Budget tablets are best known for their affordable prices not their design. The Acer Iconia Tab 8, however, is proof that this doesn’t always have to be the case.
What’s truly amazing about the tablet is that it has a very good display with a resolution of 1920×1200 which is not quite that often on budget tablets and a micro-HDMI port, which is also very rare. The device also supports expandable storage which is a pretty nice feature as well because you won’t always have to rely on cloud services. Having said this, the tablet developed by Acer has a pretty moderate performance that is easily more noticeable than its good design and HDMI connectivity.
However, most budget tablets suffer from mediocre performance so we should expect this from the Acer Iconia Tab 8 as well. But the tablet isn’t as cheap as you would think for what it has to offer. If you are willing to pay just a little more money, you will definitely be able to find another tablet with better gaming capabilities, a better display and faster performance. The Dell Venue 8 immediately comes to mind when thinking of a tablet within the same price range and performance and Google’s own Nexus 7 can be bought online for the same price but features better specs and overall performance.
The Acer Iconia Tab 8 has a retail price starting from $199. So, without further ado, here is our Acer Iconia Tab 8 review.
Acer Iconia Tab 8: Design
The Acer Iconia Tab 8 features a nice aluminum panel on the back that connects on the front to some stylish white bezels. It has a very nice texture and the rounded corners on the tablet make it very comfortable and easy to hold.
The rounded edges on the tablet also make it very comfortable to pick up and to hold with just one hand. Even though the Iconia Tab 8 is a little heavier than other tablets it’s not tedious to have in your hands for a long time. The construction of the tablet, however, doesn’t feel as good as other more expensive ones, even though the design is quite attractive.
A micro-USB port, a micro-HDMI port and a headphone jack can be found on the top of the tablet and the HDMI port is quite rare on the tablet market and is definitely one of the features that make Acer Iconia Tab 8 worthy of taking into consideration. On the left side of the tablet there is a microSD slot which you can use to expand the storage of the tablet by up to 32GB. On the right edge of the tablet there are volume buttons and the power button.
Acer Iconia Tab 8: Features
The Iconia Tab 8 runs Android 4.2.2 and features some preloaded software. Acer has added its own cloud service on the tablet, Zinio, the WildTangent Games store and a couple of more first-party apps.
Even though some newbies in the tablet market may be impressed by the offerings, a more experienced Android tablet user will be disappointed by them because they take up internal storage; internal storage one could use for their own choice of apps. These apps can only be disabled and not uninstalled completely and Acer made no official announcement of an upgrade to Android Lollipop 5.0 coming for the tablet.
The only thing that even remotely resembles a high-end feature on the device is a function called Touch WakeUp. This allows the user to unlock the tablet by placing two thumbs on the screen or five fingers. The feature worked well most of the times, however, if there were any updates happening in the background, the response was laggy.
Acer Iconia Tab 8: Performance
Seeing how the Acer Iconia Tab 8 is a budget tablet, the display boasting a resolution of 1920×1200 is quite a nice touch. Most tablets only have a resolution of 1280×800, so Acer’s decision to implement a higher resolution screen on their tablet is commendable.
The HD looks very good on the tablet and the colors are close to real life. Even though the Dell Venue 8 surpasses the Acer Iconia Tab 8 in range of colors, the difference isn’t all that noticeable unless you look very closely at the two. The display on the Acer Iconia Tab 8 doesn’t have an ambient light sensor and isn’t extremely bright but is pretty good for its rank of being a low end choice.
The Iconia Tab 8 features 2GB of memory so it came as no surprise that the tablet is easily capable of switching back and forth between apps. Web browsing is smooth even while other apps are open in the background and we encountered no functionality problems until we started to use more complex and larger apps.
The Iconia Tab 8 scored higher in gaming benchmarks than the Dell Venue 8 but the Venue 8 performed better than it when it came to graphics. The similar in price Asus MeMo Pad 8 didn’t have the same scores in gaming benchmarks as it and the latest midrange 8 inch tablet from Samsung performed horrifically when compared to the Acer Iconia Tab 8.
