When you think about anything gaming, you get a little bling in mind. Come on, yes you do. Well, I do. The design language is sure to include some good red and shininess, some sharp highlights and some more.
The Acer predator in its 8 inch 1920X1200 (16:10) goodness flaunts an IPS LCD screen, a memory card slot, a volume rocker, a power button topped up by 2 Gigs of RAM, 32 gigs of storage and an Intel Atom processor (X7-Z8700).
These aside I want to particularly mention the 4 speakers on the 4 corners of the device. Sharp to touch and hear they pack a good punch in the audio department. Watching movies and YouTube, listening to music on device or online, are a treat. Whats more, the tab has a vibration motor, not seen in many, if any tab(which doesn’t have call functionality).
When you switch the tab on you are treated with the shiny predator logo with slashing sounds with vibration. Subtle changes in the vibration helps giving a directional feel. All help with the aesthetics and the bling.
Where this tab wasn’t a hit was the software. Came with lollipop, and stayed there. not even a bug-fix update. Whats more, there is no support via custom ROMs, at least not on XDA. Some amount of software improvements over time would have taken the device a long way. Just take a look at how Nvidia was serious about the software on their Shield series of tabs. They were longest supported non-google devices. More on that in another post.
The tab wasn’t cheap when it was launched in 2015. The aesthetics were kind of a let down in media by reviewers. There were also rumors and some clips of a 6 inch phone had this tab taken off. Sigh, would have been magical.
What let the tab down was the time at which it was launched. 2016 wasn’t ready for gaming specific devices. The design was a bit too much (too much good I say) for that time. Quite an experiment which didn’t click.
The tab also has two cameras (5 MP/1080p@30FPS and 2MP). They are OK. Just OK. If you take a photo using them you can identify people, read text decent and nothing much more than that. Video is also passable. One problem with this device is that it crashes very often, specially when the camera is being used for video.
The tab also crashes very often during applications, and there wasnt any bug fixing done. A battery of 4400 mAh is good enough for a few hours of YouTube and some light gaming.
All in all, this tab from the yesteryear has been quite a device. I still use it for the sound and bling. The start-up logo and haptics are real sweet!!
If only Acer would have given some good software support. This device and its design are so valid today that I am sure someone over at Acer is trying to remake this device for 2019. Or 2020 while at it.