The days of highly priced, unaffordable tablets may well and truly be numbered. The Acer Iconica Tab A500 has landed in the US market with prices starting at $450 for the WiFi model running Android 3.0 exclusively through BestBuy online. This affordable price makes it more attractive to the budget conscious tablet buyer who may be looking at alternatives to the more expensive Motorola Xoom (WiFi only model) which has the equivalent hardware specifications.
Sean Hollister from Engadget has written up a comprehensive review of the Icon Tab A500 and provided a picture gallery. He likes the brushed aluminum casing which gave the Acer a stylish edge over those tablets with plastic casings but was disappointed at some build quality issues such as the back creaking when squeezed with his fingers.
Hollister seemed happy with the HDMI video connection and described it as “performing a full, responsive display mirroring at 720p resolution, albeit suffering from a bit of overscan. (Acer says 1080p video-out will be supported in a Q2 update) inch. He found the stereo speakers to be acceptable, the 10.1 inch, 1280×800 TFT LCD display surprisingly good and the capacitive touchscreen to be very responsive. I think this a very encouraging trait in the A500 as more affordably priced tablets that I have used and reviewed has disappointed in both screen quality and responsiveness.
The reviewer seem pleased with performance of the A500’s Tegra 2 with 1GB of DDR3 RAM when it performed slightly faster than the Motorola Xoom during his benchmark testing.
What appeared to be the biggest disappointment of the A500 to the reviewer was the battery life. Hollister describes the battery life as the shortest (6hr 55 mins using Engadget’s standard battery drain test) of all of the Android Honeycomb tablets Engadget has reviewed. I am equally surprised as the Acer spots a pair of 3260mAh batteries, which puts it on par with other tablets such as the iPad and Xoom in terms of battery life.
From a pricing perspective, I feel that Acer has drawn first blood in launching an affordable Android 3.0 tablet with decent specifications that rivals the popular Motorola Xoom. The A500 will certainly face stiff competition from Asus eeePad Transformer which is cheaper at $400 and features an innovative design with its optional keyboard dock.
Out-of-the-box, the Acer Aspire One 522 is a very decent netbook. 3D graphics and HD video support out-pace anything that’s built on an Intel platform and with a dual-core 1Ghz CPU that challenges the dual-core Atom at 1.5Ghz AND keeps the battery drain down to impressive levels, a 1280×720 screen and a reasonable build quality you have something of a bargain at 299 Euros but I wanted to see just how much I could get out of the Aspire One 522 if I pimped it out with a RAM, storage and OS upgrade. The results have been impressive; But there’s a limit.
The Acer Aspire One 522 is built on the AMD Brazos platform with the Ontario APU. The CPU is a 64-bit part and supports 4GB of RAM. In the standard build, however, it is delivered with 32bit Windows Home Starter, and 1GB RAM. Even with a RAM upgrade it is OS-restricted to 2GB of RAM usage. Clearly an upgrade to Windows Home Premium 64bit with a clean install over 4GB of RAM is the easiest way to enhance the device. I spent about 125 Euro on a Home Premium license and a 4GB RAM stick to achieve that but before I did, I took a Runcore Pro IV 64GB SSD (2.5 inch SATA) worth $150 and dropped it in with a copy of the standard OS build. If I was to recommend just one upgrade, this would be it. The SSD cuts boot times and application startup times in half and gives the system a much better feel all-round. Lets take a look at the results using a CrystalMark test suite.
Using CrystalMark 2003 (a simple, easy-to-run suite that I’ve been using for 5 years) I tested the stock system and came up with a respectable score all-round.
In comparison, a Pinetrail based netbook (Single-core 1.6Ghz) will turn in about 25K and a dual-core N550-based system like the Samsung N350 gives a similar 35K score but most of that score comes from the CPU. A 1.6Ghz dual-core Atom-based Asus Eee PC 1015pn due to be launched soon clocks in at an impressive 45K. While the AMD-based system is good, it’s not class-leading.
By dropping in the SSD though, the HDD score goes through the 100MB/s barrier and really gives the system a boost along with the scores. Here’s the CrystalMark score after the SSD upgrade and the replacement of 1GB RAM with a 4GB stick (2GB enabled in Windows Starter.)
I was surprised to see that some of the CPU scores went up so much after the disk and memory swap and I was unable to repeat the 8270 ALU score at a later time but the important thing here is the jump in disk performance. You can see the ‘HDD’ score at 14648 and the sequential read speed at up to 108MB/s which is about double that of the original disk.
How Do you Upgrade RAM and Disk on the Acer Aspire One 522?
