We'll stop just wanting quoting Top Gun here, but when it's speed you crave, these next thousands of words may have you emptying your wallet. How's that for a gap line? To be honest, it has been quite your time since any folks Engadget editors booted up a new device and immediately let out a stream of expletives -- all expressing unbridled delight, for sure. Such was the start of our meet-cute with Acer's Iconia Tab A510, the company's first Tegra 3 slate, and the second one to ship with Ice Cream Sandwich.
Except for that 1280 x 800 TFT LCD display, this 10-incher looks, feels and performs nothing like its predecessor, the A500. Turbocharged with that quad-core CPU and 1GB of RAM, this Android 4.0 tablet joins a crowded category with a generous 32GB in built-in storage and an affordable $450 ticket to compare. So, does that excellence lose its luster with more extensive use? Is your money better spent on any of the alternative umpteen tablets running ICS? Will the shortcoming of a better-quality display prove an excessive amount of of a con to your exquisite tech tastes? Follow on as we probe the A510 for answers.
Hardware
Tablet design is unoriginal -- a complaint we've issued before and one we'll avoid during this review. So, consider this: when a manufacturer excises any emphasis on how something looks, the sole thing left to spotlight is the way it feels. Though the A510 is flush with silicon at 1.5 pounds (680 grams), we're inclined to forgive that extra heft, since we get some jaw-dropping runtime in return (spoiler alert!). Besides, overweight or no, it manages to feel reassuringly grippy in-hand, at 10.2 x 6.9 x 0.43 inches (260 x 175 x 10.95mm). Sure, in the event you hold it in landscape mode the pointy edges feel a wee bit too sharp, besides , it feels rigid, formidable. Very like the A200 before it, the tab's smooth back is made up of a soft, matte plastic and studded with bumpy dots that are supposed to eliminate any worries you will have about dropping it. Curiously, the company's also slapped the Olympic logo next to its own, smack dab inside the center of the back cover, underneath which lies that hearty 9,800mAh battery. Clearly, it is a case of pimping out public awareness of its London 2012 partnership, but here it just seems awkward and unnecessary; a scarlet letter of sponsorship instantly dating this debut.
The Olympic branding here seems awkward and unnecessary; a scarlet letter of sponsorship instantly dating this debut.
Above that collision of corporate branding is a 5-megapixel rear camera -- the identical one used at the A500, only this time it's lacking an LED flash. At the opposite end there is a logo for the Dolby Digital Plus audio compression powering the twin speakers tucked into the tablet's bottom edge. Hardware keys and ports are sprinkled round the perimeter of the A510, leaving no side untouched. A micro-USB socket and recessed reset button take in residence at the lower edge, an influence button and three.5mm headphone jack lie at the left, a volume rocker and orientation lock up top and, finally, HDMI-out and a covered microSD slot sit at the right. Acer isn't throwing in any external storage to enrich the tab's built-in 32GB, so if you happen to plan on heavy media consumption it's essential to supply your personal card.
The A510's front face is the same old mixture of bezel, branding and camera, although on this instance Acer's downgraded that module from the two megapixels found at the A500 to a measly 1 megapixel. We do not have to spell out for you what meaning relating to imaging performance, so take care to review your disappointment before we continue directly to the camera section below. Once you've powered at the device and completed the initial setup process, the A510's speed becomes readily apparent, as does the relative excellence of the screen. Yes, the 1280 x 800 TFT LCD display has remain unchanged on this hardware refresh, bringing with it fairly good viewing angles which might be, quite often, occluded by its propensity for incredible amounts of glare. Wake the tablet from a dead sleep and you may see the cold boot time hovers within the 30-second range. Even a year ago we were seeing tablets which can best this, but otherwise, the remainder of the user experience this is surprisingly nimble and fast-paced.
Software
What more is also said about Ice Cream Sandwich at this point, especially when that Android UI's dressed up in Acer's familiar UX? Yes, the interface here have been altered to incorporate the identical uninstallable ring launcher we previously saw at the A200. Nothing has changed inside the jump from that lower-end slate to this one: possible pull up that circular shortcut menu from the lowest of the homescreen, in addition to access the gallery, browser, settings, bookmarked tabs or snap screenshots. We did notice, however, that while performance is usually zippy, this one particular enhancement suffers from uneven performance, waffling between an instantaneous and somewhat delayed response time. The lockscreen also features the company's subtle modifications, adding the flexibility to set shortcuts for specific apps.
