Acer Iconia Tab A100 review

The screen on the Acer Iconia Tab A100 isn't fantastic, but it's not wholly terrible either.

There's a lot of glare coming off the screen. In bright light, the screen is almost not viewable.

And, some icons seem to glow like they're on a mirror, hovering just above a sheet of glass beneath. To picture this, imagine using a 3D screen like the one on the HTC Evo 3D, except not in 3D mode, and on a bigger screen.

Another problem is the screen isn't that responsive. You might have to press a button a few times before it registers. Oddly, for typing, the Acer Iconia Tab A100 is good but cramped, registering clicks accurately even with haptics to help give the sensation of tactile feedback.

Most of the issues we had with the screen were related to the size, however.

The Acer Iconia Tab A100's price isn't incredibly low compared to 10-inch models, so the tablet needs to sell itself on portability, readability and colour quality. You get portability. But the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Apple iPad 2 and even the Motorola Xoom all have brighter and clearer screens.

We rented the movie Priest using the Market and found that this dark film looked even more colourless than it should.

Connected to an HD display using a micro HDMI cable, the movie still looked too dark. We loaded up the Blu-ray version of the film and saw that there are dark scenes, but they're still viewable. The contrast is so unappealing on the tablet that we stopped the movie halfway through.