Acer Iconia Tab A500 Android tablet hits Best Buy for $450

By on Apr 25, 2011 at 2:29 PM
mobile April 25, 2011

The Acer Iconia Tab A500, an Android 3.0 (Honeycomb tablet) with a 10.1-inch display, is now available from Best Buy for $450. The Iconia Tab A500 — not to be confused with the Iconia Tab A501 headed to AT&T — is powered by a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor clocked at 1GHz, offers 16GB of onboard storage, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chats, a 5-megapixel rear camera, and up to 8 hours of battery life. It also comes with 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, and a microSD card slot that supports up to 32GB of additional storage. Best Buy says the tablet will ship from its warehouse within 1 business day, and we confirmed that local stores in New York City are stocking the device.

[Via Mobile Burn]

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17 Comments

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  • Bringit

    or wait a couple weeks – they’ll pay you to take one home.

    • xxdesmus

      says the Apple zombie

      • Bringit

        better than a drrroooiiiddbie.

      • Anonymous

        that must have hurt to say or type… :)

      • Anonymous

        Seriously? Do you guys get your kicks from logging into places like this and… erm, calling each other names?

  • Anonymous

    This seems to be a good price for really good specs.

    • Anonymous

      Screen res is same as XOOM 1280×800

      • Anonymous

        Yes, but what type of display is it? The resolution doesn’t tell the entire story.

      • Anonymous

        i know it is not IPS like the ASUS or Ipad…but not sure…i know that the viewing angles are great!…no difference i can see between that and the XOOM…and the color is the same as far as I can see…and I have had cheap tablets (archos 70, 101)

  • Anonymous

    I got one for my wife for Mother’s Day. It is NOT a Xoom, but for the price it is good. The USB port on the device is nice especially since it takes a usb keyboard without a hitch.
    A working Micro SD card slot is a 1 UP on the XOOM
    The aluminum for the back is definitely going to be scratch up without proper care. And the glass is definately not gorilla glass (which was already known). But for the money, not a bad option.

    The ASUS transformer will probably win out, but if you don’t want to buy the $150 dock, you can still have the full USB port and a cheaper usb keyboard for lesser money.

  • Anonymous

    This seems like a better strategy for competing with the iPad, that is the lower price point. Well, $399 would have been better. Unless a product does something radically different, they’re all going to be “me too” products trying to compete with the iPad. If the specs are in the same ballpark, isn’t radically different, and is about the same price as the iPad, which consumer is going to choose the “me too” product? I am referring to the average consumer, not super techies who hate anything Apple.

    The strategy in this case is to embrace the “me too” category and undercut on price. There’s no shortage of consumers who will gladly pay a little less for something they feel is “almost as good” or “pretty much like an iPad, but cheaper”.

    Trying to compete at the same price point without enough differentiation is a poor business move; the reality is that the iPad came first, the Apple brand has all the marketing buzz and cool factor, and it’s a really nice product. Nine out of 10 times, the average consumer will choose the “it” product over the perceived “me too” product at the same or similar price point.

    • Anonymous

      I disagree. There’s many reasons why people would go with this over the iPad.

      – It has an microSD slot.

      – It’s running Android.

      – It’s way cheaper than an iPad.

      – It’s not tied to a carrier and expensive data plan.

      – It’s closer to a computer than the iPad (which is simply a “dumb” terminal for looking at media).

      – In this economy, with gas speculated to get to $6 a gallon, people MIGHT consider this tablet. People won’t be buying the iPad, at least not the masses. There’s a finite number of Apple product purchasers (those with money to spend) and Apple is running out of those customers. So it’s sales are going to suffer.

      – Given the choice on how to spend their limited funds, the masses will opt on getting a far more useful netbook or notebook. They will pass on crippled notebook “displays” misnomered as tablets (at least what used to be known as tablet computers).

      Sidenote: The iPad was not the first. Tablets have been around for years. Apple simplified it (aka dumbed it down), came out with clever marketing, and like usual the Apple zombies, faithful and fanboys lap it up.

      • Anonymous

        In my post, I clearly mentioned how this is a more effective strategy than what Motorola tried with the Xoom; don’t compete head on, accept your fate as a “me too” product and win on price.

        As far as your comments go, you seem as out of touch with the consumer market as the CEOs of Nokia, Dell, etc. Apple has been having record quarter after record quarter, despite the economy being the worst its been in decades. If anything, the economy is in an upswing, as gas prIces often move up with the economy.

        Yes, tablets have been around for a long time. However, to compare an archaic Windows tablet to an iPad is asinine. One ported a desktop OS to a limited form factor; the other built an OS from the ground up designed to highlight the form factor’s strengths. Consumers spoke last year, and continue to speak, and sales of netbooks have plummeted.