As you might've come to expect, navigation during the five homescreens is accomplished with a refreshing briskness that blessedly spills over into the app drawer, in addition to the many menus peppered throughout Android 4.0. Browsing takes at the same rapid pace, with page load times ranging between 15 and 30 seconds for full desktop sites. Pinch to zoom also feels amazingly responsive, though we did notice some tiling and blank gray spaces as we waited for pages to scale.
You desire an Android slate, you get some bloat. So, while you boot up the A510 and are greeted by a dozen-plus apps filling up its drawer, attempt to feign surprise and righteous indignation. It is all rather rote at this point. Acer's shoveled just a couple of its own applications onto the inner storage, together with various third-party offerings like Amazon's Kindle, MP3 and Appstore trio; Netflix; Polaris Office; Evernote; SoundHound; HW Solitaire; and TegraZone. Thankfully, at the very least, purists can easily uninstall all of those inside the settings menu.
Performance and battery life| Acer Iconia Tab A510 ($450) | ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 ($379) | Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 ($250) | Acer Iconia Tab A200 ($350) | |||
| Quadrant (v2) | 3,754 | 3,695 | 2,840 | 2,053 | ||
| Linpack single-thread (MFLOPS) | 47.8 | 41.70 | 37.1 | 37.2 | ||
| Linpack multi-thread (MFLOPS) | 120.5 | 89.83 | 61.3 | 60.4 | ||
| NenaMark 1 (fps) | 62.8 | 60.3 | 57.6 | 45.6 | ||
| NenaMark 2 (fps) | 55.8 | 46.9 | 30.4 | 20.4 | ||
| Vellamo | 1,500 | 1,320 | 978 | 1,290 | ||
| SunSpider 9.1 (ms, lower numbers are better) | 1,850 | 2,120 | 2,239 | 2,251 |
Benchmarks generally is a mixed bag, offering up quantifiable performance that does not necessarily match a product's real-world experience. With the Iconia Tab A510, though, you're able to sweep away all of that uncertainty. Pitted against the Transformer Pad TF300, another recently released Tegra 3 slate, in addition to dual-core contenders just like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 and the lower-end A200, this girthy tablet absolutely dominates. There isn't any doubt in regards to the massive processing power of its 1.3GHz SoC and 1GB of RAM. In nearly every category, the A510 leapt ahead with decisive, crushing victories -- a string of wins that repeated themselves time and again in everyday use.
Its dominance could be unchallenged, but don't confuse the A510's top-dog ranking with consistently fluid performance. A quad-core CPU is simply not some magic wand an aftermarket gets to wave over its offspring to eradicate performance hiccups. As we saw with Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) at MWC and the ASUS Transformer Pad we've just finished reviewing, there'll be moments, fleeting though they're, when the OS hesitates to execute an action. It's ever-so slight, but you will see and beauty why, with all that horsepower under the hood, this forward-facing combination of Tegra 3 and ICS should stumble in any respect.
| Tablet | Battery Life |
| Acer Iconia Tab A510 | 10:23 |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 | 12:01 |
| Apple iPad 2 | 10:26 |
| ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime | 10:17 / 16:34 (keyboard dock) |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 | 9:55 |
| Apple iPad (2012) | 9:52 (HSPA) / 9:37 (LTE) |
| Apple iPad | 9:33 |
| Pantech Element | 9:00 |
| Motorola Xoom 2 | 8:57 |
| HP TouchPad | 8:33 |
| ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 | 8:29 / 12:04 (keyboard dock) |
| Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet | 8:20 |
| Acer Iconia Tab A200 | 8:16 |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus | 8:09 |
| Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet | 8:00 |
| Amazon Kindle Fire | 7:42 |
| Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 | 7:38 |
| RIM BlackBerry PlayBook | 7:01 |
| Acer Iconia Tab A500 | 6:55 |
| T-Mobile Springboard (Huawei MediaPad) | 6:34 |
| Toshiba Thrive | 6:25 |
| Motorola Xyboard 8.2 | 5:25 |
| Acer Iconia Tab A100 | 4:54 |
Under no circumstances will you be disappointed with the juicepack Acer's included within the Iconia Tab A510. Rated for 12 hours of video playback, the 9,800mAh battery should get you thru bouts of heavy use with a charge to spare after which some. The lightest of users will probably wonder after they ever even have to plug the tablet back in, on account that it only fell to half capacity after three days of infrequent browsing. Put throughout the paces of our formal rundown tst, the A510 fell just a few hours in need of the company's claim, but still kept a grin firmly planted on our faces because it racked up a magnificent total of 10 hours and 23 minutes, putting it on par with Apple's iPad 2 and the Transformer Prime. Mind you, that's with brightness set to medium, Twitter syncing at 15 minute intervals, one push email account activated and WiFi enabled.
