Welcome to the next big fat item on our list of the Honeycomb wave. This is the ACER Iconia Tab A500 Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet. Inside you’ll find what’s basically an untouched version of Google’s tablet-optimized mobile operating system with a few apps added and a couple of generally alright cameras in play for a oddly shaped package of mixed conclusions indeed. With this tablet, Acer hopes to cut holes in the tablet market. Will they have the guts to trick it out? Find out, here and now!

Hardware

What you’ve got here is a 10.24 x 6.97 x 0.52-inch (260 x 177 x 13.3-mm,) 25.75-oz (730-g) heavy 10.1-inch display sized Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet. It’s got an aluminum back, plastic panels on the left and right, and a removable panel on top for the SIM and the SDcard. Inside this device you’re going to find 16GB of memory along with 64GB of extra storage available via your SDcard slot – the device does not come with a card, but you’ve got one, right?

The display on this slate is sitting at a resolution of 800 x 1280 pixels and it’s LCD. On the front of this device is a 2-megapixel camera whilst the back totes a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and auto-focus. And what’s inside powering all this sweet stuff? Our good pal NVIDIA! You’ll be working an Tegra 250 Dual cortex A9 1GHz processor, a fabulous customer indeed – as you’ll be seeing in Performance below.

AND this monster will be supporting LTE speeds. Get your racecars out for when that’s going to occur. Currently we’re just in Wifi so we’ve got not tests as such. The same goes for the USB port – This is a MASTER port which means it’ll run things like USB keyboards down the line, along with other magical items that noone can even fathom quite yet. Any more ideas?


Software

If you know anything about Honeycomb, you know basically everything about the insides of this device other than a few key points. There’s a few apps in here that make a bit of difference, one of them an organizational system that essentially amounts to some clever wallpapers helping you visualize where your apps should be. There’s also an app by the name of Clear.fi. It’s called Acer Clear.fi to be more specific, and it works a simple-to-use wireless network that works between whichever devices you’ve got the app installed on, you able to share media this way at will.

Other than that, it’s the usual set of NVIDIA items, Tegra Zone, (which you can get a full review of here,) Hero of Sparta 2 (from Gameprom,) Need for Speed Shift HD, and the rest. There’s less than 40 apps on the tablet when you get it, that being ok but not the best when it comes to having a small amount of apps, (ideal if you ask anyone I know,) but definitely alright.

Take a peek at a lookthrough of the device here:

[vms 05d7379fa3a6386f710e]

Mostly familiar with a few bits and pieces of extra cogs and pulleys – yes?

Camera

On this device when you’re considering just the hard numbers given to the cameras, it seems a bit odd that the front would be given the highest rated camera on the tablet market at the moment, and the back camera would be given the second highest. That is to say that front-facing cameras are quite often 2-megapixels at their highest while back-facing cameras are getting up around 8-megapixels these days, the A500’s back-facing camera is sitting slightly lower at 5. But they’re just numbers, right? Let’s have a look at what some example photos might hold for evidence:

Front-Facing Photo at 2-Megapixels

Front-Facing Video

Back-Facing Photo at 5-Megapixels

Back-Facing Photo at 5-Megapixels with FLASH

Back-Facing Video

You’ll notice a little bit of color oddness going on in both videos. Looking at the screen while either of the cameras were activated showed a slightly fuzzy image due to discoloration as well. Photos appear to have been unaffected.

Performance

Like every other dual-core tablet we’ve had out hands on thus far, (each of them also toting a Tegra 2 processor as well,) everything is zippy. Games open faster than they appear to on single core systems, the tablet displays colors brilliantly, and the device doesn’t appear to have anything holding it back. Would you like to see some benchmarks? Let’s have a look!

As you can see, this is another device that’s right up inside the top guns with the other two devices we just had a look at. Interesting, yes? Have a look at those results: T-Mobile G-Slate and T-Mobile G2x. Powerwheels! If it’s just the numbers in here that matter, then it’s not the numbers you can go by, it’s the hardware.

Battery

There is one fat battery in this mother, and it’s 3260 mAh, which means it should last quite a while at any level of usage. In fact, what I’ve seen with this device is that you’re going to be able to go AT LEAST 24 hours with medium use. If you watch movies the entire time, you’re looking at only 2 or three probably, but you never know. Medium to high use, 24 hours or more. That’s what’s going on here. And the charging goes quick too, great transformer up in here. Zero to 100% in under an hour.

