Recensione Acer Iconia B1 Review Part 1

Recensione Acer Iconia B1 Review Part 1 - Today we’re seeing the Acer Iconia B1 video-review. It’s an Android Tablet, 7-inch screen and very basic technical specs, sold in Italy since a few hours at 119 Euros. Its strong point it’s actually the list price. Dual-core Media Tek processor 1.2 GHz, built-in PowerVR as graphic card, USB port on the bottom, microSD card slot hidden under this cover, headphone jack and nothing else on the frame. That’s a very basic hardware, completed with 512 MB of RAM, 0.3 MP camera on the top right, which makes really bad-quality photos but it’s good enough for video-calls, and a mono audio system with one mono speaker down here. It’s thin and very light, only 317 grams of weight, I think it’s the lightest 7-inch right after iPad Mini, but the build quality is really low-level. It’s all plastic-made, easy to flex just pressing a little and makes a squeaky sound if pressed like that. 

The screen is plastic too, no glass so, or if there’s any glass it's really thin, and there’s a kind of screen warping under pressure, just like when you touch a LCD screen. Design is well-made though, ‘cause the Tablet is nice, with this blue line that brings out the shiny black, see the Iconia Logo down here, and these embossed lines on the rear that give some character… and from this point of view, that’s it. Its strong point, again, is the price, ‘cause with its 119 Euros is still a good branded Tablet, with a certain kind of support, quality and firmware update. Just five seconds to suggest you watch also the Onda V812 video-review we made about a few weeks ago. It was for sale on the Chinese market and now it comes out it will be imported to Italy by Archos… so it’d be interesting to compare this Acer model with that Onda, good-looking, higher-level and more powerful from the technical point of view. 

For 119 Euros, this small Acer tablet allows to satisfactory use – just my opinion, for me it worked fine - Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, a very recent release. The user experience is good, ‘cause the graphic interface’s management is quick, the system is snappy, even multitasking despite its 512 GB RAM, and that’s a clear sign of the Acer’s optimization. Moreover, this Android version is really basic, similar to the Google standard version, and that’s a good thing ‘cause you can customize to your needs. Performances of this Media Tek processor are really surprising, most of all looking at the Web navigation. Here we have a beautiful pinch-to-zoom, the browser shows minimal rendering issues, most of time fluid on every Web page, and that’s with the standard browser, so install some other browser and performances get even better. 

That processor has been used in 2012 for many tablets and smartphones also of the Chinese market, and I really didn’t expect it could be so performing on such a low-priced device. There are some limits, mainly playing videos, it failed playing 1080p videos, often I couldn’t make them play fluid, but no problem if you stay under that threshold or if you use videos with low bitrate, like some MOV or just HD videos on YouTube. The same is for games, even if I easily played Madfingers or others like Shine Runner, that we’re used to see running on more powerful processors, but here we have the PowerVR graphic card and it does a good job. As for the rest, the Tablet works well in the everyday use.
Recensione Acer Iconia B1 Review Part 2