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BB no longer carrying A500?

J03Y

Lurker
Dec 28, 2011
8
0
NY
I called my local best buy and they told me they will not be restocking the A500 and the system lists it as "discontinued"

Is it truely discontinued or is it only discontinued in terms of best buy not restocking? If it is actually discontinued, is their a new version on the way?

I've been patiently waiting to get my hands on one and don't want to "settle" for the transformer. The USB is the key selling point to me.

:(
 
that's disappointing. I can't find a reputable place online to purchase one that isn't a refurb.

why would they discontinue something that seems to be in pretty high demand?

I've had no issues with my tigerdirect refurb. Just doesn't come with manuals. Get 3 month warranty which is better than craigslist. I see the refurbs are only available in stores wherever those are. My tab looked brand new when I pulled it out of the box. I've always had good luck with tigerdirect so I wouldn't knock them off of your list just yet. I can also understand wanting to buy new.

I think the holidays devastated tab stock everywhere. Good luck with your hunt.
 
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Your post made me curious - maybe BB knows something, so I found this report about new model (A200)
Acer Iconia Tab A200 - reviews - Tablets - none - PC World Australia

The A200 is apparently same specs as A500 except the rear facing 5mp camera is gone, to get the price down.

Interesting. Looks like it just came out in the UK. Says it's 8gb, minus rear camera and hdmi out but comes with the ice cream sandwich OS.


I've had no issues with my tigerdirect refurb. Just doesn't come with manuals. Get 3 month warranty which is better than craigslist. I see the refurbs are only available in stores wherever those are. My tab looked brand new when I pulled it out of the box. I've always had good luck with tigerdirect so I wouldn't knock them off of your list just yet. I can also understand wanting to buy new.

I think the holidays devastated tab stock everywhere. Good luck with your hunt.

The thought of a refurb just scares me based on what kind of support you would get from Acer if something died, etc. I've read alot about issues with the GPS being hit or miss. Although I hear Acer isn't very good about support to begin with. Also, the only refurbs I see are the same price as they were new in the store.
 
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Oh joy, what a day!!! I decided for the heck of it to check online to see if walmart had anything showing locally(for the 30th time) and 3 stores showed "limited quantity".

Called the first store, none. Called the second store, none. Third store, one in stock!!

I asked if they could hold it for 20 mins but they would not. Jumped in the car and left work, hustled 20 mins to the sotore and finally got it!!!

Super happy right now. Wife might be pissed as she was at the doctor with our daughter for strep throat but now I;ll take a half day to watch the baby and enjoy my new toy!

:D
 
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Oh joy, what a day!!! I decided for the heck of it to check online to see if walmart had anything showing locally(for the 30th time) and 3 stores showed "limited quantity".

Called the first store, none. Called the second store, none. Third store, one in stock!!

I asked if they could hold it for 20 mins but they would not. Jumped in the car and left work, hustled 20 mins to the sotore and finally got it!!!

Super happy right now. Wife might be pissed as she was at the doctor with our daughter for strep throat but now I;ll take a half day to watch the baby and enjoy my new toy!

:D

Congrats, nice score! 16GB or 32GB? Hopefully your daughter comes home and goes to sleep so you can play!
 
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I can't help but wonder where you shop. I took a friend to a BB in Columbus, Oh. and talked a lady there into buying 2 of them for her kids. She didn't want to spend the money for iPads for them. After I told her how great they are she bought them each one. ( Wish my parents would have been so generous when I was a kid). They had plenty of the 10 inch models in stock but no 7 inchers.
 
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I just picked up an A200 and it's a beautiful thing. Has all the great features of my A500 without the bad (or stuff I don't want).

No rear facing camera - I tried taking photos with my A500 and it's useless outside and walking around holding a tab up with the flap off the case hanging down feels silly.

No HDMI port - I've got a media player so I can't see myself ever hooking up my tab to a TV.

No ugly docking port - enough said.

A200 has a nice grippy back. Without the case the A500 is always sliding out of my hands

It's still on initial charge, so I haven't had a chance to play except with the one in the shop, but I think it's still honeycomb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgy3hPkFhPs&feature=youtube_gdata_player
 
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Congrats, nice score! 16GB or 32GB? Hopefully your daughter comes home and goes to sleep so you can play!
Thanks! I ended up with the 16gb since that was all they had left, and it didn't look like I was going to find anything that wasn;t a refurb. Oddly enough, even the refurbs online are more $ than they were in the store. Got to play with it last night for a few hours. Loving it so far!


I can't help but wonder where you shop. I took a friend to a BB in Columbus, Oh. and talked a lady there into buying 2 of them for her kids. She didn't want to spend the money for iPads for them. After I told her how great they are she bought them each one. ( Wish my parents would have been so generous when I was a kid). They had plenty of the 10 inch models in stock but no 7 inchers.

