Docking station for Iconia A500 ...

banksia · May 12, 2011

... is a big waste of money.

1) No USB port(s)
2) No HDMI port
3) No power built-in (have to use the adapter that came with tablet. Aargh!!)
4) No SD card slot
5) No micro-SD card slot

Expensive piece of plastic for the price.

But, it does offer a remote control, and a headphone jack!!!

(ASUS messed up by not including a full-USB on the TRANSFORMER, but made it up in a big way with the features on their dock.)

Acer, are you listening? You can surely come out with a much better dock.

Save your money and don't buy this dock.

docfreed · May 13, 2011

Actually, The Dock Is Quite Convenient

Nice and sturdy with two different positions. The mincluded remote lets you control a few things like Suspend/Resume and you can unlock the Iconia remotely. Volume/Pause, etc of course. And headphones out.

Charges nicely (need to get another power adapter)

ONE PRECAUTION: The dock automatically opens NemoPlayer so if you are rooted and have changed/deleted/renamed Nemo you must restore it or else the Iconia will not turn the dock on! Maybe some dev can figure a way around this.

banksia · May 13, 2011

Don't disagree with your assessment, but I still think this barebones dock is very pricey at $79.99.

> Charges nicely (need to get another power adapter)
Yes, and that costs another $29.99

So, dock plus power adapter costs $109.98 (before tax & shipping).

Let's compare this combination to the ASUS Transformer dock that costs $150.
- 2 USB 2.0 ports,
- an SD card reader,
- and a secondary battery that doubles the tablet’s battery life.

--------

If you want a stand to hold you tablet, try the Arkon Portable Fold-Up Stand ($12 at Amazon).

docfreed · May 13, 2011

Ah, I see. I had ordered mine before Acer unfortunately raised the prices in the store so the dock was $46.50 and the power supply was $10! I would agree that $100+ is too much for what you get.

thisisnitwit · May 14, 2011

I'd like to see some clever and shady Chinese company come up with a keyboard dock for this using the port.

rorytmeadows · May 14, 2011

Yeah, I don't really understand why anyone would buy it. Rumor is that Acer is working on a keyboard dock, though....

Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

panda.bear · May 15, 2011

Didn't Acer announce a keyboard dock similar to the Transformer for the W500? I can't imagine the two docking ports being too different so hopefully the A500 will see something similar.

jabbawalkee · May 15, 2011

rorytmeadows said:
Yeah, I don't really understand why anyone would buy it. Rumor is that Acer is working on a keyboard dock, though....

Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

I sure hope they do a keyboard dock like the one for the Transformer.

Lookup89 · May 16, 2011

keyboard dock +1

If acer made a good keyboard dock I would love them

godashram · May 16, 2011

i just want a dock that:
1: is weighted and securey holds my a500
2: comes with it's own power
3: has HDMI. USB (multiple a plus)

and as a bonus any other useful thing they can come up with, like media card reader, ethernet, anything else would be icing on the cake

84z28 · May 20, 2011

panda.bear said:
Didn't Acer announce a keyboard dock similar to the Transformer for the W500? I can't imagine the two docking ports being too different so hopefully the A500 will see something similar.

The W500 comes with a keyboard/dock. $549 for everything

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=186188&Sku=A180-101202

sollie · May 22, 2011

banksia said:
... is a big waste of money.

1) No USB port(s)
2) No HDMI port
3) No power built-in (have to use the adapter that came with tablet. Aargh!!)
4) No SD card slot
5) No micro-SD card slot

Expensive piece of plastic for the price.

But, it does offer a remote control, and a headphone jack!!!

(ASUS messed up by not including a full-USB on the TRANSFORMER, but made it up in a big way with the features on their dock.)

Acer, are you listening? You can surely come out with a much better dock.

Save your money and don't buy this dock.

I use my tablet for movies. All the internet sites are telling me that de dock has hdmi. So its very usefull for me.

I like to know if the remote can control the mouse. So i can use the remote for controlling other movieplayers such as moboplayer.

Harm

godashram · May 22, 2011

sollie said:
I use my tablet for movies. All the internet sites are telling me that de dock has hdmi. So its very usefull for me.