Wrap-Up

If you’ve got an Acer monitor for your computer right this moment, then this is the tablet for you. Acer makes lovely items that run Windows OS and display cool graphics via wires fun from PC computers. They also make pretty laptops that run Windows and now they’ve got a tablet that runs Android 3.0 Honeycomb. This is their first realistic run at finding their way into the Android community and they’ve gone directly for the throat – the boss, the big cheese, the 10.1-inch tablet

This is the throat of Android beast, and Acer has decided to cut at it with an aluminum sword. Is it enough? It’s enough to cut out a chunk of the sales of the rest of the Android tablets out there because people will like the look of it and people trust the name Acer, especially if they already own, say, an Android monitor. If they like the idea of a full-sized USB plug being on their tablet, this is their only choice right this moment. If someone wants to beat the pants off the G-Slate and the XOOM and the G2x in benchmark tests but wants to do it with another name attached, here comes the Acer Iconia Tab A500 to the rescue!

How though then will you decide between this tablet and the rest? You could consider the cost, though the difference is right around $100, and you’re already spending at least $400 on a device you’ll either be purchasing for fun or for business, so either way $100 isn’t a big difference. So what’s that leave – processor speed? Internal storage? Compared to the competition, they’re also essentially the same.

How about the hardware?

Ah, that’s the stuff. This device has a Dolby speaker system, it’s light, has a casing that’s nearly wholly aluminum, and it’s silver. If you’ll take a look at the image above, you’ll see that it’s got a whole different situation going on compared to the rest of the tablets that’ve come out in the recent past, and it’s made by Acer.

My best recommendation for everyone considering what Android tablet to purchase in these early Honeycomb days is to go to the store and handle the tablets, even if you aren’t able to turn them on. These other specs matter, but if you’re going to be using a tablet extensively, you’re going to want to like how it feels in your hands and on your lap. This is a new concept, something that’s been around since advent of laptops, but like never before : it’s in this tablet and its metal and plastic brethren:

Form matters most.

[device id=266]

149 COMMENTS

      • How come you can’t download music on the iconiatab or when I do it won’t play. Thanks

      • One of the restrictions of the post-Windows “cloud world” that is being created is strict adherence to the various laws the Movie and Music industry has paid the politicians handsomely for to prevent you from stealing their stuff.  So, as you may have noticed, the RECORD button on most “players” is obviously missing.  Those that do record, do so from the cameras and mics but not the internet.

        Absent, also, is most of the ability to just swap computer files with your friends we took for granted on old Windows boxes, storing any old files we wanted any old place we chose, not files and places chosen for us by “the cloud” nannies.  They’ll soon drag our local storage abilities, loaded with illegal movies and music, out of our hands with devices that simply do not support local storage any more…..if they can get away with it.

        I was amazed and delighted to see the A500 had a real USB port that supported simply plugging in storage at our whim, unlike the other devices, most of whom don’t even have a memory card, like Ipads who only have a memory card reader that steals pictures and doesn’t write anything connected to your camera.  DivX and XviD movies straight off Usenet loaded onto any kind of media plays fine on the A500.  This can’t last in future tabs as the public is being conditioned to live without local storage.  There seems to be little resistance to this confiscation of an important function of real computers…local, you-control, storage.  Ipad sells, to the dumb masses, after all.

      • Press and hold the movie you want on the Moboplayer file picker and a menu pops up.  Tap on:
        SOFT DECODE
        and the sound will play on these files.  I soft decode all of them, here.

      • How come you can’t download music on the iconiatab or when I do it won’t play. Thanks

      • A500 is 3G ONLY. The space where the SIM card goes would sure make a GREAT place next to the microSD card for a real SDHC card slot….YO, ACER! YOU READING THIS!!

        When it comes out from the sellphone prostitutes, it’ll be all hobbled up, I’m sure, and won’t have the USB ports they think they can sell you as SMS/MMS and the Bluetooth will only work on a headset, like the rest of them sellphone companies breed.

        This unit is sellular free! Everything works!

  5. The real question here is, is the bootloader unlocked, i.e can I play around with roms and change the thing to my liking?

  6. The real question here is, is the bootloader unlocked, i.e can I play around with roms and change the thing to my liking?

    • The display uses 75% of the drain on the battery, according to the Android battery reporter. The back of the whole thing is barely detectable as “warm” because it never gets as warm as your hand. I think the warm spot must be the display light regulators along the left edge of the landscape screen, but I’m just guessing. I like my display bright, so don’t get near the hours advertised at 75% of the load. Dimming the display makes the thing run an amazing amount of time, even beating up the CPUs with games.

    • Yes and not available for the advertized price. If you want it then you will pay 600.00 or there abouts for that transformer. By the time it is available in mass quantity it will already be obsolete. So no, it won’t eat the Iconias breakfast lunch or dinner.

