A few weeks ago, reports trickled down from the mount that Acer was prepping a $US100 7-inch tablet with specs that were juuuussssssst decent enough to be usable. The Iconia B1-A71 seems to fit the bill. Except, well, for the bill.
The Iconia B1-A71 has a 1.2GHz processor, a 1024×600 display, 8GB of storage, 512MB of RAM, Android Jelly Bean (nice!) and a 0.3MP camera (less nice!). All of this makes its closest comparison the original Kindle Fire, Amazon’s price-structure-shattering tablet of last year. So far so good.
But then you remember that Amazon still sells the Kindle Fire for $US159, and that it now has 1GB of RAM, and suddenly the case for the $US150 Acer becomes slightly less compelling. At the originally rumoured $US100, this thing would have been a no-brainer; at $US150 your brain is probably nudges you gently towards Amazon.
Still, it’s nice to see cheap(er) tablets that aren’t as feeble as the junk you’ll find at some retailers. And we’ll have a much better idea what to expect from budget entry when we go hands on with it this week at CES.