Acer takes on Google, Amazon, Samsung and Tesco in the small tablet arena
The market for small Android tablets is rather full, if not overflowing (see this week’s Component Watch for confirmation of this), so I was curious to see what Acer might bring to this party. The Iconia Tab 8, as the name suggests, is a 8" widescreen aspect tablet that's competing directly with a plethora of other small sub-£200 Android tablets.
This one, specifically, offers a 1280 x 800 display, runs Android KitKat 4.4.4, has 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal flash storage. Where Acer went in its own direction with the Tab 8, though, is in choosing Intel’s Baytrail instead of using an ARM architecture. This tablet is built around a quad-core Atom Z3745 1,86GHz - an interesting choice but, given it’s not aiming to run x86 code, a curious one.
Having used the Tab 8 for a few days now, that question remains largely unanswered, because this isn't the fastest small tablet I've used, and the battery life of 7.5 hours isn't close to what some other devices offer. I was, however, impressed by the display panel, which is very crisp and highly colour saturated. The Nexus 7 (2013) offers 1080p these days, but 720p is fine for most portable purposes. Similarly the sound output is surprisingly punchy, and the inclusion of a micro-SD card slot negates the need to go bigger than the 16GB model.
For those who what a bigger picture, this is one of the very few small tablets that includes HDMI out port. Acer doesn't provide a cable for you to use it out of the box, though, which is a shame.
This feature, combined with its decent build quality, might attract some customers looking for something with which to tweet their indignation while watching reality TV. However, there are some things about the Tab 8 that are less compelling on closer inspection.
One of these is how many pre-installed applications Acer has put on it, using a good chunk of storage up before the device is even turned on.
I counted 23 apps, and you can't delete any of them. What's super-annoying is that many of them generate alerts, either trying to push products or asking for updates. If you want to be bugged to buy stuff, I'd recommend the Tesco Hudl or the Kindle Fire HD, as they're similarly priced and specified.
In the end, odd choice of Intel CPU aside, the Tab 8 is a decent enough Android tablet. Unfortunately it’s operating in an environment where there are some exceptional ones already. The Tab 8 is about the same price as a 16GB Nexus 7, a tablet that doesn't come prestuffed with software detritus and is now running Android 5.0 Lollipop. While the screen might be smaller, I'd take the Nexus any day over this device.
The critical mistake Acer made here is treating the Tab 8 like it is a PC when, despite the hardware similarities, it most definitely isn't. Mark Pickavance
A well-made tablet that suffers from an abundance of inherent, unavoidable, crap ware.