Acer Iconia Tab A200 review

An Ice Cream Sandwich tablet at a budget price

Acer Iconia Tab A200
Acer's 8GB tablet comes in titanium grey or metallic red

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Taking to the internet on the Acer Iconia Tab A200 isn't a bad experience, but it could be quicker. Loading complex pages, with large graphics or carousels, took several seconds, but there weren't any residual problems with scrolling through pages.

Like Chrome on the desktop computer, the Android browser has always kept a relatively clean user interface, leaving space for just tabbed browsing and options to add the current page to your bookmarks.

Hit the bookmarks icon in the top-right corner and you're taken to a home screen showing all your bookmarked pages. You can swipe through to your history as well as your saved pages.

Acer Iconia Tab A200 review

Adding and deleting pages is straightforward, and at any point you can access the browser's settings by tapping the spanner in the top-right corner.

One particularly useful feature that Google introduced with ICS was the ability to save pages for offline viewing - an excellent idea if, for example, you want to read a news story but can't guarantee a Wi-Fi connection. Especially considering the Acer A200 doesn't offer 3G compatibility.

Acer Iconia Tab A200 review

If you don't like the custom Android web browser, there are other options available via Google Play. You can download secondary browsers such as Opera and Dolphin straight from the store, although in our opinion, while Opera is nice, the difference is negligible.

Double-tapping or pinching to zoom is a feature we used quite a lot on the Acer Iconia Tab A200's capacitive 10.1-inch screen. For the most part it was a smooth experience, and text is quick to readjust to the larger size. However, the browser stumbles slightly when you zoom back out again.

If the browser takes you to a mobile site, such as BBC mobile, by default you can also opt to display the full desktop site. This is well worth taking advantage of on a 10.1-inch screen, and the 1GHz speed of the Acer Iconia Tab A200 is easily up to the task.

Acer Iconia Tab A200 review

Don't expect to go cruising through the YouTube or BBC iPlayer desktop sites looking for video though - this iteration of the Android browser doesn't have native Flash support.

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