  9. There is a BAD bug in the browser – the toolbar is missing, so the Google Sync option with your gmail account is meaningless. No bookmark capabilities (or using your sync bookmarks). Also, no Adobe Reader is available from the market for the device.

    Hold off until bugs are fixed. I’ll probably take this back and get a Transformer.

    Nice, otherwise. Displayed all pages properly. Good speed. Good video replay (some stuttering, on some sites).

  10. ok i need some help how do i get this to do usb mass storage on my pc like my moto droid do? i cant figure where the driver is to be installed. and when i tried on my pc said i needed win media player 11. wtf i just wanna drop and send the simple way

    • Every FAT-based USB flashdrive or hard drive I own plug right in to the A USB port and Android 3.0 Honeycomb goes berserk catalogging every media file (there are thousands) on the drive. The included music player goes “someplace” and gets all the album covers and puts my ripped MP3 files in them if the ID3 tags are even remotely filled in. I installed MoBo Player, which expands its video codecs out to include avi XviD and DivX files. It plays movies downloaded from Usenet without the stupid conversions with MoBo Player’s extra support. The video is beautiful!

      The only USB devices that won’t work are my NTFS formatted USB hard drives Android 3.0.1, so far, does not support and my Alfa 038NH 2 watt USB wifi modem which would give it far greater wifi range, as the Alfa does for my netbook. Alfa has returned 3 emails and seem very interested in an Android app for Honeycomb interface with the necessary drivers but they report each manufacturer seems to be “doing their own thing”, unlike Windows which is far easier to write a driver for. We’ll see. I’ve emailed Acer about an NTFS driver. My rubber rollup full-sized keyboard works great for all the keys Android supports, of course. Even the media control Fn keys work! My phone is an old Motorola ROKR on Alltel without the Verizon hobbling up and I can swap any files between them, too. The Dolby audio processor makes the sound of my Bluetooth Motorola S9 simply wonderful. You can turn the bass up past 5 and hurt your ears! The Dolby makes the sound very spacial, even in the rubber headphones.

      There seems to be some difference between this review and my tablet. Other teardowns say I have two batteries, not one, and the total AH is 8.8AH, not 3.2 this article reports. There are other inaccuracies that seem to have been upgraded, too, like mouse support. Which mouse? BT works, as does USB. The USB port has no problem, by the way, powering my USB notebook drives that are USB powered. Of course, that costs you some if they run constantly watching one of the few hundred DivX/XviD movies on the drive with constant access. There’s no balking….NONE.

      I’d be one happy camper if someone could figure out a way to spoof IE or Foxfire browser on a netbook to stop the stupid webpages from treating Android 3.0 Honeycomb as a tiny toyphone, seind it WAP pages instead of the full sized, full featured, Flash 10.2 pages it deserves…..grrrrr.

      • what I need to know is is there A way to transfer files from my PC to the Acer iconia without installing windows media player 11? I don’t have a genuine copy of windows XP

      • You must be trying to move some DRM-protected music or video. Open windows explorer, the file manager and try to copy the files to a USB flash drive. If that works, try plugging the flash drive into the tablet and use a file manage app to store it to the tablet, or, better yet, just play it all straight off the flash drive.

        There are win progs to strip the DRM off the files, too.

      • no im just tryna click and send like i do on og droid. plug the tab to my pc send files to my tab showing up as a removable storage. i dont have a ginuwine copy of windows and have never used win media player. its like all this extra is crazy. i got a sd card in it but nuttin on the internal hard drive of the tab.

      • If you downloads the full installer for wmp11, extract it using winrar
        And run the setup manually not the small setup exe, it will install without verification of licence

      • I’m not sure about tablets, but on my phone, most browsers can change the user-agent. I know Dolphin and a few others let me change it to desktop. I’m sure Opera or Firefox would support that as well, but again, I’m not sure if they’re compatible with tablets yet.

  11. ok i need some help how do i get this to do usb mass storage on my pc like my moto droid do? i cant figure where the driver is to be installed. and when i tried on my pc said i needed win media player 11. wtf i just wanna drop and send the simple way

  13. I bought one of these at the weekend, i wont use a keyboard dock or need 2x the battery life, but i do use usb sticks so i chose this over waiting at least a month for a transformer.