If you mean location, I;m near Buffalo, NY. I've called every walmart, best buy, office max, target, radioshack and even local private owned electronics stores within a 50 mile radius and not a single one had the Acer nor were they going to restock. So glad I lucked out. I got bored at work and decided to try calling around one more time and it worked out.

I just picked up an A200 and it's a beautiful thing. Has all the great features of my A500 without the bad (or stuff I don't want).

No rear facing camera - I tried taking photos with my A500 and it's useless outside and walking around holding a tab up with the flap off the case hanging down feels silly.

No HDMI port - I've got a media player so I can't see myself ever hooking up my tab to a TV.

No ugly docking port - enough said.

A200 has a nice grippy back. Without the case the A500 is always sliding out of my hands

It's still on initial charge, so I haven't had a chance to play except with the one in the shop, but I think it's still honeycomb

Very nice. So, are you located in the UK? From the brief tings I read on it, it was currently only available there.
 
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Very nice. So, are you located in the UK? From the brief things I read on it, it was currently only available there.

No I'm in Australia. I can't figure out why it isn't available in the US yet unless Acer is giving stores a chance to reduce stocks of A500.
The ad is obviously made for the US ...and no I'm not crying, it's just something in my eye.

One cool feature is the option to take a screenshot. It's not obvious in the ad, but that's what they do on the video chat.

And just out of curiosity again (I'm a curious kind of guy) I checked the best buy website. It shows Not Available at any store in NY or Ohio (including stores in Columbus) which is strange.
 
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No I'm in Australia. I can't figure out why it isn't available in the US yet unless Acer is giving stores a chance to reduce stocks of A500.
The ad is obviously made for the US ...and no I'm not crying, it's just something in my eye.

One cool feature is the option to take a screenshot. It's not obvious in the ad, but that's what they do on the video chat.

And just out of curiosity again (I'm a curious kind of guy) I checked the best buy website. It shows Not Available at any store in NY or Ohio (including stores in Columbus) which is strange.

The one thing I've been looking for all day is an app to take screenshots with, but every app needs a rooted tab. That's a great feature you have there.
 
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Was reading in the XDA blogs that Acer is releasing a NEW A500 which might explain why the stores aren't restocking the current version. They may just be waiting for the new one to come out that is designed for ICS out of the box.

Acer has released a new 10 inch Tegra 2 tablet.

In fact if you scroll up a little bit you can see the TV ad for the new model that I posted as well as my comments on the new model (I have bought one).

It seems to be available everywhere except the US.


one more interesting point is the new model lists on the box Li-Polymer battery 24.1W 3260mAh x 2 and some reviews are talking about 8 hours of video playback. I haven't done any testing yet and the Acer sites don't list specs yet to confirm it.
 
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Acer has released a new 10 inch Tegra 2 tablet.
one more interesting point is the new model lists on the box Li-Polymer battery 24.1W 3260mAh x 2 and some reviews are talking about 8 hours of video playback. I haven't done any testing yet and the Acer sites don't list specs yet to confirm it.

Well I just ran a test and got 7 hours 6 minutes playing video continuously with average settings, screen 50% brightness sound 50% volume
 
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Bestbuy is now showing the A200 online "coming soon" for $350 US.

Keep in mind the a200 has no rear facing camera. also the a510 is coming and I love that it has a quad core but no flash on the cam ruins it for me. while it may not be a deal breaker for some of you to me it is still not worth it maybe if it had a tegra 4 and the speeds where noticeably faster it may be worth it to upgrade. At this point I think I will hold onto the a500 just for the sake of the dev community and added options. Still looking at the a700 which looks alot like the a510. Oh and walmart has plenty of a500s for anyone looking.
 
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Keep in mind the a200 has no rear facing camera.

Does anyone use the rear facing camera?
As I said in an earlier post, I tried taking photos with my A500 (I even installed HDR Camera+) and it's useless outside and walking around holding a tab up with the flap off the case hanging down feels silly.

The rear facing camera could be useful for apps like camscanner, but again, the tablet form factor makes it a bit impractical. I use my phone for that stuff.

And I did take a snap with my A200 when my phone battery was too low. The trick is to angle the screen at 45 degrees so you can frame the shot without being in it.

No HDMI out is probably a bigger issue .
 
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Does anyone use the rear facing camera?
As I said in an earlier post, I tried taking photos with my A500 (I even installed HDR Camera+) and it's useless outside and walking around holding a tab up with the flap off the case hanging down feels silly.

The rear facing camera could be useful for apps like camscanner, but again, the tablet form factor makes it a bit impractical. I use my phone for that stuff.

And I did take a snap with my A200 when my phone battery was too low. The trick is to angle the screen at 45 degrees so you can frame the shot without being in it.

No HDMI out is probably a bigger issue .

Yes, I use the rear facing camera. When I'm walking around a job site, producing a field report, I use the tablet to take the pictures as I review and mark up a PDF of the drawings of the building. It's definitely easier than switching between the tablet and a camera or camera-phone.
 
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