Before I show you the results for a fresh 64-bit Windows Home Premium install (which frees up the full 4GB of RAM) let me show you how to take apart the netbook to upgrade it. The video shows my early attempt at taking apart the device so please take note of the annotations because you don’t have to remove the outer casing screws, you don’t have to remove the two rubber feet and you don’t have to disconnect the keyboard. Be careful of the keyboard catches too. I have already broken two of mine and I’ve seen a report from someone who broke all of them meaning the keyboard would have to be stuck down permanently with glue or tape.
Statistics are all well and good but how does the device perform in real life with a fast SSD upgrade? In the video below I show the boot-up time and startup times for some common applications. On average, boot-up and application start times are cut by half which is a huge, huge difference.
Upgrade to Windows Home Premium 64-bit (and full 4GB RAM usage)
This part of the upgrade is useful on many levels. Importantly, you get to make a fresh install of the OS without the pre-installed services and software from Acer. Secondly, Windows Home Premium opens up more Windows 7 functionality including Windows Media Center, Aero and Themes and, importantly here, the ability to access more than 2GB of RAM.
The license cost me about 85 Euros (OEM License) and installation was made on a clean SSD from an external USB DVD drive.
Drivers for the various Acer Aspire One 522 models are available here and can be copied from a USB stick (the Wi-Fi, LAN and SD card don’t work on initial Windows 7 install.)
After install you should see this in the system settings.
Final Performance Check.
With Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 4GB of RAM and the Runcore Pro IV SSD installed, here’s a rundown of performance reports starting with the impressive disk scores which rise 30% above the 2GB, 32bit scores.
Yes, that’s a 138MB/s transfer rate, on a netbook! Importantly, the small block read speeds are excellent.
Final Crystalmark score (Note: This is a 32bit test)
The two results were taken at different times with different Windows 7 themes.
Battery life, Noise, Heat
No differences in battery life, noise or heat were noticeable after the upgrade. There may be a measurable difference in battery life but I estimate no more than 5% gain under full-usage scenarios. Note that on the Aspire One 522, the fan is on nearly all the time. It’s relatively quite but audible in a quiet room.
4GB vs 2GB
Having 4Gb of RAM available on a netbook is somewhat of an overkill and any applications that might require such memory are also going to require more CPU processing power than is available on the platform. The recommendation would be to buy a 2GB RAM stick although the small extra cost and zero additional effort of buying a 4GB stick means you might as well do it anyway! Remember that hibernation will be much slower with 4GB of RAM than with 2GB of RAM.
32bit vs 64bit
I’m not seeing clear, end-user advantages yet on the system build here but clearly there are some 64bit-capable programs that might take advantage of it. Cinebench 10 returned 1390 points with the 64-bit version compared to 1290 with the 32bit test a 7.5% improvement. More testing is needed here and through my ultra-mobile video editing project, I should get some more results.
Windows 7 Starter vs Windows Home Premium
At over 80-euros to enable an extra 2GB of RAM, themes and a media center, it seems a little excessive and is something that needs to be considered carefully. A clean install of Windows 7 Home Starter on a fast SSD could be a better choice unless the user is looking to get every last drop of capability out of the system.
HDD vs SSD
There’s no question that the SSD upgrade brings the best end-user improvements. SSDs can be lighter too but the user needs to be careful not to choose a slow SSD (some aren’t built for speed.) I’m currently using a Runcore Pro IV that was loaned to me.
Lightweight SSDs.
I’ve got a 32Gb SSD here (Sandisk SDSA3AD-032G loaned by Tegatech) that weighs 9gm. Thats 100gm lighter than the pre-installed solution and would bring the weight of the 522 down to under 1.1KG which is impressive given the CPU, GPU and battery life. Worth considering.
Alternatives and weight considerations
After the upgrades, the device returns much better performance but there are alternatives out there. The Asus Eee PC 1215PN with dual-core 1.6Ghz CPU and Nvidia Ion platform offers excellent CPU and graphics performance and we expect it to be available with 2GB and Windows Home Premium (as the 1.5Ghz version is) for around the 450 Euro mark. Add the SSD to this and you’re at the same price with a much better performance. The weight is the same although you don’t get the 1280×720 screen.
Looking at 12 inch devices it will be interesting to see how the 1215n and 1215b compare. Weight is 200-300gm more but performance gets a big boost. The EeePC 1215b is said to be available for 450 Euros and, it the end-user is happy with 300gm more weight, could be a better buy.
If the user is looking for a good value 10 inch device with HD screen and future upgrade steps, the Acer Aspire One 522 represents a very good deal indeed.
Will I keep the Acer Aspire One 522?
