Acer's Iconia B1: A Clean Ace!

Mention the words ldquobudget tabletrdquo and you can see mdash well almost sense mdash people getting prepared for a device whose sole virtue is its low price Not that you can blame them for it There have been low cost tablets in the Indian market for more than a year now but in most cases you can spot the compromises that have been made to keep that price low mdash less than solid build quality older versions of operating systems poor support buggy performance and the like Tech specs 7 inch 1024 x 600 display 512 MB RAM 12 GHz dual core processor 8GB storage expandable by microSD card u00a0WiFi Bluetooth GPS 03megapixel frontfacing camera Android 412 microUSB 35mm jack The Acer Iconia B1 could change that Not only does the B1 represent the first effort by a really big tech brand to break into the four figure tablet category it pretty much redefines the budget tablet section as we know it so far For it does significantly more at a Spartan Rs 7999 than any of the subRs 10000 tablets in the country and even some of the subRs 15000 ones do It is in fact that price tag that one has to keep fixed in onersquos mind when one looks at the tablet as a whole and resist comparisons with the likes of the iPad Mini or the Nexus 7 which cost more than twice as much At its price the Iconia B1 serves up a 1024 x 600 resolution 7inch display 512 MB RAM 8GB of onboard storage expandable using a microSD card a frontfacing camera GPS WiFi Bluetooth all of which is driven by a dual core 12 GHz MTK processor And running on top of this is a relatively recent version of Android mdash 412 or Jelly Bean No it is not perfect We bet some people will complain about viewing angles the lack of a radiantly bright display the plasticky build and the absence of 3G connectivity you cannot even connect a 3G dongle to it The stark fact however is that for its price the Iconia B1 delivers a lot of bang Acer has refrained from mucking up the interface with its own skin or too many apps and the result is a tablet that just works Web surfing was smooth most videos played well provided you did not get into full HD territory email and social networks worked like clockwork and in a very pleasant surprise even a relatively lsquoheavyrsquo game like Dead Trigger played without too many lags Apps are available in plenty from the Google Play store ranging from the basic to the complex GPS works in offline mode once you have downloaded maps sound quality was reasonably loud and the battery lasted us a good five to six hours of constant WiFi use All of which makes the Iconia B1 very good value for money in our book Yes we would have preferred a slightly jazzier looking tablet mdash the plain front and back with a blue strip running along the sides will not turn heads But then which budget tablet does And this one feels reasonably solid notwithstanding the hump on the back caused by the battery We are not put off by the absence of a camera at the back either for taking pictures using a tablet still is far from convenient especially when you have a smartphone handy We are not even going to complain about the absence of 3G connectivity out of the box mdash we know some very expensive tablets that donrsquot have that either Whatrsquos more WiFi access is no longer as rare as an oasis in the Sahara mdash most smartphones today let you create a WiFi hotspot with minimum fuss What really counts for us is the fact that the Iconia B1 is lightweight at 320 grams one of the lighter seveninch tablets around but solid runs a very recent version of Android we have lost count of the number of high profile uber expensive devices waiting for an Android 41 update and until you really start burdening it with heavyduty apps works at a perfectly decent clip And that for us counts more than all the cuttingedge looks and loaded spec sheets in the worldWorth purchasing Absolutely if you are on a tight budget and want an Android experience without making too many compromisesu00a0