Acer have officially announced a new, full size, 10-inch Android tablet, the Acer Iconia Tab 10. The tablet is based around the MediaTek MT8163 System-on-Chip, backed up by 2 GB of RAM. There’s 32 GB of internal storage backed up by a MicroSD card slot that can take cards of at least 128 GB in capacity. The MT8163 is a chipset designed for tablets, consisting of a quad core, 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 application processor clocked at either 1.3 GHz or 1.5 GHz depending on the precise model Acer have used. It’s backed up by the ARM Mali-T720 GPU. The 10-inch screen is at FHD, or 1080p, resolution and Acer have given the Iconia 10 “Precision Plus” touch sensors, which are two and a half times more sensitive than those found on a normal touchscreen. This means customers can use a real pencil on the display, but we will have to see how well this works. The display also has an anti-fingerprint coating designed to keep it smear free. This display panel is surrounded by four forward facing speakers that include DTS-HD audio technology for a premium sound experience. There’s a 5MP rear camera and a 2MP front facing camera. Acer claim that the battery can provide the Iconia 10 with eight hours of use.
Acer’s added value includes some hardware and software features. These include a “MediaMaster” button on the side to allow customers to select the best audio and visual settings depending on what the tablet is being used for. The idea here is that the button will be most useful when the tablet is connected to a Wireles Display or via the (built-in) micro HDMI port. The MediaMaster function could fine-tune the MediaTek MiraVision display engine (which we have already seen in other smartphones and tablets) to optimise contrast, sharpness and colour tones. The new Acer tablet will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, so benefits from the new power saving technologies and permissions system. There will be a few additions to the operating system, including EZ Utilities, which can be used to simplify the interface and enlarge fonts – a potentially great way to keep the tablet accessible for customers with less than perfect eyesight.
On the face of it, Acer are introducing a full size Android tablet with a definite bias towards media. The underlying hardware is not especially powerful but should easily be capable of lightweight gaming, online television, video and music streaming services. We understand that the tablet will be available from June and Acer have provided pricing information for the United Kingdom: £180. We do not yet have confirmation of international pricing of release dates.