I’ve been impressed at the ability of the AMD Brazos platform to go to 4GB RAM and 64-bit Windows. The disk controller also responds well to a fast SSD. Overall, the ‘balance’ of CPU and GPU power is also good. The advantage of going to 4GB RAM is, however, a little over-the-top for a device that really can’t be used for high-end memory intensive work that often requires high-end CPU power. What would make more sense is 4GB RAM in the higher-end Brazos platform with the dual-core 1.6Ghz ‘Zacate’ CPU and the higher-clocked GPU. If that platform can be down-clocked to a similar 1Ghz rate with the same power requirements as the 1Ghz Ontario part you will have an interesting power-efficient platform with a relatively wide dynamic range of processing capabilities. Unfortunately there are no Zacate-based device with the E-350 (Zacate) variant so you’ll have to look at 12 inch solutions with higher screen power requirements and a weight of 200-300gm more. If 300gm is acceptable to you then taking a closer look at the Asus EeePC 1215b will make sense. I’m expecting better battery life and more processing power than the successful Intel-based 1215n making it a top-candidate in its class. I will use the 522 for the time being now though as going back to the single-core N270-based Gigabyte Touchnote is not an option but when the 1215b is available, it will be at the top of the list for my next purchase and test.
Component and cost details
Aspire One 522 299 Euros (Germany)
SSD Runcore Pro IV 64GB 2.5 inch SATA (Loaned for test by My Digital Discount) $139.99
Memory Corsair CMSO4GX3M1A1333C9. 4GB single module. 45 Euro
OS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit English OEM 83 Euros
There’s one thing that was clear from last nights live testing of the Aspire One 522 I’m the worst person in the world to demonstrate 3D games. Interestingly though, that’s because I never have devices that can play games. In the last 5 years we’ve seen just a handful of mobile devices that can play games and the fact that I was thrown into Half-Life 2 and Unreal Tournament demos shows that the Acer Aspire One 522 is quite unique and an indicator of where netbooks are going next. We tried hard to find showstoppers and major issues, design problems, heat and noise or anything that would confirm that this is a cheap device but no, after 3 hours, it was clear that the Aspire One 522 is a real bargain and a true upgrade option for those with first or even second generation netbooks.
Highlights and Lowlights
1080p playback via local or YouTube works flawlessly on-screen (1280×720) or via HDMI
In normal use, this is a 6 hour working device with a 3-hour gaming capability, 5 hours or more video playback and up to 10 hours with radios-off in low-power use as a text-entry device.
No heat or noise to speak of although the fan is constantly spinning and can sometimes be heard or felt through the chassis.
The Hard Disk seems to be a bottleneck in some situations
Mono speaker just about does its job
The glossy screen appears to be a little washed out compared to high-end displays
Wifi reception is better than average
No USB 3.0 or charging USB port
Plastics very thin
Access to memory and HDD is easy. Upgrade to 4GB is possible (Only 2GB available in Windows 7 Starter)
Gaming needs more testing but viewers on the live session seemed very excited!
Battery life / weight ratio is very good
A word of warning though, in terms of CPU processing power, there’s not a lot of difference here between the Intel Pinetrail platform in single or dual-core variants. in a pure-CPU video rendering test we saw the Aspire One coming in at 15% faster than a Intel N450 CPU which puts it between the N450 and N550 in terms of processing power. Compared to first-gen netbooks, that’s a great improvement but its far from mainstream.
It’s the ‘balance’ of CPU, HD Video and 3D that works so well with the Acer Aspire One 522 (and, we suspect, other Fusion C-50 APU -based devices) and if Intel don’t one-up the C-50 with Cedar Trail in a significant way, they will lose a good percentage of netbook sales. At €299, there’s very little room for beating AMD on price.
So here are the three videos we made during the 2.5hrs online last night. As usual they are captures of the low-quality stream but I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of them. Thanks again to everyone that joined and helped-out in the live session. Spread the word this is how reviews should be done!
Part 1 – Overview and first impressions.
Part 2 – Heat, battery life, video performance, browsing tests
Part 3 – Video testing, webcam, high and lowlights, Crystalmark test
Sometimes gadget purchases go from zero to ‘own’ in a very short time. That’s how it was today as I assessed devices for the Ultra Mobile Video Editing series and checked out the Acer Aspire One 522. It’s an AMD Fusion device running on the C-50 APU at 1Ghz. CPU performance, as we’ve already determined, is lower than the dual-core Atom N550 CPU but there’s a trick or two up its sleeve when it comes to video playback and 3D graphics performance because the processing platform includes a Radeon HD6250 GPU. The whole AMD Fusion package is also tuned for low power consumption making it compete in the netbook power envelope but with better capability.
