A couple of months ago we heard that Acer was working on a tablet that would run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, have a quad core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, and most impressively pack a 10.1 inch display that could push 1920 x 1200 pixels. The Iconia Tab A700 as it came to be called remained a rumor for quite some time, but now it’s official … sort of. While Acer hasn’t announced the Iconia Tab A700, they are showing it off at CES. It delivers everything the rumors said it would, for a price we don’t yet know, and it’s slated to hit the market during the second quarter of this year. With all that being said, we’re a little disappointed to hear that Acer is going to develop their own custom Android skin to put on top of Ice Cream Sandwich. That means performance might be impacted, and worst of all software updates may be delayed. It’s also hard to get excited about an Android tablet when the iPad 3 is rumored to be both announced and end up in stores at some point in March.
Speaking about the iPad 3, it’s heavily rumored to come with a screen that can push 2048 x 1536 pixels. That’s obviously better than the Iconia Tab A700, and don’t even get us started about apps either. There are zero applications that take advantage of Ice Cream Sandwich, yet you can expect iOS developers to pour their heart and souls into making something for the “retina” screened iPad the day it gets released. Is it unfair to compare two products that haven’t yet hit the market? Absolutely, but that’s Google’s fault for failing to get us excited about their tablet software, which by the way was created as a direct response to Apple’s resounding success in a product category that they created.
What do you think, is any Android tablet that hits the market DOA?
[Image Credot: CCS Insight]