[Acer Iconia A500] s_firestone:
I wrote this response to eWeek...

To: jbrooks 12:28pm (This is the address under 'Contact us' for eWeak.) ;)

I'm writing you in response to the article, "10 tablets that should join the HP Touchpad..."

I recently (within the last month) purchased an Acer Iconia A500. It is an incredible device, plenty of storage, memory, horsepower, etc. I'm running the stock software (which is Honeycomb 3.1 and will be 3.2 within a few weeks).

I have a serious problem with the article in the respect that there are several factual errors (stating the tablet only has Android 3.0 available is the most glaring one). The other fallacy is in the way that the writer attempted to pass off that the A500 has but a 2 megapixel camera. Although it does have a 2 megapixel camera, it is curiously omitted that this is the FRONT camera. It has a fully capable 5 Megapixel camera AND flash on the rear. It also has a full sized master USB, a micro USB, a mini HDMI, headphone jack, a docking port, and a hardware 'lock orientation' switch (which is very useful).

There are no less than 3 Tegra based Android tablets listed in this article, basically implying that they are worthy of nothing more than the scrap heap.

These tablets are all cutting edge. Why at this very moment I am beta testing a program which runs 60fps real-time visualizations to your music...Wait for it....In the background (desktop, live wallpaper, whatever you want to call it). Even with multiple Widgets running. It has thousands of presets available on the order of Milkdrop for Winamp. And when it hits the Android market, its going to raise the bar.

To further represent what this tablet can do, I offer that I am hooking external 2.5" HDDs up (powered directly off the master USB port and directly mounting both NTFS and EXT volumes). Ooooh, did I mention PnP automatically? I get over 4 hours of battery life while powering a drive and watching HD movies while flying.

I can and do hook up USB and Bluetooth keyboards and mice. Honestly, I have not found anything of consequence that I could not do. I used the GPS navigation driving between Salem and Portland (approximately an hour trip) the other day, no power, and the screen never cut off... It used less than 10% of the battery (7 or 8% I think). Having a 10" GPS display is spoiling me because you don't have to hunt for information while I'm driving.

I can pull and push content to/from my media server wirelessly. Essentially using the tablet as a menued TV. I cache what I would like to watch later on my portable HDD.

I have all of my purchased ebooks, technical manuals, service manuals (Many of which are 1200 page+ PDFs), Word documents, spreadsheets, stored in the internal memory with room to spare. Accompanying that is my music collection, and I never had to marry the tablet to a PC to add any of it. That which doesn't fit internally, resides on the additional microSD card (or my external HDD).

I have not found a single website that cannot be run in native mode.

I could probably recite another 10 or 20 real-world examples without scratching the surface.

This device has (for the first time), replaced the laptop for me. I'm a very demanding user. Everything I buy or build should be a veritable "Jack of all trades". The Acer Iconia A500 is exactly that. It is a very fast, capable device wrapped up in an excellent package, that was expertly integrated by Acer. What more can one say?

I have to question the ethics and integrity of the journalist who wrote the piece. I find it interesting that no Apple hardware is listed among this. Surely the 1st generation Ipad would fail to meet up to this impossible standard which sees even Tegra machines on the scrap heap. The iPad 2 even, surely could not jump the bar considering every Tegra tablet on the market has more horsepower under the hood and rivals if not exceeds every feature. As well as presents several features not available on any Apple hardware, at any price.

This article has done a serious injustice and should be (at a minimum), partially retracted, if not outright thrown to the scrap heap.

These Tegra tablets are not iPad 2 killers. They are what the Ipad would be if it were not constrained by Apple's closed in marketing model. But I digress, we have been here before with Apple in the early 80's, and its likely that history is doomed to repeat itself. These Tegra tablets are very much like the PC was (The difference being the power and capability out of the gate). Enough so that even companies such as Microsoft, Intel, and AMD are scrambling to play catch up.

The HP touchpad should have been cancelled. It was nothng more than a poorly implemented guise for HP to ressurect an extinct and outdated company (In the name of Palm). Cancelling the failed experiment allows them to move on and recoup their loss. Now, if they had been smarter, they would have been writing a version of Android quietly behind the scenes, at least until they determined that their new OS was going to get off its feet. But this happens all too often, companies putting all their eggs in one basket.

I charge you to break the status quo and uphold journalistic integrity. If not, then every article is little more than commentary and editorial babbling. The great journalists to which you owe your profession would be shaking their heads in disgust, in how journalism has been tainted by hacks, personal opinion, and even paid endorsments at the expense of truth in reporting.

Sincerely,

(Alias Omitted)