[INFO] Got Acer Iconia A500

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So, I called BestBuy today to see if they have the Transformer in stock. The girl said no but she did note that they have "the Acer one." I realized it's the Iconia A500 that's suppose to release on Sunday. The manager was willing to let me open it and play with it. I ended up buying it.

It has few things over the Xoom (current have) and the Transformer it seems.

-NVIDIA’s ULP GeForce graphics on top of Tegra2
-Full USB on the tablet itself
-I heard rumors of the microUSB slot is also an inactive LTE 4G sim slot (not sure about this.

The screen is slightly better than the Xoom when compared.
I'm going to go back to Best Buy and compare to the Transformer on Tuesday if they get them in see how the 2 fair. We are looking at $50 difference.

Iconia A500 has full standalone GPS (it's advertised on the box). It also vibrates for gaming and notifications. Screen is not bad at all.

In the 2nd picture, Iconia is on top. Will post comparison later when it's fully charged.

Apparently, transformer does not have GPS chip in it. That is a real deal breaker.

Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App

Originally Posted by dumon

Apparently, transformer does not have GPS chip in it. That is a real deal breaker.

Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App

You sure, many sources say it does. I think all official Honeycomb devices are going to have standalone GPS chip by default. The Xoom Wifi didn't have GPS advertised but, I put Copilot in it and it navigated perfect. I tethered to my phone, and Google Navigation was flawless. Don't worry about it. Transformer is going to have it too.

Originally Posted by dumon

Apparently, transformer does not have GPS chip in it. That is a real deal breaker.

Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App

Where did you get this information please?

As far as i know that you need Wifi connection to set up destination and stuff. After that you can be out of wifi range you can still get tracking via gps. Also if there is map on your device the gps can work with that too...

Also Iconia dont have Gorilla glass. Which for me is a big plus for Transformer.

Originally Posted by dumon

Apparently, transformer does not have GPS chip in it. That is a real deal breaker.

Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App

It was confirmed yesterday by Anand that it DOES have GPS hardware - he confirmed with Asus. It should function just like the (edit) WiFi (/edit) Xoom does - for Google Maps, it needs a data connection (to stream map data)... but it should otherwise be able to pick up a GPS signal.

There are a few threads here talking about it and providing links and quotes and such... I just figured I'd try and mention this early on in this thread.

Originally Posted by shin lucifer

Where did you get this information please?

As far as i know that you need Wifi connection to set up destination and stuff. After that you can be out of wifi range you can still get tracking via gps. Also if there is map on your device the gps can work with that too...

Yup, it's a full GPS chip, stupid engadget has been falsely spreading bull about the Transformer tablet like wild. The map data is not stored locally, that's all.

Anyway, OP... is the screen s-ips? I'm holding out for the Transformer, but kinda curious...

Originally Posted by dumon

apparently, transformer does not have gps chip in it. That is a real deal breaker.

Sent from my htc hd2 using xda app

it has gps!

Originally Posted by gordec

It has few things over the Xoom (current have) and the Transformer it seems.

-NVIDIA’s ULP GeForce graphics on top of Tegra2
-Full USB on the tablet itself
-I heard rumors of the microUSB slot is also an inactive LTE 4G sim slot (not sure about this.

The screen is slightly better than the Xoom when compared.

All Tegra 2 devices have the same ULP GeForce graphics. If they didn't, they'd have no use for a screen.

I haven't heard the rumors about the microUSB being an "inactive LTE 4G sim slot," and that really doesn't make much sense to me.

About the screen being better, that's interesting. I can't wait to compare the Transformer's to the Xoom's when I get my Asus hopefully next week. I'll report in when I do.

Wow, I didn't know the Xoom had a yellow tint like that.

We've already had 5 threads on this Yes, the transformer has gps.