Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
As Acer has not spent too much time fiddling with Android, it is close enough to Google's original to think of it as stock. Chrome is the browser of choice, the keyboard has not been unnecessarily re-skinned or replaced, and all the other key Google apps are pre-installed. Of course, like so many brands do, there are a few little hidden extras that Acer couldn't resist including, and some are... not so hidden.
Firstly, there are an almost overwhelming amount of pre-installed apps. Some are pretty handy, like the Audible book reader and AccuWeather apps, while others I would uninstall in a heartbeat if this was my very own Iconia One 7.
A few dollars have obviously changed hands between Amazon and Acer, as the entire suite of Amazon apps are pre-installed, from the Amazon kindle app, to the Amazon App and music stores. There are apps fromm eBay, Booking.com, and Zinio clogging up the app drawer, as well as apps from WildTangent and Gamesloft ready to suggest some over-priced or under-polished games.
As well as this, Acer has a trio of their own applications. The Acer Portal is Acer's own service for cloud storage, assistance with your tablet and other 'helpful' services. Then there is the 'Acer Store', which hopes that after plumping for such a reasonably priced tablet you'll kit it out with a variety of covers, bags, keyboards and others accessories.
Lastly, Acer Suggests is yet another apps portal that desperately wants you to try out the games Acer has been slipped a few bucks to market directly into your retina. I suppose you could call it curated, but I'm cynical here; a click on any of the apps takes you directly to Google's own Play Store, leaving me to wonder why you would even bother with Acer's own store in the first place.
The single useful Acer app that is pre-installed is the only one that doesn't feel like it's trying to get you to sign up to anything, and that is the Float Gadget. As the name might suggest, this is a little floating widget that sits above other applications and offers you a calendar, memo pad, calculator and quick location finder.
It's similar to the floating widgets you'll find on LG and Sony devices, and could be genuinely handy for multi-tasking with other applications. My only gripe? The widget cannot be re-sized or customised in any way.
There are 12 other additional pre-installed apps, and none of them qualify as sufficiently essential to justify Acer forcing them on you.
Camera
The cameras on the Acer Iconia One 7 are – at best – below average. The rear-facing camera packs 5 megapixels, though you would be pushed to tell where on earth they're hiding most of them.
It took a second or two for the camera to start up, and every single photo had an unusual smudged and over-processed quality to it, no matter how much I played with the variety of settings afforded by Acer's tweaked camera app. I can only assume that the camera was set up to smooth over any digital noise, but the effect has been far too heavily implemented, and because of this pictures end up looking very artificial.
There is also a rather frustrating blue/purple tinge to every photo I took. When trying to take a close-up of some flowers in my garden, the results were incredibly unnatural, while trying to capture a good picture one of my two fast-moving Terriers was an almost impossible task. The one time I did manage to get a picture of one of them standing still, details were still soft, and their hair looked anything but authentic.
If I could give the camera any plus points, that would be for the improved number of filters, effects and shooting modes over the stock Android camera app, including panorama, HDR and quick-burst options. Unfortunately, like the camera itself, all of these features felt entirely underwhelming. Panoramas were badly stitched together, HDR mode tended to throw up washed-out photos and the quick-burst mode was... not so quick.
The front facing camera? Well, it should come as no surprise that there's literally nothing good I could find to say about it. The 0.3MP sensor is limited to 0.2MP pictures (that's 640 x 360 eye-watering pixels). If you're doing the occasional Skype call, it might be passable in good lighting conditions, but for everything else, it's atrocious.