I like to know if the remote can control the mouse. So i can use the remote for controlling other movieplayers such as moboplayer.

Harm

all the pics i have seen of the dock show no hdmi at all, only power and a headphone jack.

seems expensive considering all it does if make movie playing on the device easier...

sanaell · May 25, 2011

My opinion is Acer messed up a little with their dock, but
Why people want the ACER dock
- HDMI port, there is one on the tablet.... is there any kind of "i dont want see cable out of my tablet" style ? for me USELESS... to have such a port on the dock
- USB ... humm that is a 50/50 coz there is one on the table, but add one more as hub could be nice... still useless 50/50
- SD Card slot? for what ?
- MicroSD Card Slot ??? for what ?

why not asking also a battery support

what the hell really, comparing ASUS and ACER on their dock
compare all in a row

ASUS tablet only is kind of.... naked... you need a dock to add options... should be on the tablet rather than the dock (wich is a keyboard actually more than a dock for me)

don't miss understand me, I don t have anything against ACER nor ASUS.
but just stop to make some stupid comparison.
compare what should be compare.

DOCK with DOCK
KEYBOARD with KEYBOARD
TABLET with TABLET

kindly

PS:
ACER make a dock for stand on a desk
ASUS make a keyboard dock for mobility and TRANSFORMER a tablet to a "netbook"
cannot be compare

Johnny0906 · Jun 9, 2011

sanaell said:
My opinion is Acer messed up a little with their dock, but
Why people want the ACER dock
- HDMI port, there is one on the tablet.... is there any kind of "i dont want see cable out of my tablet" style ? for me USELESS... to have such a port on the dock
- USB ... humm that is a 50/50 coz there is one on the table, but add one more as hub could be nice... still useless 50/50
- SD Card slot? for what ?
- MicroSD Card Slot ??? for what ?

why not asking also a battery support

what the hell really, comparing ASUS and ACER on their dock
compare all in a row

ASUS tablet only is kind of.... naked... you need a dock to add options... should be on the tablet rather than the dock (wich is a keyboard actually more than a dock for me)

don't miss understand me, I don t have anything against ACER nor ASUS.
but just stop to make some stupid comparison.
compare what should be compare.

DOCK with DOCK
KEYBOARD with KEYBOARD
TABLET with TABLET

kindly

PS:
ACER make a dock for stand on a desk
ASUS make a keyboard dock for mobility and TRANSFORMER a tablet to a "netbook"
cannot be compare

And most importantly the docking station should have its own 6 celled batteries so we can use our unit for 16,18 hours or more!

andy8274 · Jun 13, 2011

the dock is great, but is overprice

4dthinker · Jun 13, 2011

I've got the Acer dock for the A500. Once on in the dock all the remote does is control the nemo player. Left and right to choose between photos, music, and Videos. Enter to select. Back to go back a step. Select doesn't give you a list though, it just starts a slide show, a random song, or a random video from your selection. Power puts the tablet to sleep. Nothing but a headphone jack and a power jack on the dock besides the dock connector to the tablet. It is weighted and hold the tablet up fine, and in two positions.

You can press the Home button on the tablet itself (not the remote) to get out of the media player, and then use the tablet normally. But the only button on the remote that will work is the Home button to restart the media player.

Hopefully they have something better in mind. The user manual makes a reference to another dock WITH an HDMI passthrough, but I can't find any evidence of it on the web.

tile00 · Jun 17, 2011

docks are a waste of money...agreed. if you just want to stand it up for something, the best way to do this is a very inexpensive art stand. these aren't expensive and it actually looks good on most furniture including your desk. this thing IS a waste of money

robdg80 · Feb 5, 2012

I have installed the Thor Rom 14.2.
Where I get the nemo Player back for that docking station?

loialotter · Feb 6, 2012

I did a teardown of the dock in another thread (link) and found that the dock connector is, well, useless.

It has power, audio and a serial link (RS232 logic level). It is not possible to get HDMI through it though I'm guessing the other dock might give HDMI to the A100 tablets.

Also, custom kernels often don't include the driver required for the serial link on the dock so it's even more useless if you run a modded system.

Docking station for Iconia A500 ...

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