Friday, August 12, 2011

$330 Honeycomb Tablets This Week - How's The Battery Life?

The iPad has dominated the tablet market 18 months after its introduction - it is a good tablet no matter how you slice it.  But the 10" Android tablets just have not been able to keep up on pricing and mind-share of the mobile warriors.  However, these $330 7" Honeycomb tablets may be just what is needed for Android to assault the tablet market.

Iconia A100 from Acer will go on sale for $330 and $350 for the 8 GB and 16 GB models respectively.  Honestly, why bother with a 8 GB when you can get double the storage for $20 more.  And at these prices, they are $150 to $170 cheaper than the cheapest iPad and other 10" Android tablets, though the iPad does sport a 10" screen.  And yes, that real estate does matter.

However, portability is what it's all about for some mobile warriors like myself.  Personally, I am gonna hold off and see what this Christmas holiday brings me by way of a price drop.  I think we'll see this and other competing 7" tablets going sub-$300 for our hard earned dollars.  As I've said before, I am expecting the 10" tablets to go as low as $350 by Black Friday so find a 7" Honeycomb tablet at $250 won't be a stretch in my book.

But the bigger issue for me is the 4.5" battery life that I am worried about.  Portability is one thing but what good is that if the battery life cannot support my mobile needs.  

Also, we need to make sure that these new babies will be able to use Ice Cream, Android 4, the unifying OS from Google this fall.  Honeycomb 3.2 is probably good enough for most of our needs but knowing if our tablets are future-proof would be good comfort.

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