A low-cost Android tablet with a super-sensitive screen
Touchscreens have been around for decades, but they got popular when they actually started responding to touch, as opposed to prodding. It’s one of the ways technology has overtaken science fiction. In films, people in plastic clothes make exaggerated swiping gestures to drag holograms around the room. In real life, you barely have to move your fingertip.
Even this level of sensitivity just wasn’t futuristic enough for the Iconia One 8. Its new touchscreen has a finer grid of sensors embedded that detects even more subtle contact. Rather than a finger, or a rubber-tipped iPad stylus, you can actually draw on it with a pencil. Initially, it feels wrong to attack the pristine glass with a sharp object, but it really does work.
Whenever we’ve tried drawing or writing on a touchscreen device, even with an expensive electrical stylus such as the Adonit Jot Touch, we’ve found it clumsy compared to pen and paper. But on Acer’s Precision Plus3 display, it feels natural and accurate - as if you’re really drawing, not just pointing. The included EZ Note sketching app, however, doesn’t do this full justice, so it’s worth trying other apps, such as Autodesk Sketchbook (free from the Google Play Store).
Of course, your finger also works fine. The catch is that the Iconia One 8’s resolution (1280x800 pixels) isn’t particularly high, so you can’t see really fine detail. Nor does it have palm rejection, meaning you have to hold the pencil (or whatever you use) without resting your palm on the screen, which tends to cramp your style. Even so, if you habitually express your thoughts in scribbles and doodles, this is still a step forward.
In other respects, the Iconia One 8 is pretty much your bog-standard low-cost tablet. Colour reproduction is in the same territory as Tesco’s Hudl 2, meaning not great, and maximum brightness is only just enough to cope with outdoor usage. The Intel Atom processor and 1GB of memory are also little to write home about, but we found the Android operating system (5.0, Lollipop) very responsive, and web pages loaded faster than on more expensive tablets such as the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro.
Demanding 3D games require more processing power than this for smooth running, but 2D games should work fine.
The battery lasted eight hours 19 minutes playing videos - an hour longer than the Hudl, although most other tablets can beat that. Only 10GB of the 16GB built-in storage is available for use (Android takes up the rest), which will very quickly fill up with photos, videos, apps and downloaded content, so you’ll want to budget for a microSD card too; 32GB should cost under a tenner.
Talking of photos, the 5-megapixel camera on the back isn’t as good as the one on Acer’s smaller Iconia One 7, and you won’t get Acer’s customisable camera app on this model, which is disappointing. Our outdoor shots weren’t accurately exposed or balanced, and lacked detail, while indoor shots produced grainy pictures. Most people wouldn’t generally choose to take photos with a tablet, so this probably doesn’t matter too much.
With a choice of five colours (including black and white), the Iconia One 8’s simple design should suit all tastes. It’s a shame the screen isn’t as sharp or colourful as it is sensitive, but for £120 it’s a very good buy.
VERDICT
Acer's well-made and capable budget tablet has a beauty that's more than skin deep.
SPECIFICATIONS
1.33GHz Intel Atom Z3735G quad-core processor • 1GB memory • 16GB flash storage • 8in 1280x800-pixel touchscreen • 5-megapixel rear camera • 0.3-megapixel webcam • MicroSD card slot • 802.11n Wi-Fi • Android 5.0 (Lollipop) • 214x128x9.5mm (HxWxD) • 355g • One-year warranty