You have to be really careful about making claims, whether they are wild or not. Acer claims that the Predator 8 is the ultimate gaming tablet. But while it is a really good tablet for gaming, it’s difficult to think of it as being ultimate.
Still, the Predator 8 has a lot going for it. With a crisp, full HD 8 inch screen, it provide players with more realestate than your average smartphone, but remains more portable than a ten inch. Also, if you want to lump it into a handheld gaming device category, that screen is really massive (although portability is not really a win here). And so it straddles the fence between the categories of gaming device and tablet, leaning a bit more in the tablet direction.
One of the big selling points of the Predator 8 is the speaker set up. It offers four speakers, with one at each corner of the screen. It’s an interesting approach, to say the least, and the audio delivery is superior to that of most tablets. But it is also a bit of overkill – most games that will be played on this Android device use stereo at best. Acer’s idea that the four speakers deliver a surround sound experience is more gimmick than practical, because mobile and tablet games simply don’t work that way.
On the upside, though, the awesome audio means that it is also a handy device for watching streaming media, like videos from YouTube or even movies from a service like Netflix. And with a storage capacity of either 32 or 64 GB, you can carry a few movies around with you. Extra storage is also provided via a microSD port, which supports cards of up to 128GB.
At its heart is a decent 1.6GHz quad-core processor, supported by (in tablet terms) a chunky 2GB of RAM. That means that it is a fairly quick performer, provided you keep the RAM clear, and performs really well with virtually any game made for the platform.
If you are one who enjoys mobile and tablet gaming, the Predator 8 is a very solid option, despite some of the things mentioned above. It is quick and responsive, and delivers great audio and visuals. It’s a little crammed with bloatware out of the box, but a clean-up session should see most of that right out of the way before long. It’s highly portable, and has a screen size that is very comfortable to game on, particularly considering that most games it will play are made for a smaller screen. It’s not unwieldy, yet manages to be large enough to enhance the gaming experience.
So, in the end, it might not be the ultimate in tablet gaming (we think that we haven’t even come close to that concept yet) but it is a very good way to enjoy games built for the Android platform.
HP’s good intentions at producing a more cost effective printer seem to be realised in the 5525.
SPECS
- 1.6GHz CPU
- 2GB RAM
- 8 inch multitouch screen
- 4 speakers
- 5mp camera
- 32/64GB capacity