14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the tablet market has been around long enough for there to appear special awards dedicated to them, like one on the part of EISA, which was granted to Acer's Iconia Tab A500.
The Acer Iconia Tab A500 tablet may have hit some snags when it comes to Android updates, in some areas at least, but this doesn't seem to have prevented it from gaining international recognition.
In this instance, it is EISA (the European Imaging and Sound Association) that has chosen to give it the award for European Tablet 2011 to 2012.
Being an association of 50 special interest magazines from 9 European countries, EISA granted awards to multiple product categories, like speakers, headphones, media phones, etc.
The prize signifies that the A500 is a high-quality device from all perspectives, although there are, as always, those that will not see it as the top model, especially when compared to such things as Motorola XOOM or Eee Pad Transformer, not to mention the iPad.
This, of course, comes with the territory, since the nature of these prizes more or less guarantees at least a subtle measure of subjectiveness.
There are, fortunately, some elements whose merit cannot be easily influenced by subjectivity, namely the specifications.
The Acer Iconia Tab A500, for those who want a reminder, is based on an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core ARM SoC (system-on-chip).
This platform has Full HD media capabilities and is, in this case, run by the Android 3.0 operating system, otherwise known as Honeycomb OS.
USB and micro USB are present, along with a micro HDMI connector, GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G and 16 GB of storage (expandable via microSD card slot).
Finally, many apps, such as the Clear.Fi photo, music and video manager, are pre-installed on the slate, the collection of such things easy to increase with one's own creations, thanks to the two webcams (2mp front and 5 mp on the back).