Has anyone purchased or used an Acer Iconia A100 tablet (A100-07U08U)? It appears the Best Buy is running a Black Friday special at $189.00, which would make it practically a steal.
My budget is extremely limited, the Kindle Fire is too limited hardware-wise, and the new Nook Tablet looks promising but not until it has been successfully rooted.
I would strongly suggest that you google for reviews on the tablet on a suitably gearhead site such as Ars Technica. Just type <name of device> reviews in your google or BING search.Yeah, I poked through Ars, Engadget, Tom's, AnandTech, and a couple other sites. The screen is very good but not perfect, it seems to have a lower-than-expected battery life, and back in Aug '11, some Android apps had buggy behavior with it... certainly not a perfect product at $329 MSRP, but a steal at $189, especially considering the rest of the hardware and the ports/slots (HDMI, USB, & SD card).
Kindle Fire has a much better screen...
I considered the Fire, but its hardware is a generation behind and I'd have to see it rooted under CyanogenMod or similar. And the lack of card slot is almost a deal breaker.
I personally use Asus Transformer. It is probably the best Android tablet out there, but it was 600 euros, so...
Yeah the Transformer looks great, and the Transformer 2/Prime looks doubley-sweet, but both are way out of my price range. Frankly, if I hadn't seen this Iconia on sale for $140 off, I wouldn't consider it either.
...
I want to use it for primarily reading, movies, PDFs, light web browsing & email, but I'm also jonsing to start poking around app programing under Android before my ancient programming skills are completely forgotten.
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I am using my tablet primarily for reading. I haven't read a book in paper in I don't know how long. Before I bought the tablet, I've been using my laptop for reading, but the tablet is something else.
Although, 7 inches is a bit small for reading comics, IMO. On the other hand, it's small enough to fit in a jacket pocket, so it's more portable. One thing, though: It's useless in the sun. Artificial light only. To much glare.
i have an acer iconia w500.
i know its the windows version, and the 10.1 inch instead of the 7, but its possible some of the negatives translate. i would definitely try one out before you buy it at least the same form factor. the w500 is insanely top heavy when its connected to the keyboard. a stiff breeze knocks it over and forget using it on a lap the docking connectors dont snap into place they are just sort of pinned in. in tablet form, mine is less responsive than my ipad, but i needed a windows machine. the screen blacks out when it shifts from portrait to landscape which is annoying. also pinch zoom does not work, at least on the w500, this can make things difficult if you are spoiled by the ipads quick zoom in zoom out. buttons can be hard to select without this functionality. once again, i recommend you try one out, also make sure whatever software you need will run on that OS because you cant replace it with windows(the AXXX versions)
i have an acer iconia w500.
i know its the windows version, and the 10.1 inch instead of the 7, but its possible some of the negatives translate. i would definitely try one out before you buy it at least the same form factor. the w500 is insanely top heavy when its connected to the keyboard. a stiff breeze knocks it over and forget using it on a lap the docking connectors dont snap into place they are just sort of pinned in. in tablet form, mine is less responsive than my ipad, but i needed a windows machine. the screen blacks out when it shifts from portrait to landscape which is annoying. also pinch zoom does not work, at least on the w500, this can make things difficult if you are spoiled by the ipads quick zoom in zoom out. buttons can be hard to select without this functionality. once again, i recommend you try one out, also make sure whatever software you need will run on that OS because you cant replace it with windows(the AXXX versions)
Assuming I can get the Iconia A100 on sale, it'll remain strictly external keyboard free. I already have a near bullet-proof notebook with plenty of horsepower for demanding tasks and moderate-to-extensive writing projects. I've been installing & running (and breaking & fixing) Windows systems including Dos 5-Win 3.1/95/98SE/Win2K/WinXP/Vista, along with brief experiments with OS/2 and BeOS and light config/use of Ubuntu... so learning Android should be relatively unintimidating. The Iconia is only intended (for me) as a light-duty supplement and hopefully a test platform for some future app development.
And if I can't get it for $189, I'll just wait a while longer till the Nook Tablet gets rooted or something else affordable comes along.
I really would prefer if you stuck with the iOS SDK, and didn't bother with this android silliness you speak of.... I have no android platforms and would prefer it if I could use whatever cool things you come up with. : )