Camera 
Taking photos with tablets not just looks silly, but it surely feels ridiculous. We throw that caveat obtainable because camera quality on Android slates is a type of areas best met by lowered expectations. To assert the module at the Iconia Tab A510 is serviceable can be far too generous. Its 5-megapixel shooter takes decent shots with an appropriate level of detail that diminishes once you begin to zoom in. Colors -- reds specifically -- are rendered in an oversaturated, unnatural way, while other parts of the picture appear dull when put next. As for Acer's custom camera app, it delivers an uneven experience that demands an excellent amount of juggling whilst you try to access a number of the options scattered concerning the screen. And you'll forget the robust array of scene modes offered in other slates: the feature set here's plain and simple, almost as though it's acknowledging how useless it's.
The A510 can also be able to 1080p video, however the finished product doesn't necessarily translate into the whole HD experience you'd expect. Given the camera's loss of image stabilization, the shaky quality makes the video almost unwatchable, with the occasional crisp frame when the slate was being held still. What did blow away our expectations was the exceptional power of its Dolby Digital Plus compression technology. As you'll hear within the sample video, the sounds of a miles-off saxophone make a special cameo, as do pieces of assorted off-camera conversations. The disadvantage to this stellar feature is the inconsistency with which it renders your intended audio -- namely, your personal voice. We shot several sample videos and noted occasional elements of distortion because the tablet attempted to parse all that background noise.
The competition
So you are prepared to make the leap into the wild world of tablets, but where to start out? Without doubt, plenty of first-timers are going to finish up taking their charge cards and flinging them in Apple's direction. $500 for a 16GB iPad could be a steep price ticket to swallow for some, however the simplicity of iOS make for a sensible new purchase. You'll also buck any pressure to have the following smartest thing and fork over four Benjamins for a 16GB iPad 2, though we've gone on record saying newcomers are at an advantage splurging on that top-res Retina display.
But maybe you are not exactly a post-PC virgin, otherwise you simply prefer Android to iOS. Luckily for you, you might have a plethora of options to select from. For the sake of helping all of the overwhelmed shoppers obtainable attempting to make sense of the market, we'll narrow the sector all the way down to similarly priced 10-inch tablets running Android 4.0. For $400, the Transformer Pad TF300 is, in lots of ways, the A510's direct competition, loaded up with unskinned ICS, a Tegra 3 SoC and 32GB, though this, obviously, is obtainable with an optional keyboard dock. The single downside preventing us from steering you on to the Transformer is battery life. Though it managed eight-plus hours on a charge (12, in case you count the $150 docking station), it's no match for the A510's ten-plus hours of runtime.
Meanwhile, in the event you cut the built-in storage to 16GB, lower the variety of cores from four to 2 and keep the Android 4.0 software there's Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1). It costs $400, similar to the 32GB Transformer Pad TF300, and twenty dollars greater than the Transformer with 16GB of storage. Cast in that light, it isn't quite as compelling a purchase order, is it?
Spec for spec, you're really left with only two contenders: the A510, which costs $50 more, or Transformer Pad TF300. Shoppers hell-bent on heavy multimedia consumption should probably persist with what Acer's selling, if just for the outstanding performance of that 9,800mAh battery. Android purists and people intrigued by the theory of a laptop replacement, nevertheless, will need to jump on ASUS' bandwagon.
Wrap-up 
We will be able to still hear the echoes of NVIDIA's CEO teasing the possibility of $300 Tegra 3 tablets, but while the promise of that affordable future isn't quite a reality yet, impatient consumers eyeing quad-core performance have a on hand option: the Iconia Tab A510. Acer's succeeded in building a very good Android 4.0 tablet, and it's one consumers with a penchant for media consumption will need to consider. Alright, so it's not the stainless Tegra 3 conception Acer (or NVIDIA) might've wanted it to be, prone because it is to brief software fits, though we'll confess we've noticed similar bumps at the similarly priced ASUS Transformer Pad TF300, in addition to the twin-core Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. So should those stifled hiccups enough to place you off the A510's Olympic-branded trail? They shouldn't. With its bleeding-edge quad-core performance, exceptional battery life and each of the benefits of Ice Cream Sandwich, it is a 10-incher worth its slightly heavier weight. For those of you intrigued by the concept of a tablet that may also double as a netbook replacement, we still heartily recommend the well-performing, cost effective Transformer TF300. But when you're willing to speculate in a dependable tablet and it's exceptional battery life that you are after, those $450 bucks stop here.
From WhatNewsToday.net
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