    Acer Interface is a bit too light, compared to some others.
    Facebook app constantly forcecloses (which may explain why acer only installs a url shortcut)

    Biggest thing i didnt realise with all tablets is that theres no switch user feature (WHY DOESNT THIS GET MENTIONED IN REVIEWS) this a big negative for me…i wanted a device that all the family could use… But without switching users, it limits it to 1 persons account. This isnt a phone, i cant believe its missing this functionality (yes i know its missing on ipad too)

      • Yes, it has a fully functional gps without the cellphone company hobbling. Get GPS Essentials free off the Marketplace and you have a really neat dashboard to configure your nav instruments on from its GPS. Google NAV and MAPS are already installed. Download Google Earth but it doesn’t have the camera street view, yet.

        Find My Car is also a very neat GPS free app. When you park, you mark your cars position with a tap. The tab or phone remembers where it is and will pinpoint your car in the huge lot when you come out.

    • Yep. Acer will push the 3.1 Honeycomb as soon as the testing on its tab is complete. 4.0 will upgrade automatically when Acer is through testing its hardware compatability.

    • Yep. Acer will push the 3.1 Honeycomb as soon as the testing on its tab is complete. 4.0 will upgrade automatically when Acer is through testing its hardware compatability.

  16.  I just picked one up tonight as the viewsonic and asus are too damn hard to find. I actually really like it even though I really just bought it as a stop-gap till I can get my hands on one of the other.  I may just keep this instead of giving it to my kid 🙂

  17.  I just picked one up tonight as the viewsonic and asus are too damn hard to find. I actually really like it even though I really just bought it as a stop-gap till I can get my hands on one of the other.  I may just keep this instead of giving it to my kid 🙂

    •  Of course.  ICS will be Android 4.0.  The developers have been complaining there are too many android hardware versions to support.  ICS will bring it all…or most of it…together on all devices, so they told the developers at the conference.

      The A500 has no sellphone hobbling as it isn’t associated with any sellphone carrier, who is always responsible for removing useful features on any OS it sells if they think it will bypass their revenue stream (like iPad hobbled to Apple’s revenue stream).  Android is free and open.  There’s no reason, once you get rid of the sellphone nonsense, to hobble up the device.  Acer had the USB host port drivers and HDMI video drivers already installed in their version on the A500 the rest of them are still waiting for.

      Android updates for devices not hobbled to sellphone carrier bloatware, will be automatic from the device manufacturers as soon as they are tested for the Iconia Tab A500.  3.1 will push to your device over the air in June, as soon as the testing at Acer is complete.

      Acer will do the same for ICS.  Fully test it on their hardware, then send it to all the devices.  That’s what Android is all about.  I wouldn’t own one sold by a sellphone hobbler….yecch.

  20. Can anyone give some insight about this problem, about to call acer if not. Some of the games i download from the market place dont work and crash constantly, why is that? Do i need a replacement? It is not that big of a deal but can be annoying at time when i see a game that looks cool, download and install it to find it crashes upon starting it..

  24. Got my Acer dock for A500 this morning. The remote control is specifically coupled to Nemo media player, which the dock causes the tablet too auto boot to on startup. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, Press the home button on the remote brings you back to Nemo’s root page so you can directly control that song you hate without a lot of levels….even from the dinner table, which is very nice. Maybe more apps will make use of these commands in the future.

    Very nice dock. It’s heavy enough to hold the tablet steady for typing this message. The soft rubber strip against the table resists sliding, held down by the dock’s weighted base. The kickstand folds out to bring the tablet up to almost vertical making media viewing in the dock very comfortable. Stand folded makes typing easy angled up from flat.

    Well worth the $61 Amazon wants for it….

    • Remove the rubber strip from the bottom of the kickstand so the kickstand doesn’t resist sliding back away from you. peel off the strip and stick it back on the back side of the kickstand’s lower edge so it stops the dock from sliding when the kickstand is retracted in the flat position. The original placement will make the stand collapse if pushed back while typing or tapping in the upright position. The tablet has nothing holding it on the stand and WHEN it collapses, the tablet will go flying off on its back, maybe over the edge of the table as it also lacks rubber strips to prevent it sliding around laying flat on anything, a stupid mistake for its safety.

      Once the kickstand rubber strip is off the original position, movement away from you doesn’t make it collapse.

      Too bad some idiot at Acer thinks you wanted a $449 digital photo frame by stupidly autobooting Nemo player when plugging in the dock. Maybe they’ll reprogram the next update when YOU add your displeasure to mine at Acer Support….
      🙂

    • Remove the rubber strip from the bottom of the kickstand so the kickstand doesn’t resist sliding back away from you. peel off the strip and stick it back on the back side of the kickstand’s lower edge so it stops the dock from sliding when the kickstand is retracted in the flat position. The original placement will make the stand collapse if pushed back while typing or tapping in the upright position. The tablet has nothing holding it on the stand and WHEN it collapses, the tablet will go flying off on its back, maybe over the edge of the table as it also lacks rubber strips to prevent it sliding around laying flat on anything, a stupid mistake for its safety.