        The iPad does what the majority of consumers want. Even if you don’t like it, consumption of media has replaced creation of media for most consumers. I think Steve Jobs nailed it when he compared PCs to trucks, and tablets to cars. Once upon a time, everyone had a truck. Now, most get by with just a car, as not everyone needs a truck.

        People don’t want a tablet that tries to mimic a PC. They voted with their wallets against that. Maybe Apple gets the consumer better than you? After all, they seem to be doing farily well.

      • Anonymous

        Also, as to your “points”:

        So what if it doesn’t have a microSD slot. Consumers just want to know they can load their photos on it. iPhoto or an adapter will do that. Not a game changer.

        I would reckon that the average consumer (read: average) doesn’t even know what Android is or care any more than they cared that their old phone ran JaveME. They know its a line of phones that are kinda like an iPhone. The average consumer is not a tech junkie.

        This isn’t way cheaper than an iPad. $450 for a 16GB vs $499? Not a huge amount.

        iPads aren’t tied to contracts either. Totally contract free, even 3G models. Just buy service month to month, or a month here or there, or not at all.

        Again, remember that for a product to be a huge mainstream success, it needs to appeal to multiple demographics – the average consumer, not the geek or tech savvy. The iPad appeals to everyone from children to teens to adults to grandparents. When something as advanced as an iPad is so easy to use and enjoy that a 4 year old or an 84 year old can pick it up and start using it with little learning curve, that’s special, and that’s what other companies don’t get.

  • http://profiles.google.com/booboolala2000 Patrick Crumpler

    Nice to see other tablets. My XOOM was getting lonely. On another note, analyst’s say that Honeycomb will command fifty percent of tablets by the end of the year. Heard it here first.

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  • Anonymous

    Great retort Pendergast, but it seems you have misread some of what I said. (My fault for not writing clearly. But I can only take so much time to post on sites like this, and I have to keep my articles short, which I usually fail on doing.)

    By way of update, in May 2011 I purchased a 32GB Acer Iconia. I love it!

    The main draws for me to the Acer:

    – Connectivity:

    - Full-sized USB port ( have connected an external mouse, keyboard and thumb drive to that port.)

    - microUSB port.

    - Bluetooth, WiFi, and micro HDMI.

    I agree that consumers don’t know much about electronics, but they can relate to a tablet coming with this level of connectivity. They will especially like it when realizing how much money the Acer, for example, will save them money by not having to buy a proprietary keyboard, because the Acer has a full-sized USB port. And being able to use a mouse on the tablet, that’s preety cool, IMHO. I played Angry Birds with ease. (Although when “on the road” I like using the Acer’s fantastic capacitive touch screen.)

    – 32GB internal storage;

    – microSD slot – 32GB capacity. Most consumers understand the concept of being able to swap chips and having 60GB of storage instead of iPad 2′s perhaps 32GB storage (I don’t know how much of the iPad 2′s 32GB is usable). And mine was under $500 for that. What would Apple charge for a 64GB iPad, maybe $800-$900? That’s one thing Apple hits people hard with, want more capacity, it’s going to cost you $200+ for each jump.

    With my $490 Acer I can buy a 32GB chip for $70 and I’m set. And of course, I can use any number of my 16GB chips, which makes the capacity of the Acer unlimited (because of that microSD slot, which Apple, by the way, will never put on its devices because it makes so much money by people having to buy a new machine, often to simply get more storage. (It’s laughable that the iPHone is the only superphone without an microSD slot. Yes, some carriers are too trying out phones and tablets without microSD slots, but those sales have suffered.)

    – Price – It was $490 at CostCo. (The 16GB model was $450.)

    – Form factor and quality – Fact is, the Acer Iconia A500 is a quality device. IMHO did not scrimp on details and it feels like the quality tablet it is.

    – 10.1″ display. It’s great. And I do agree with Jobs that a tablet with anything less than a 9″ screen is DOA.

    Sidenote: When I commented that tablets were not new, that Apple simply copied the concept, I did not mean that the tablet PCs of old should be compared to the iPad or Android tablets. I simply meant that Apple should not be credited with coming out with something new and innovative (as some people are giving Apple credit for).

    The only thing I give Apple credit for its marketing. To take the display half of a notebook, cut out half the functionality a notebook or netbook provides, and convince people to spend a lot of money for a “crippled” device, that’s impressive.

    Finally, the only reason Apple sold a lot of iPads is because in 2010 it was really the only kid on the block with something at that level of sophistication. (The iPad and iPad2 are very nice machines.) But in 2011 competitors are catching up, both in sales and interest in the tablet concept. 

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