I’m not convinced the Aspire One 522 will help me achieve my goal of 720p editing on a lightweight, low cost computer but at €299 and with a need to research what AMD are doing with Fusion it makes sense to buy it. When your local store has it in stock and there aren’t many reviews out there already, it adds up to a must-buy for this blogger! Update: Liliputing is also testing the 522 right now.
Acer aren’t regarded as a high-end product builder as they tend to build to a price. Quality does suffer and I’ve experienced it first hand. Others will report similar experiences but out of the box, the Acer Aspire One 522 appears to be an absolute bargain. I seriously don’t think I’ve ever had this much computing power in my hand for so little money and it looks good and feels good too. It even weighs under 1.2KG which, for a netbook with a 6-cell battery, is class-leading. 1080p playback? No problem (*1). A hi-res 720P screen (1280×720) is included too. Long battery life? You’ll clearly have trouble getting less than 5 hours out of this and I’m sitting here now with 43% battery left after 4 hours of on-and-off testing. 3D performance will blow any Intel-based netbook out of the water. Even the build quality seems better that you’d expect for this money.
As I write this, I’ve had no showstoppers so far. BUT – I’m only into the 7th hour of ownership here so beware, there could be issues. Don’t get over-excited about the CPU or GPU power too. It’s good for a netbook but nothing like a low-end notebook. A 3D Mark 2001SE score of 5959 is good for a netbook but I seem to remember that my 5-year old Ti4200 graphics card would pull in 12K on that test. For 300gm and 200 Euro more you can get something much, much more powerful.
A glossy screen with less than 768 pixels in the vertical (important for some software installs) a fan (barely audible) and a disk that, like other netbooks, seems to slow down applications load times are the only things I want to complain about so far. In reality, that’s not a bad hit-list and I’m feeling confident that when I put this through our live, open review, it will come out looking good.
LIVE OPEN REVIEWof the Acer Aspire One 522 is planned for Tuesday 8th March at 2100 Berlin Time [Other times here]. Join us at UMPCPortal.com/live for video, chat and your chance to ask questions and watch everything happen live. Nothing is covered-up!
In Part 1 of this series I covered three strategies for ultra mobile video editing and decided that the traditional, PC-based solution was the only real choice for today. I also set out some parameters.
The solution comes in three parts.
1 The Camera
2 The PC
3 The Editing Software
The parameters I’ve set for the project are:
PC and software to cost less than 600 Euros
PC to be less than 1.5KG with 12 inch screen or less.
Total camera + PC solution to weigh less than 2KG and cost less than 1000 Euro
Source video should be 720p
Video sent to YouTube should be 480p minimum
Editing solution must include watermarking, overlays, crossfades, and multiple audio tracks.
I have personal requirements for the camera that mean it also needs to be able to take photographs for the site. It should also include self-shooting (front or swivel viewfinder), built-in stereo microphone. 28mm wide-angle capability. Good low-light performance and long zoom range for close-up to press conference zoom-ins. An external mic input and hot-shoe would be an advantage.
It this stage I have two cameras in mind. The Canon SX20IS and the new (currently unavailable) Fujifilm HS20 EXR which is said to have some good, and very helpful, low-light options. It doesn’t have the self-shooting viewfinder though. I’m still looking at other solutions but for this post I want to refine the choice of PC down to a shortlist.
The current shortlist is shown below. Please feel free to propose alternatives.
12 inch Intel Atom solution: Asus 1215N (Intel N550 + Ion2 with 16-core CUDA) 1.45KG
12 inch AMD Fusion Solution: Asus 1215B (AMD E-350 APU) 1.4KG or HP DM1Z (AMD E-350)
Netbook solutions (*1): Samsung NC210 (N550 dual-core + 6-cells 1.22Kg) or N350 (N550 + 3 cells 1KG) or NF310 (N550 + 6 cells + 1366×768 screen 1.3KG) or ASUS 1015PN (N550+Ion2 1.25KG) or ASUS 1015B (AMD C-50) or Toshiba NB550D (AMD C-50) or Acer Aspire One 522 (with AMD C-50)
13 inch devices will remain out of scope because of size. I have to draw the line somewhere and I feel that 13 inch just goes beyond what is acceptable on a seat-back table, in one hand and in a small bag.