      Once the kickstand rubber strip is off the original position, movement away from you doesn’t make it collapse.

      Too bad some idiot at Acer thinks you wanted a $449 digital photo frame by stupidly autobooting Nemo player when plugging in the dock. Maybe they’ll reprogram the next update when YOU add your displeasure to mine at Acer Support….
      🙂

    • Remove the rubber strip from the bottom of the kickstand so the kickstand doesn’t resist sliding back away from you. peel off the strip and stick it back on the back side of the kickstand’s lower edge so it stops the dock from sliding when the kickstand is retracted in the flat position. The original placement will make the stand collapse if pushed back while typing or tapping in the upright position. The tablet has nothing holding it on the stand and WHEN it collapses, the tablet will go flying off on its back, maybe over the edge of the table as it also lacks rubber strips to prevent it sliding around laying flat on anything, a stupid mistake for its safety.

      Once the kickstand rubber strip is off the original position, movement away from you doesn’t make it collapse.

      Too bad some idiot at Acer thinks you wanted a $449 digital photo frame by stupidly autobooting Nemo player when plugging in the dock. Maybe they’ll reprogram the next update when YOU add your displeasure to mine at Acer Support….
      🙂

  25. just got my Acer Iconia A500 2 weeks ago, love it! yesterday I got the update 3.1, I’m in Toronto Canada, also I ordered & got  the chargind dock with remote, feels great!

  26. just got my Acer Iconia A500 2 weeks ago, love it! yesterday I got the
    update 3.1, I’m in Toronto Canada, also I ordered & got  the ”
    charging dock stand” with remote, feels great!

  28. How do I convert DVDs to the tablet?  Just converting them to mp4s has not worked.  The video fast forwards with no sound.  Thanks.

    • Handbreak (FREE) works great. You install it on your PC or MAC and it converts your DVD’s to m4v or m4p files that look like super HD movies. You can even send them to your HD big screen with either the HDMI cable or no wires to a connected device like a PS3 or Roku box ($49). 
      These files also play well on most phones. 
      Handbreak is one of the best free programs out there along with Tversity that will run on the PC and send to the TV the same way as the A500 does.
      Using Android 4.03 on my A500 now very smooth.

      Tom

  29. I’ve changed my mind….I’m sorry for those I’ve lead astray.  The tablet is probably ok.  Android is what sucks.  Case in point…….

    Boot up the A500 and any old cheap $299 netbook like my Samsung NC10 with the broken hinges and Windows XP.  Open the browser on both….IE or Firefox on my old XP netbook.  Browse to ESPN3, the Flash video TV player that lets you watch ESPN sports on the go.  (Other TV websites operate the same.)  Click WATCH NOW and sign in to your cable provider access.  (If you don’t have one, click on AT&T and sign up for a free ATT.net email account to get access for free.)  Click up the current live TV coverage of anything that’s playing.  I’m watching Major League Baseball at Starbuck’s free wifi, here.

    The Android tablet’s browser with the latest updates to 3.1 and Acer’s latest “system update” will very slowly start playing the ball game.  Then, it will simply lock….and not recover.  This stinks.  Boot the little old Atom XP netbook with it’s single core, old, slower processor and MUCH weaker motherboard video, an old Intel 455 chipset.  Boot up the SAME ballgame on the SAME free wifi.  The ballgame loads at 1 bar of video bandwidth and goes to 3, playing a higher resolution video of the WHOLE BALLGAME, even while typing this message!  Old Windows XP, Service Pack 3, updated a month ago simply eats Android’s shorts playing this Flash video website….faster, not balking, so you can watch the ballgame!

    Sorry, Google.  I wanted this thing to work, reliably, on the webpages real people use.  Android Honeycomb 3.1 on an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core processor of an Acer A500 tablet SIMPLY ISN’T IT!

    My bad.  My mistake.  The new “tablet” will be a new Samsung AMOLED N310 netbook with a faster processor, better video chipset and Win7 (which may be dumped for WinXP if it crashes just twice).  It simply works better for doing everything that isn’t a game or such with an accelerometer…..

    WinXP and Firefox hibernated haven’t crashed like Android does every day in months!

    Maybe some day…..

  30. I’ve changed my mind….I’m sorry for those I’ve lead astray.  The tablet is probably ok.  Android is what sucks.  Case in point…….

