Product Listing

Acer Iconia Tab W500 - Mismatched Tablet

By Seow Tein Hee - 24 Aug 2011

Conclusion

Iconic Disappointment

Are there just too many tablets in the market? Judging from the recent lineup, that’s a definite yes. Acer is just one of the many companies that have jumped onto the bandwagon. The good thing is they embraced this growing market early and tried to differentiate its Acer Iconia Tab W500. Deviating from the mainstream tablet crowd, Acer bundled a keyboard to complement the overall usability of its Windows 7 based tablet.

Though the concept is practical, the execution leaves much to be desired. The Tab W500 lacked the basic design element that allows intuitive use of its form factor. From the very start, we were baffled by the ease at which the tablet and keyboard components are separated. With no prior instructions, most users will experience a sudden shock at detaching the parts while expecting the top lid to swivel open akin to a notebook.

Once attached, our experience with the keyboard was an affair we’d more than prefer to forget. We had much difficulty in adjusting to the cramped layout of the keys. The absence of a track pad, in lieu of a small track button located in the center, did not sit too well with us. The dock’s inclusion of two full-sized USB ports did help to expand the peripheral range, including a USB mouse to navigate through Microsoft Windows 7 user interface.

And here’s where we had to second-guess Acer’s operating system choice for its Tab W500. Judging from our previous experiences, plonking the Microsoft OS hasn’t exactly done much to help boost the usability and sales of the tablet market. With both Apple iOS and Google Android dominating the scene, it just struck us as pretty odd that Acer would take the extra effort to present an alternative Windows 7 tablet on top of its Android Honeycomb-based Acer Iconia Tab A500.

Even with its 10.1-inch display, navigating through the Windows 7 UI is no easy task. Firstly, its various icons and program shortcuts isn’t exactly optimized for precise touch screen navigation. Some might say this streamlines your desktop experience with the tablet, but considering how much more effort is required to access basic functions such as the Windows Explorer using its touch screen, we’d have to disagree. Even netbooks as well as full-fledged notebook based tablets faced these similar concerns, and the W500 had to walk right into the same issue. Don't get us wrong. On one hand we do agree that a Windows 7 based system is more versatile at any given time. However one has to take note that the OS was never really designed for small screen usage and thus, this breaks the overall experience.

Without relying on the ARM architecture such as NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 dual-core processors, the Tab W500 has a seemingly stronger spec sheet to run the Windows OS with the AMD C-50 1.0GHz dual-core Fusion processor and 2GB of DDR3 RAM, which is twice the memory and processing power of most other tablets. By virtue of its hardware and software choice, the Tab W500 pits itself more with netbooks than tablets. Comparing its benchmark scores against systems of its class, the Tab W500 fared slightly better. Clocking about 4 hours and 27 minutes for its intensive it battery test, it’s on even ground with most of the tablets we’ve tested. In casual usage, it should last close to a day.

Yay or nay? In this case, we have to say the Acer Iconia Tab W500 will be one of the least favored choice amongst the tablet lineup in 2011.

Ultimately, should you even consider the Acer Iconia Tab W500, which lacks the basic intuitiveness and questionable OS choice? With a price tag of S$988, we have to say there are much better options out there, mostly on the Android or iOS platforms. If you're really on the look out for netbooks, there are better options at far less price like the Toshiba NB550D which uses the same platform and costs half the amount. If you need a netbook that doubles up as a tablet, again there are better implementations that we've reviewed before.

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6.5
The Good
Keyboard dock bundled with tablet
Full-sized USB ports on tablet component
The Bad
Lack of portability
Odd docking style with keyboard
Low level of usability of Windows 7 on tablet form factor
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