Acer Iconia A3 Review

Introduction

Want a cheap Android 10-incher? Acer Iconia Tab A3 is one of the most affordable such slates with a launch price tag hovering around the EUR 250 mark. For this money you are of course getting a very low pixel density display, a ho-hum MediaTek processor, and just a gig of RAM, but all the other prerequisites of a decent tablet are present.

The Iconia A3 sports microSD card slot for memory expansion, a microHDMI port for hooking it up to your TV, stereo speakers, and a 5 MP rear cam that does 1080p video. Can these be enough to overpower the unimpressive horse power and screen resolution? Read on to find out...

Design

Acer Iconia Tab A3 is a pretty fine looking tablet. It doesn’t stand out with premium chassis materials, just matte white plastic. It feels soft to the touch, however, while the rounded corners and tapered back make the tablet comfortable to hold. Acer's slate is on the thick side for today's standards, at 0.4” (10.2mm), while with 20oz (560g) of weight it is about as heavy as your average 10-incher in that department.

The silver trim around the sides imitates brushed metal, but is made out of plastic. Most ports, buttons and slots are on the left, with only the volume rocker and one of the stereo speakers situated on the right. That volume rocker and the power/lock key are pretty well situated, easy to feel and press, and offer good tactile feedback. The microUSB port on the left serves for file syncing and transfer, and also as a charging port with the supplied wall charger and microUSB cable.

Overall, no qualms about the Acer Iconia A3 design at that price, save for the fact that the microSD card slot on the left isn't covered with any protection, which can lead to dust and dirt jamming the thin opening, and its spring loading mechanism.

Display

The deepest compromise Acer had to do to keep the Iconia A3 price low is the screen resolution. At 10.1 inches the 1280x800 pixels return 149ppi pixel density, so if you are looking at the tablet from normal viewing distance you are able to tell individual dots. The pixel density is not nearly enough for smooth text and icon edges, which appear jagged and pixelated. If you aren't spoiled by the high-res phone screens of late, and this is your first tablet, the resolution might be enough for your modest needs, but not if you are a more discerning user. The resolution is only fine for watching HD movies, but in browsing, reading and even general app usage, the lack of screen detail is very visible.


The display colors seem a bit pale, as the tablet could use some saturation bump. Black levels are deep enough for an LCD screen, appearing only slightly greyish when the backlight shows through on a dark background. That same backlighting seems to be of average strength since the tablet is nothing to write home about in terms of peak brightness levels. Outdoors, the average brightness, coupled with high screen reflectivity present visibility issues. Since we have an IPS screen technology, at least the viewing angles are pretty good.

Interface and functionality

The Iconia A3 runs Android 4.2 with roughly stock looks, though Acer has customized it a bit with its own wallpaper, handpicked weather widget, and a couple of homebrew apps for different services like the Acer Cloud, for instance.

Another way Acer makes the tablet stand out is the new IntelliSpin technology for better screen rotation awareness. Basically, Acer built-in a more sensitive accelerometer in its tablet, so the screen will turn in the right direction at the right time, unlike some tablet screens that seem to be rotating with the slightest corner tilt. You have the IntelliSpin icon in the lower right corner on every homescreen, should you decide to turn the functionality off.

Acer also offers a couple of useful gestures as an alternative to your lock screen. If you turn on the so-called TouchWake function from the drop-down notification bar toggle, or from the settings, you can use a five- or two-finger gesture. Placing all five fingertips on the screen can start the camera app immediately, for example, even skipping the lock screen. The two-thumb gesture launches an app of your choice when you place the two digits on the locked display while in portrait mode, too. We set it up to launch the browser, for instance, and you can even tell TouchWake which of your bookmarks to open with the resulting browser app launch.

Processor and memory

Iconia A3 is powered by a modest 1.2 GHz quad-core MediaTek 8125 processor, which has four weakling Cortex-A7 cores. This chipset is by no means powerful, but since we have such a low screen resolution, the processor doesn't seem bogged down, so general interface usage, such as swiping and scrolling, presents only a hint of lag. For 3D gaming at respectable framerates, however, you'd have to look elsewhere.

The tablet ships with 1 GB of RAM for some basic multitasking, and 16 GB of internal memory (12 GB user-available), with a 32 GB version also in play. Acer provided a microSD slot, however, so you can add up to 64 GB more, if desired.

Internet and connectivity

Whether you'll use the stock Android Jelly Bean browser, or the supplied Chrome, there is some lag and choppiness while scrolling or panning around, though not the worse we've seen from this chipset. In addition, the low screen resolution makes text appear jagged, with interrupted font lines when reading an article.

Acer offers an Iconia A3 version with cellular connectivity for 50 USD or EUR more than the regular Wi-Fi one, and you also get a Bluetooth 4.0 radio with the tablet. As for wired connectivity, we already mentioned the microHDMI slot, which lets you hook the tablet to your TV with the respective cable. There is an HDMI section in the Settings app, too, that allows you to set the output resolution in case the image arrives garbled or choppy to your set.

Camera

The 5 MP camera on the Acer Iconia A3 isn't accompanied by a flash, and is somewhat conspicuously placed at one corner of the slate, so you have to keep this in mind when framing your shot. The camera app sports a couple of scene presets like Night, Sunset and Party, along with an HDR plus Panorama modes, and that's about it.

The photo situation with the Iconia A3 is average for tablet standards, with the 5 MP pics lacking some basic detail. Contrast appears bumped in a rather unnatural way, and the photos come out darker than reality. The HDR mode lightens the shadows a bit, but detail is still mush. Indoors there's an inexcusable amount of noise even with the overly short exposure times. The front-facing camera is also pretty bad, capturing copious amounts of noise indoors, where most video chat situations occur. The tablet can record 1080p video with fluid 30fps.

Battery

Acer cites up to 11 hours of video playback from the 3540 mAh pack in the Iconia A3, which is above average for Android tablets, and perhaps we are to thank the unassuming screen resolution for that endurance.

Conclusion

The Acer Iconia Tab A3 is a well balanced tablet for its modest price tag. Its solid build is not going to wow you with premium materials, but is ergonomic to handle, and the chipset chosen is not a speed demon, but does its job fine, decoding every high-res video thrown at it. Our only major gripe is with the screen resolution, which looks rather aging on a 10” tablet this season.

At first brush, for the current EUR 220 or £199 price there isn't much more we can demand from the Iconia A3, since this is a tag we are used to associate with 7” or 8” slates. Thus if you need a basic 10” tablet for media consumption or browsing, Acer's Iconia Tab A3 will generally do the trick without leaning on your wallet.

Its main competitor, however, the Lenovo IdeaTab S6000, shares the same specs and price tag, but is thinner, a tad lighter, and with a much larger 6300 mAh battery, ensuring up to 9 hours of browsing via Wi-Fi. Last year's ASUS Memo Pad ME301T with similar specs has now fallen to the sub-EUR250 range, too, and it sports a more powerful processor, but an older Android version.

Software version: Acer_AV502_A3_A10_0.016.00_WW_GEN1