    Boot up the A500 and any old cheap $299 netbook like my Samsung NC10 with the broken hinges and Windows XP.  Open the browser on both….IE or Firefox on my old XP netbook.  Browse to ESPN3, the Flash video TV player that lets you watch ESPN sports on the go.  (Other TV websites operate the same.)  Click WATCH NOW and sign in to your cable provider access.  (If you don’t have one, click on AT&T and sign up for a free ATT.net email account to get access for free.)  Click up the current live TV coverage of anything that’s playing.  I’m watching Major League Baseball at Starbuck’s free wifi, here.

    The Android tablet’s browser with the latest updates to 3.1 and Acer’s latest “system update” will very slowly start playing the ball game.  Then, it will simply lock….and not recover.  This stinks.  Boot the little old Atom XP netbook with it’s single core, old, slower processor and MUCH weaker motherboard video, an old Intel 455 chipset.  Boot up the SAME ballgame on the SAME free wifi.  The ballgame loads at 1 bar of video bandwidth and goes to 3, playing a higher resolution video of the WHOLE BALLGAME, even while typing this message!  Old Windows XP, Service Pack 3, updated a month ago simply eats Android’s shorts playing this Flash video website….faster, not balking, so you can watch the ballgame!

    Sorry, Google.  I wanted this thing to work, reliably, on the webpages real people use.  Android Honeycomb 3.1 on an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core processor of an Acer A500 tablet SIMPLY ISN’T IT!

    My bad.  My mistake.  The new “tablet” will be a new Samsung AMOLED N310 netbook with a faster processor, better video chipset and Win7 (which may be dumped for WinXP if it crashes just twice).  It simply works better for doing everything that isn’t a game or such with an accelerometer…..

    WinXP and Firefox hibernated haven’t crashed like Android does every day in months!

    Maybe some day…..

    • Plug the included mini-USB port cable into any PC.  The PC thinks it’s a hard drive (or two hard drives if there is a microSD card plugged into the external uSD slot.)  Use any file copy program you like to make new music directories where you want and copy the music over there.

      A much faster way, because of the slow USB speeds, is to plug a big microSD card into your PC and copy tons of music to it.  There are $5 SD adapters for uSD cards if your computer doesn’t have a uSD slot.  Plug the uSD into the adapter and the adapter into your SD card slot on any PC.  Create as many music directories as you like, in any manner you like.  The music program in the tablet will treat each directory as an album cover in its music library, automatically.  The external uSD card slot is the best place for music and movies and other media you want to change quickly.  You can have as many external uSD cards as you like.  I have a tiny carrier for mine so I don’t lose them….which is REALLY easy.

      WARNING – NEVER PLUG A NON-ANDROID CELLPHONE uSD CARD INTO THIS OR ANY ANDROID DEVICE!  ANDROID WILL TRASH THE CELLPHONE’S FILE STRUCTURE AND MAKE IT UNREADABLE FROM THE CELLPHONE!  A SIMPLE MOTOROLA PHONE THINKS THE CARD IS BLANK…GRRRR.

  32. How come the posted photos from facebook looks blurred when viewed on Iconia? camera image resolution on the screen seemed grayish too..but when viewed in a pc, looks colorful though..is it the hardware? or a defective unit? just wondering…nobody here seemed not to have that problem 🙁

    • I can understand your confusion.  iPhone users aren’t used to having many hard choices available to them from inside the Reality Distortion Field God…er, ah, Jobs…created.  Silly choices like a real working card slot that reads AND WRITES any old file YOU, not “them”, want.  Plugging in any old massive hard drive and using one of many file managers, of your choice not iTunes all locked up, to move movies iPhone won’t play, music iPhone cannot find without the iTunes nanny, in all kinds of formats and codecs no iOS device plays…avi, wma, wmv, DivX, XviD, Realmedia, etc.

      It may be confusing to just copy a thousand mixed music files off any directory you please and put them on any directory on the multiple choices of memory storage available to Android users.

      But, you’ll soon get used to having some personal control of your life without Apple telling you what you can and can’t do (like copying MP3 files onto your uSD card so you can plug the card into your girlfriend’s PC for her to play).  Now with unlimited amount of storage, you can get “everything”, not just what will fit or will play on iPhone.

      Welcome to Android!  Do try to be kind to those still behind the Iron Curtain in the Reality Distortion Field.  They don’t know better……….yet…(c;]  Play ’em a Flash media off some webpage that shows up blank on their iPhoney.  There’s thousands to choose from…

    • Do you have internet connectivity to OTHER devices hooked to this router?  Does your laptop work?

