New 7.9-Inch Acer A1 Unveiled
Acer unveiled a successor to the 7.9-inch Android tablet Acer A1-810 today by announcing the new Acer Iconia A1-830.
The old Acer Iconia A1 was released in the US in June 2013 as the first Android tablet emulating the 7.9-inch size of the iPad mini. It was released at $199, with current prices hovering at an average of $170. And it has sold relatively well for a Acer tablet ever since release.
(UPDATE: Acer Iconia A1-830 was released in March:
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Iconia-A1-830)
This might explain why Acer haven’t upgraded the new Acer A1-830. Because most of the specs remain the same. What has been changed is the processor, where the previous quad-core 1.2GHz MediaTek MT8125T CPU has been replaced by a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Clover Trail Z2560 CPU. The RAM has also been changed, from 1GB of DDR3L to 1GB of LPDDR2 RAM.
A bump down is the Bluetooth, down from 4.0 to 3.0, on an “upgraded” tablet.
The front camera has been upgraded from a 0.3MP camera to a 1.9MP camera. The rear camera captures photos at 5MP like before, with 1080p video recording.
All the remaining specs are pretty much the same, such as the 1024 x 768 resolution, 7.5 hours battery life, and Android 4.2 OS.
The new Acer A1 has become cheaper, but also a technically poorer tablet, so if this is Acer’s strategy for 2014, then Acer could be facing more financial hardship this year than it did last year.
– Tom Bowen