We just got the Iconia A1 tablet in from our friends over at Acer. So we thought we’d take you through an unboxing and first impressions post of this device. When I first looked at the specs, I thought I wouldn’t like the device, but it’s actually not too bad. At least first impressions aren’t bad. It’s a 7.9-inch 1024×768 display with a 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek processor and a gig of RAM. Compared to my Nexus 7, it feels lighter, even though it’s much bigger. In fact, it really seems much bigger because it has smaller bezels and a slightly larger display.
To my surprise the Acer Iconia A1 actually has Android 4.2.2 on board. Acer’s skin is very minimal. The only real differences I’ve found is that the dock looks a bit different and the settings actually uses the tablet layout, while the rest of the tablet uses the phone or phablet UI that we see on the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10. It comes with about 47 apps pre-installed. Including Zinio, TuneIn Radio, Top HD Games, Skype, Netflix and many others. That’s all in addition to your Google apps that come on every device.
The hardware is actually quite surprising. Like I said, it’s very light but it is bigger than the Nexus 7. The back of the Acer Iconia A1 is not textured like the Nexus 7 but it does feel nice and smooth. It does have a microSD card slot on the side, and it comes with 16GB of internal storage. Of that 16GB of storage, about 12.26GB of that is usable right out of the box without uninstalling or disabling any apps on the device.
So those are my first impressions of the Acer Iconia A1. If you have any questions about the device, you know the deal. Leave them in the comments below and I’ll incorporate them into the review.