      You can connect to a router and have a great signal, even if the router has no internet connection because the cable or DSL modem it’s connected to for internet is dead.  Try unplugging both the router and the cable/DSL modem, count to 10.  Plug in the modem and wait until all the lights stabilize…may take a few minutes.  If the “CABLE” light is blinking, the cable connection to the modem is dead.  Once the modem lights are all “normal”, plug in the router and wait for it to logon to the modem, again….a few minutes.  Now try to connect the tablet back to the wifi….

      If this fixes it, buy the cheapest UPS power supply you can find and plug the modem and router into the UPS so when the power blinks it stops trashing these connections.  UPS will solve most dumping problems….assuming the cable signal is there.

  38. How do I download games and be able to play them other than off the android market? I download games then it says file can not be opened.

    • Applications must be “installed”, not just files downloaded, much like Windows.  But, unlike Windows, apps install from Android’s app manager, not from a setup program that comes with Windows apps.  (Android is Linux, you know.)  To get the applications manager to allow other sources to have access to your system than Google Marketplace requires a change……

      Tap SETTINGS from the home screen and tap APPLICATIONS.  On the APPLICATIONS menu, tap UNKNOWN SOURCES.  After carefully reading, for a change, the warning that pops up, and making SURE you want every joker writing malware to have full access to your tablet, tap either Cancel or OK, depending on your situation.  As there are thousands of games to play in the Market thousands of other users have successfully played without turning the tablet into a brick, I suggest tapping CANCEL and giving up this crazy idea.  However, if you must take the risk, tap OK and UNKNOWN SOURCES will say “Allow installation of non-Market applications”.  You can now use the app manager to install the virus-disguised-as-your-favorite-game into your new tablet paper weight.

    • That depends on what kind of MP3 player you have.  The best ones act like a normal flashdrive when plugged into a USB port, which makes file transfers off any computer/tablet very easy.  All my players are this type.  No proprietary software, like iTunes, no funny business with RIAA lockups.

      If you have to install a proprietary software to talk to the crap player, like iTunes, or the player won’t play off a uSD memory card, probably because it has no slot to plug it into like iPod, it isn’t going to happen as the proprietary software has no port to Android.  You need a new player….or an old player in my case…(c;]

      By the way, I also use my Xclef 500 120GB hard drive MP3 player as an external, self powered, hard drive for the A500 tablet.  Having its own Li-ion battery, it runs without draining the tablet’s battery.  Just plug it in, if you can find one.  The American importer is long out of business.  Unfortunate…

    • You say “download”.  Did you use the Android Update utility or did you just download the file??  The update utility works fine.  My current build says: Acer_A500_7.006.01_COM_GEN2 here.  Kernel is version 2.6.36.3+ on Android 3.2  It updated itself a while ago.

      • Larry, I did use the Android Update Utility. About a month after I posted this, the update utility finally worked (I kept trying). My current build is Acer_A500_7.014.02_COM_GEN2. Kernel version 2.6.36.3+ on Android 3.2.1.
        Thank you.

      •  Quite welcome.  Glad it worked out for you.  Still waiting to see if Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 fixes mine.  Android.media crashes twice every time you turn it on before it stops.  Constantly reported, no response.

  43. I have just purchased this beast of a tablet. My official review is outstanding!! A wonderful piece of equipment that I can’t say enough about. Acer out did themselves with this one

  44. I see many questions about shutting off Flash from the non-hacker users.  You can save a lot of downloading and spam displays by using a feature of the browser.  Click the upper right corner bars.  Pick SETTINGS from the menu.  From SETTINGS menu click ADVANCED.  On the list you see ENABLE PLUGINS.  Tap it and select ON DEMAND.  back out of the menus with the back button lower left.  Whenever you go to a website, from now on, Flash won’t load the spam and run.  You get a panel with a down arrow where the flash was.  Browser will now play only the Flash you tap the arrow of.  Don’t tap on the spam and the spam Flash won’t run….or will any other plug-in attached to the browser, not just Flash.  To see a Flash movie from Youtube or a news webpage, you’ll have to tap the arrow to get it to play.  Works great…..(c;]

    • Well, first make sure you turned your wifi on if course! It has been my experience that the browser that comes with the tab is slower than molasses running up hill. So go to an area where you can get fast wifi and experiment downloading other browsers. I am using Opera. Good luck and happy New Year!!!!

  48. I bought my son the acer iconia a500 tablet today and after charging for about 5 hours, it won’t boot up. When turning it on the power light comes on and it vibrates, but it keeps a black screen. Can you help us???

