Acer has announced about the release of Iconia Tab W500 in spring 2011. The tablet has a great assembly, contrast and bright display with wide viewing angles and excellent color reproduction. moreover, for the same money you get two in one – the tablet and netbook. The tablet’s size is 274 x 190 x 14 mm, and weight is 970 grams.
Design
In outward appearance, Acer Iconia Tab W500 tablet is similar to the majority of its brethren, but it has a number of differences which are not typical for classical tablets. Thanks to the original docking station, performed as a kind of cradle with keyboard, Iconia Tab W500 can act both as a tablet, and as a compact laptop.
The tablet’s housing is made of plastic. back of the housing resembles polished aluminum in its texture, and from afar it can be taken for the metal, but it is not. The front part of the tablet is covered with a protective “glass”, under which the screen is located, and the frame around the display is painted in black.
On the bottom left part of the tablet there is the only hardware command button with the logo of “Windows”, calling up the “Start” menu. The other hardware buttons are placed on the end faces of the device: power button and volume rocker are on the left end face, while on the bottom – screen orientation lock button. A tablet turns into a netbook. To do this, one only need to put the tablet into a special reclining holder on the docking station with a keyboard. One can easily fold up the device. for the secure fixation of the two parts, of the tablet provides a special sliding catches, fitting into the grooves on the docking station, and docking station itself is equipped with a sliding latch.
Functional features
Acer Iconia Tab W500 model is built on a new hardware platform from AMD company. The device is equipped with Dual-Core C50 dual-core processor, running at 1 GHz and A50M chipset. Processor, established in the tablet, is not the most productive in the family of new AMD chips and is greatly inferior to E350 processor, which is one of the main components of the Brazos platform, in performance. But compared to major competitor in the face of Intel Atom, AMD dual-core processor demonstrates more impressive results. The integrated in chipset Radeon HD 6250M graphics card, equipped with 256 MB video memory, answers for HD video playback and work with 3D graphics in the new platform. as opposed to the tandem Intel NM10 + GMA 3150, AMD A50M + Radeon HD 6250M pair demonstrates a high level of performance at comparable power consumption, and hence is the most promising platform for the modern netbooks at the moment. The tablet has 2 GB RAM installed, 32GB SSD storage capacity and Wi-Fi wireless modules, Bluetooth 3.0 and optional 3G.
Display
In Acer Iconia Tab W500 model capacitive screen with a 10.1 inches diagonal, a 1280×800 pixels resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio is installed. W500 screen shows a bright image and good viewing angles, but the combination of “glossy” matrix with mirror padding and a thick protective “glass” (to protect the display plastic is used) affected the ability of the screen to display a clear picture in bright, direct light not in the best way.
Ports and connector
Iconia Tab W500 is equipped with two USB 2.0 ports (located on the bottom of the device), HDMI and Jack 3,5 mm connectors (on the left end face) and a slot for SD/MMC cards. after installing the tablet on a docking station, one of the USB ports is used for connection with a keyboard, while the second is overlapped with the elements of the docking station, so for peripherals connection there are only two USB ports, located on the end faces of the docking station. In addition to the USB connectors, the docking station is equipped with Ethernet connector (RJ-45) and allows connecting the device not only to wireless networks, but also to wired networks. Connectors for Flash and SIM-cards are closed with plastic plugs.
Software
Unlike the most of modern tablets, operating on the iOS and Android OS, new Iconia Tab W500 runs on Windows 7, and demonstrates the broad communication skills. for more comfortable working with the device, Acer Ring software is preinstalled on the tablet. The shell is invoked by clicking on a special icon and allows you to configure the basic parameters of the tablet just with one touch, as well as run applications that are adapted for controlling with the fingers: TouchBrowser (application for working with web content); SocialJogger (application for tracking tapes of activities in Facebook, as well as new videos on YouTube and photos, posted on Flickr); my Journal (application for storing bookmarks of web pages that are dynamically updated), and Clear.fi (application for searching, sharing and playing music, photos and video). Application Acer Games preinstalled on the tablet – a kind of applications store such as App Store.
Docking station and keyboard
The docking station is a kind of cradle, combined with a keyboard. The island-style keyboard is ergonomically close to the keyboards of netbooks and subnotebooks which enables easily text typing and working with the device like on an ordinary 10-inch netbook. To move the cursor Touch Point is used, which is well-known to the owners of Lenovo laptops. at the top of the docking station there is a special folding mechanism for fastening, consisting of retractable USB port and two guides. Installation and removal of the tablet can be made literally in one motion. The dock station also has a Gigabit LAN Port. at the present time Acer Iconia Tab W500 is one of the few tablets, offering such an original solution for a more comfortable work.
Acer Iconia Tab W500 is a highly original device, built on a new AMD hardware platform, and runs on Windows 7. The tablet allows you to shoot video in HD, but also able to render video in Full HD (1080p). however, the main advantage of Iconia Tab W500 is the availability of the dock station with a keyboard and extra connectors, which help to turn the tablet in a convenient and compact netbook in a twinkling.
Acer Iconia Tab W500 Review
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acer iconia tab w500 review
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