Acer Iconia Tab A510 Review By 3G.co.uk

There’s an amazing number of tablets coming onto the market at the moment – and competition is tough, with an Ice Cream Sandwich slate (the Disgo 8104) on offer for only £150. So in sprints the Acer Iconia Tab A510, which is apparently the official tablet for the Olympic Games – but does it offer enough to put it on the winning podium?

Play the Games

A first look at the Iconia Tab A510 puts it in the same bracket as all the other iPad wannabes – it has a 10.1in display surrounded by a slim black bezel. It has silver edges and a soft reverse side that makes it easier to hold. It looks pretty much like all the other tablets out there, but nevertheless is light and yet well built.

It measures just under 11mm, so is far slimmer than the Iconia Tab A200, and as it is the Olympics’ official tablet, it boasts the five Olympic rings on the reverse – it’s quite subtle branding really.

The volume controls sit on the top of the device, while the power key sits on the left edge. There is also a small switch that locks the accelerometer, so that the display doesn’t rotate when you turn the device around. If you want to connect it to a TV, there’s a mini HDMI port on the right edge and for expanding the 16GB of onboard memory, a microSD slot is concealed under a tab.

Finally, there’s a five-megapixel snapper as well as a front-facing two-megapixel model for making video calls. The rear camera is nothing to shout about, but is okay for taking the odd shot to share on Facebook. Picture quality is reasonable on screen and autofocus takes a second or so to do its thing. The front-facing snapper is fine for Skype calls or even doing your make-up on the train to work – should you wish to.

Getting your music and films onto the tablet is simple – just connect using USB to our computer and you can drag and drop your multimedia. You can’t charge the device using USB, which is a nuisance, but not a deal-breaker. HD films look sharp and clear on the bright 10.1in screen – in fact it’s one of the most vibrant displays we’ve seen on any tablet. It also offers wide viewing angles, which is perfect if you want to watch films with friends or family.

Battery life is pretty good too – we managed to get nine hours of video streaming out of a full charge even with the display brightness turned right up and Wi-Fi running. Games drain the juice a bit quicker, but even so, the device will keep you entertained on a long journey.

Ice cream of the crop

The Iconia Tab A510 runs on Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which has five desktops that can be customised with all the widgets you want. Add all your favourite apps, which you can download straight from Google Play, or you can add shortcuts with Acer Ring. If you haven’t encountered this before, it’s a virtual wheel that offers speedy access to your chosen four apps, recently viewed web pages and volume controls.  

Play the games

Under the hood is a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, which offers twice as many cores as the Iconia Tab A200’s Tegra 2 chip. Apps and games load speedily, run beautifully and smoothly. Mind you, the right edge of the tablet got rather hot when we were playing games.

Our conclusion

The Acer Iconia Tab A510 lives up to its Olympic tag, with quad-core power and a sharp, nicely designed 10.1in display. It has a couple of quirks and the edge does heat up quite a bit, but nevertheless it’s a good all-rounder and will be particularly suited to families or anyone who wants to play games, run apps and view and listen to media while out and about.