type: LCD
Connectivity: Bluetooth EDR, Wifi 802.11 b/g/n, USB 2.0, 3.5mm headphone jack, Micro HDMI, microUSB.
RAM: 1GB
Cameras: 5 megapixel back, 2 megapixel front

Then in come the slight and some not-so-slight differences in specifications:

A500
Weight: 730g
Display: 10.1-inch with 800 x 1280 pixel resolution
Dimensions: 260 x 177 x 13.3 mm
Battery: 3260 mAh x 2 batteries = 6520 mAh

A100
Weight: 470g
Display: 7-inch with 600 x 1024 pixel resolution
Dimensions: 195 x 117 x 13.1
Battery: 1530 mAh

Both tablets have very similar sets of applications on them, and both tablets have the ability to load the official Google-run Android Market as well as any 3rd party market you might think of. Your main decision here is going to be whether or not you want to pay nearly as much cash ($60 difference in price) for one tablet or the other, the display being the biggest obvious difference, then going on down the line to battery life (much better on the A500) and the amount of physical space you’ve got.

Which one shall you choose? Have a look at our review of the A500, SlashGear’s review of the A500, SlashGear’s review of the A100, our benchmarks on the A100, and SlashGear’s hands-on with the A100. That should give you enough background on both for you to make a rather well informed decision this sunny tablet season!