In 3DMark Ice Storm, the Acer Iconia Tab performed the best, receiving a score of 16,831 while the Dell Venue 8 got a 14,958, the Asus MeMo Pad 8 a 14,025 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 got a shameful 4,614.
The graphics scores in the benchmark were as follows: Dell Venue 8 got a 16,933, the Acer Iconia Tab 8 got 16,389, the Asus MeMo Pad 8 a 13,309 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 a 4,136.
The physics scores are the following: Acer Iconia Tab 8 got a score of 18,584, the Asus MeMo Pad 8 a score of 17,280, Dell Venue 8 received a 10,621 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 was still miles behind all of the other tablets with a score of 7,749.
Large games on the tablet were very laggy in performance if they ran on the tablet as most of the times complex games didn’t work at all. The tablet doesn’t perform well at all and we often encountered lag in touchscreen or crashes when launching the apps. Closing all other apps kind of helped, particularly for better gameplay. Because of its clear limitations, the tablet works best for a more general use, such as casual gaming and Web surfing, and not more complex activities such as editing documents and heavy and complex gaming.
The audio quality coming out of the tablet is very weak. Even though the sound is decent when holding the tablet in portrait mode, when you switch to landscape, your hands are going to block the speaker. This is a poor choice of speaker placement to say the least, but hey, at least the volume controls shift depending on the orientation of the tablet.
On the back of the Acer Iconia Tab 8 there is a 5MP camera. The quality of the photos isn’t very detailed when viewed in full resolution but the camera adjusts well the color balance and exposure. A few settings allow you to adjust the camera to get a better image and there are also some filters available and a panoramic mode. The front 2MP camera is not very good either. Selfies look sharp but suffer from a lot of noise.
The battery life of the tablet is very disappointing as well. A full charge with heavy use lasts only around five hours.
Acer Iconia Tab 8: Specs
Operating system: Android 4.2.2
Processor: Intel Atom Z3745
Processor speed: 1.33 GHz
Processor core: Quad-core (4 cores)
Memory: 2GB LPDDR3
Memory card supported: Yes (32GB maximum)
Storage: 16GB
Display size: 8”
Display type: Active Matrix TFT Color LCD
Backlight technology: LED
Multi-touch screen: Yes
Screen resolution: 1920 x 1200 WUXGA
GPS: Yes
Wireless: Yes, IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0
HDMI: Yes
Battery capacity: 4600 mAh, 1 cell, Li-Ion
Maximum video battery time: 7.5 hours
Height: 0.3”
Width: 8.5”
Depth: 5.1”
Weight: 12.70 oz
Acer Iconia Tab 8: Conclusion
Even though the Iconia Tab 8 is pretty stylish for being a budget tablet, appearance doesn’t make up for all the other limitations. Although the tablet performed decently most of the times it didn’t stand out enough to excel in the low budget tablet market, which is pretty overcrowded as it is. If you don’t wish to use the HDMI port and don’t really care if your tablet looks as sleek as the iPad, we suggest you take into consideration the Dell Venue 8 or add more bucks to your budget and buy a better model with better performance.
An alternative, offering both nicer display and a whole lot faster performance is the Amazon Fire HDX. Even though Amazon’s tablet also comes with preloaded software, it is a lot more family friendly and user friendly than the Acer Iconia Tab 8. Another alternative is the Nexus 7 and even though it’s no longer available on the Google Store you can search and find the tablet online for around $180. Furthermore, the Google tablet will be among the first tablets that will update to the Android Lollipop 5.0 operating system.
Wrapping Up…
PROS
– The Acer Iconia Tab 8 has a beautiful aluminum back and a nice slim build
– microSD card slot
– microHDMI port
– The Acer Iconia Tab 8 performs nicely when switching back and forth through apps
– Good resolution for a budget tablet
CONS
– The Iconia Tab 8 doesn’t perform well with larger games and apps
– You cannot uninstall the pre-loaded software
– Poor battery life
– Poor choice of speaker placement
– Unimpressive cameras
The Verdict
The Acer Iconia 8 has a very nice design considering it is a budget tablet but you can find a better performing tablet within the same range of price.
Images source: acer.com