14 DAY TRIAL // Just yesterday we told you that one of the first Android tablets running the Bay Trail platform, coming via ECS, was spotted making an appearance at the FCC. Today we bring you word of another one, this time coming from a more notable brand in the industry, namely Acer.
Before MWC 2014, it was widely expected that a lot of tablet manufacturers would show off Android tablets running Intel’s Bay Trail chips on the grounds in Barcelona, but the theory proved to be incorrect.
ECS was one of the few to have an Android tablet reference design running Intel’s Bay Trail chip architecture. Anyway, since MWC, the first wave of Android tablets with Bay Trail has been announced, but the products will be made available by Chinese white box vendors such as Ramos, Onda, Cube or Telecast.
Anyway, TabletsMagazine has found evidence of one of the first Android tablets with a Bay Trail chip coming from a brand manufacturer.
In recent times, Acer has been focusing on the low-end and mid-range segment of the tablet market, even if at some point in the past, the company also launched high-end models that came with hefty price tags. Acer might be having the Aspire Switch W5 convertible in the works as well, a 2-in-1 machine that is expected to allow users to access both tablet and laptop mode on the device.
However, Acer’s most recent offerings come from the low-end category, including the Iconia B1-720, which is a 7-inch slate running a MediaTek processor, and the Iconia A1-830 that arrives with a 7.9-inch screen and draws power from an Intel Atom Z2560 dual-core processor.
But a new tablet was spotted in the rich data base that is the GFXBench. The unannounced Acer Iconia A1-840 is apparently an upcoming tablet that runs on an Intel quad-core Bay Trail processor. Nevertheless, at the moment, one can’t really tell if the device runs the 64-bit version of Android.
Furthermore, we can tell you a few more details about the specifications of the slate. The A1-840 should arrive with an 8-inch screen and a pretty standard 1280 x 800 pixels. Even so, it’s better than what the current Iconia A1-830 has to offer at 1024 x 768 pixels.
The quad-core Bay Trail processor is fitted with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. Other drawing points of the tablet constitute the two cameras (4.7MP on the back and 2MP in front), Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi. It’s also important to mention that the tablet runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box.
Acer has an event scheduled for April 29 in New York, so maybe we're going to see the company announce the Iconia A1-830 there.