(*1) At this stage it seems fairly clear to me that a dual-core Intel Atom alone isn’t going to be enough on its own to process 720P video which means the pure netbook solutions fall away leaving only the Ion2-enhanced Asus 1215N where CUDA could help push the performance. The E-350 CPU performance isn’t a huge step forward from the N550 but with the 3D and HD decoding support, should help the editing experience and, possibly, a 720p-to-480p conversion stage that allows faster editing. Note that the ION2 in the Acer P1015PN doesn’t have the CUDA core required for enhanced video rendering performance. The AMD C-50 based solutions aren’t as powerful as Intel N550 for general purpose computing but do include video decoding support (not hardware encoding) which could help in a 720p to 480p pre-editing conversion process. Due to this, the NB550D and 1215B stay in the shortlist.
Interestingly, the new Intel Oaktrail platform includes 720p encoding and decoding in hardware. Unfortauntely this won’t help much in the video rendering process where almost everything is done in software. It could help with a 720p to 480p conversion process before editing but the CPU and GPU is then unlikely to be strong enough to support a smooth video editing experience.
Am I considering tablets like the Hanvon B10 and the EeePC Slate E121? No, because being lap-capable is critical and inputting text around a video is a requirement for almost everyone. Adding a USB or Bluetooth keyboard is considered a point-of-failure and would bring the weight up by 200gm.
In summary, we have an entry point of 11.1 inch screen and a minimum weight of 1.3KG. I’m surprised that I can’t find anything in the 1.0-1.2KG range. The only solutions available are all close to 1K Euro which puts them out of scope.
Prices of the items on the shortlist range from €300 to just over €600
Note: Why limit the price? I want to come up with a solution that as many people as possible can consider.
Where do we start?
I will say now that I’m looking for someone that can supply these devices for testing because i’m not about to go out and buy 5 laptops so – Free series sponsorship to any reseller that can help us with this project – but I will put my own funds into the pot and start with the smallest, lightest, cheapest option. Later today I will be heading out to pick up the 299 Euro Acer Aspire One 522 with the AMD Fusion CPU and 720p screen. For that price, it would be stupid not to!
I’ve been through the details with a fine toothcomb and on one had I’m quite excited about a sub 1KG tablet with an acceptable CPU, good GPU, hi-res wide-view screen, UMTS and docking station for 599 Euro (current average online prices, Germany) but when you look at the weight / battery life ratio, it isn’t that good. Acer have only managed to squeeze in a 36Wh battery which means you’re looking at 3-4hrs usable battery life. Add the dock (which doesn’t look like it’s built for the road!) and you’re up over 1.5KG.
Taken as a tablet only, it actually looks like an interesting proposition. With CPU power up at the top end of the netbook range and GPU that blows away anything based purely on Intel netbook platforms it should perform smoothly. 2GB of RAM and Windows Home Premium give it media serving capability. Throw in the UMTS/HSDPA and it gets even more exciting.
At the end of the day, and specifications list, I’ve a feeling that this is going to work well as a hot-desking solution. It should serve well as a home desktop for anyone not getting involved with hundreds of browser tabs or video editing and the grab-and-go capability means it can be used in a more casual manner now and again. It looks fun too!
For ultra mobile PC fans though, it’s just too heavy. An upgraded 1.25KG Asus 1015PN with 6hr battery would be a much better choice for true mobile computing.
I’ve just shot a video of the Iconia A100 tablet here at MWC and its an interesting one. Tegra 2, Honeycomb, 5MP AF cam, gyroscope, hdmi outand possible 3g. No word on pricing or timescales. This could make a great mobile gaming device. Video coming later.
The average weight of a 6-cell netbook is somewhere around 1200-1300 grams with true battery life of about 6hrs so seeing the specs for the Acer Aspire One 522 (AO522-BZ897) is quite encouraging considering the increase in CPU and GPU processing power that this will offer.
6hrs sounds good but let me send a quick warning out because the power envelope of this device is likely to reach much higher than any netbook. I predict that you could run this baby dry in under 3hrs if you pushed it hard, especially as the 6-cell battery looks to be a relatively low-capacity one. (4400mah)
Still, when you think about the upgrade thoughts of tens of million of existing netbook users that have 3hrs battery life on their 1-2 year old netbooks, this is quite an attractive upgrade in the 10 inch segment. It’s certainly one that I’m looking at very closely indeed, especially at the $329 price shown on Amazon.com now.
AMD look to be filling the big gap left between Atom and the new Core processors quite well. Let’s see what Intel come up with the for the next generation of their netbook platform (Cedar Trail) which really needs to hit similar performance to the AMD Fusion platform (Ontario AMD C-50 APU) in a smaller power envelope to be competitive. With HD video, HTML5 and Windows 7, the requirements for CPU,GPU and memory have changed a lot since 2008.
