Got my Tab

Just got my Acer Iconia A500 tab from Flipkart

was a pretty snappy delivery, considering i only ordered it on saturday(from here)!

brief specs:
OS: 3.1 (3.2 updates and plenty of other roms are available, so will be doing that soon)
Internal memory: 16gb
RAM: 1 GB DDR2 RAM
Screen: capacitive touchscreen, 256K colors 800 x 1280 pixels, 10.1 inches (~149 ppi pixel density)
Card slot: microSD, up to 32GB
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
Ports: microUSB v2.0, normal size USB v2.0(Supporting pendrives so far) HDMI port(cable was included)
CPU and GPU: Dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, ULP GeForce GPU, Tegra 2 T20 chipset
Cameras: 2megapixel front and 5megapixel back(with flash)

full spec list here

so far have only played the NFS that came bundled with it, Havnt tried the Sparta and golf games coz they require a download and my connection at work is too slow.
Will download them and more later when i get home today.

Did test all the video formats i had(avi, mpeg, mp4, wmv etc), most played fine with Rockplayer, will try again with other players, as MKVs were playing badly. It managed to play a video pretty smoothly right off of the pendrive i stuck in. WIll have to figure out how to mount my external hdd later after some R&D at XDA.. also need to Root so will do althat later tonight.

Flipkart threw in a free sleeve that is quite good! it took me a few minutes to figure out that it folded into a stand! quite handy!

Its made of felt.. with some foam or card solid pieces embedded in it

these allow it to be folded like .. origami!


a little rubber flap/tab on the other side is where you anchor the tablet


as long as its not on a very smooth surface, its fine

and voila!


UPDATE(10:07pm):
have updated to Honeycomb 3.2 over the air.. i just went to the settings and found a "check for updates" option.. probably under "about device" or somewhere like that.where it showed that i had 3.0.. took me 2hrs to update to 3.1, and then another 2 hrs to do a second update to 3.2
this is the funky boot animation you see

relatively painless procedure
am now able to read my NTFS external HDD and play videos directly off of it. :lol: :coffee: :yes:
(of course reading from an external hdd will suck the battery)

Here's a rather fumbling video of me demonstrating the felt cover's functionality, and accessing an external hard drive(ntfs)


UPDATE:
after more than a month of use heres my verdict:


the Acer Tab A500/A501 can do the stuff that other tabs can, like:

general use - great for reading webpages, twitter feeds, cbr(comic books), pdf etc
video playback - is fair.. depending on what app your using(players with gpu support vcan take advantage of the tegra)
gaming - untill the tegra 3 only games come along.. this is pretty much as good as the best.
hdmi out - self explainatory
(havn't tried coz i have no tv or monitor to try it with :P )
art - as a designer/illustrator this is a major boon for me. coupled with Autodesk Sketchbook pro and Adobe Ideas.. i've already started using it in my actual art workflow.


stuff it can do that other tabs can't:

standard usb port: with the honeycomb 3.2 update it can play videos and other media from an external hdd or pen drive.

potentially unlimited storage: i keep almost all my movies on a pen drive or my 1tb portable.. and can play them on the tab via the standard usb port.. no need for cumbersome adapters

Acer gives you 3 games (preloaded). when you go to the gameloft site you get 3 more premium(thd grade) games free. so if your a gamer(like me).. this is a smarter choice than even the transformer(based on a few gripes i heard firsthand about this from transformer and xoom owners)..

lots of hacks and roms and support on XDA forums.