Acer Iconia Tab A500 confirmed as early Verizon 4G tablet
updated 04:40 pm EST, Wed January 5, 2011
Acer unveils Iconia Tab A500 at CES
Acer in a slew of introductions today brought out one of the first official 4G tablets for Verizon's LTE network. The 10-inch Iconia Tab A500 will use the "latest" version of Android, likely Honeycomb (2.4), with Acer's custom 4.5 UI on top. Its underpinnings will be based on NVIDIA's dual-core, 1GHz Tegra 2 chip and give it support for 1080p video through native HDMI output.
Its touchscreen interaction will be a key component, as it should handle 10-point multitouch and will carry a gyroscopic sensor for tilt. Acer didn't give a ship date or a price for the Iconia A500, although its dependence on Honeycomb will likely push it out to March or later.
Other tablets expected in in the next two days will closely follow Acer's formula, although the Motorola Droid Xoom may be stuck on 3G for at least its initial release. Tegra 2 is believed to be Google's reference processor for Honeycomb.
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let the race to the bottom begin.
Seriously....why do they announce these devices so far in advance of actual shipping dates. Are they hoping people will hold off just to buy a device that is vitually indistingushable than its competitors that may come out sooner. What does this tablet offer than differentiates itself from the other 40 or more tablets being announced. Most will neve be shipped. The only differentiator these companies can pin their hopes on is price and there lies the problem for all these companies.