    • Did you get your son Acer iconiap a500 working after you reset it? If not look at the manufacters date on the box if it was manufatered before may 2011 return it the had problems with the ones manufactured before may 2011 you want to find one maufacured June 2011 or later hope this helps you.

  49. I justwill purchased the acer iconic a500 for christmas. Is there a certain type of flash drive I have to use to watch my movies I have downloaded on the flash drive? My friends flash drive works, but when I plug mine, it doesn’t work. Im currently using a 128gb data traveler 200. Can anyone help?

    • I believe that flash drives need to be formatted in FAT32 for the tablet to recognize the file system, check that, hopefully it should fix it.

  50. I just purchased the acer iconia two weeks ago. I love it. My question is why can I play certain facebook games and than there are some facebook games I get booted out back to the apps screen? Confused!!!!

    • Every time it crashes you should get a crash popup box.  Be sure to click REPORT as many times as it comes up to inundate them with crash reports so someone will notice and do something to fix it.

  51. i have  an acer iconia my question is how do you unlock it ???? my four yr. old son he was playing with the pattern lock and now it tells me that it needs a gmail address and code but i never made one and  went to my pc and did a gmail account but it doesnt work i even press on the reset button no succes i need help?????

    • Unless you have a Gmail account synced up and on the device when it was locked (which I’m not sure how you say you don’t have as its needed for the market, email, and such) there is no way to unlock it without contacting Acer.  This was a theft-deterrent/security plan since you cannot unlock the device without a password to gain access.

      • I have the same problem and had my gmail acct before it lock and took the steps to unlock ,but it does not respond can someone please ,please helpme my son just got this for me and I have yet to use it HELP!!

      •  Press in with a flat-ended paperclip bent straight into the RESET hole under the big USB jack on the side where the power cord plugs in.  This should reset the device.  I think if you hold it in for 10 seconds it resets the device to factory default.  Your stuff should be reloaded from your Google account.

        Of course, this assumes you have a Google account to save all your apps, pictures….UNPLUG THE EXTERNAL microSD card before trying this!  Not sure if it will reset it or not and it’s not required to get it to boot, anyway.

  52. How do I uninstall the Firefox browser? I downloaded it on my Acer Iconia 500 tablet but do not like using it at all! Any help appreciated…..thank you.

  53. Haave been using iconia for a month.now can,’t open new attachments as i ‘ve opened Max no. Of windowdunno wot to do as am 60+

  54. i cant get castleville to load on facebook. when i click on the game it removes me from internet explorer completely but all my other facebook games works just fine. can anyone help/suggestions??

  55. There will be no ICE update from acer for the iconia tab a500.
    This is confirmed by Acer headquarters on friday 10-02-2012.     

  56. Can anyone tell me how to download Microsoft office to my acer iconia A500 tablet from flash disk? Also how to download drivers and software for the 4315 all in one series printer for HP? Cries I thought this would be great for me to finish degree for school……gotta be smarter then this tablet!!!!!!

  58. Can I plug my android phone up to this and be able to have internet without using WiFi?  There isn’t any kind of contract with this is there?

    • Verizon will allow you to receive 2GB per month for $20 using your mobile phone as a hotspot. Works great and 2GBs seems to go quite a long way!

  59. I need help can somebody tell me why my videos are to big to download to facebook.I have an Acer a500 .they are only 2or 5 Min long

    • I would say that depends on what camera your using to upload to facebook. If it is the back camera considering 5MP and 2 to 5 mins is a very large file.. Even the front camera at 1.5MP is still a large camera.. What you need to do is go into the camera setting menu and change the amount of  pixels used to record and that may help keep it smaller.. You can always chance back when you are done.
      Hope that heps

  60. Hi im hopeing one of u acer 500 owners can help me my tablet has too many pattern attempt screen on my kids!!But wont accept google username  and password have even used pc to change still no way going on day 6!Please help email or answer here thx!                             dusty_noelle_briet@hotmail.com

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  64. My Acer A500 Iconia has just had the ICS update, WOO HOO! I would like to know if I can now access 3G?

    Can I connect a SIM card to the A500 or even a 3G Dongle?

    • The A510 has 3g with a sim slot, that’s all I know about that. I would tether to my phone or just use wifi.

  67. For some reason all the little extra sounds from my apps and everything , are saving to my music library and its getting very annoying . Anyone know how I can fix it and keep it that way?!

  68. I can download music from the internet sites it say download complete but then when i try to acess them it says can not open file what do i need to do? please if anyone can help me my e mail is eddielava.EL@gmail.com my device im using is a acer a500 android tablet working on i.c.s..4.0.3

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