Acer Iconia TAB A100 tablet debuts at $330

One of the tablets I’ve been waiting for some time was the Acer Iconia TAB A100, a 7 inch tablet running Honeycomb 3.2. My wait was not in vain, as starting with today Acer announced its retail availability. I couldn’t locate it on Amazon yet, but rest assured soon it will arrive on big retails chains including Walmart.

So let’s see once again what the 7 inch Iconia TAB A100 has to offer. First and foremost, this is the first tablet with Honeycomb and a 7 inch form factor to hit the market. All was possible thanks to Honeycomb version 3.2 that brought support for smaller resolutions, 1024 x 600 pixels in this case and some performance improvements you’ll fell in everyday use of the tablet.

The rest of specs are pretty familiar to you already: 1 GHz dual core Tegra 2 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 8 and 16 GB of internal storage that can be expanded with a up to 32 GB microSD cards, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, micros USB and micro HDMI out ports, dual cameras (5MP back and 2MP front facing), 3.5 headset jack and dual stereo speakers. Interestingly, there’s an unused SIM slot under the microSD card cover, which might indicate Acer is looking to offer a 3G/4G version of the Iconia Tab A100 later this year, but nothing official was announced.

Acer Iconia Tab A100 looks good in the press shots

So we got your typical Honeycomb tablet shrinked to a 7 inch form factor, which means a thin and very light tablet: 7.7″ x 4.6.” x 0.5″ and 0.9 pounds. There’s only one thing that concerns me: the 11.3 Whr, 1530mAh battery which is said to last only 5 hours. That’s less than my Lenovo X220 laptop and sadly tests done by Engadget have confirmed the actual run time is very close to the advertised mark.

Acer Iconia Tab A100 is not the thinnest tablet on market

There are no OS customizations (that’s a good thing as there’s nothing to break this way), but Acer has installed a few apps:  LumiRead ereader app,  Social Jogger, Acer’s Facebook and Twitter integration & DLNA support via clear.fi.

Enough ports for a 7 inch tablet

Price: a real deal here

This is the bit you’ll love about the Acer Iconia TAB A100: it costs only $330 for the 8 GB model and switching to 16 GB only costs you $20 more. That’s very competitive, and the only thing that could possibly stop you from getting one is the very short battery life.

Acer Iconia A100 availability and pricing details

Hope Acer manages to address this problem with a larger battery option, even if that means getting a new revision to market or making the current tablet bulkier. I wouldn’t mind trading a few ounces for 4-5 more operating hours without a charge. How about you?

And now that the Acer Iconia A100 is here it’s hard to ignore what possibly is the cheapest Honeycomb tablet on market right now.

Interesting pattern on the back