CNET Asia Review

The Acer Iconia Tab A500 is a good choice for budget seekers looking to hop onto the Android Honeycomb bandwagon.

Not one to miss a trend, Acer has a long history of pushing products into new categories almost as soon as they are created. The Acer Aspire One was one of the first Netbooks to hit the stores two years ago. This time, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 joined the first wave of Android tablets sporting the latest Google Honeycomb operating system. In line with the company's value positioning, the S$699 (US$544.14) Iconia Tab may be the cheapest Honeycomb device from an international brand in stores at this time.

At this price point, we were pleasantly surprised that Acer went with a brushed aluminum chassis instead of a plastic body. The Apple iPad 2 and Motorola Xoom also use metal in their construction but costs significantly more at S$798 (US$621.21) and S$988 (US$769.11) for the 32GB models, respectively. The Asus Eee Pad Transformer costs the same as the Iconia Tab A500, but comes with a plastic chassis and 16GB internal storage.