Conclusion
We were already relatively excited about the A510, and the A700 has not tempered that whatsoever. On the contrary, the Acer Iconia Tab A700 has the finest grip and feel of all tablets we've had our hands on so far, even if it's not very light. Morever, the A700 has a Full HD IPS panel.
You really can't escape a comparison with the ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity here, since it's the other Full HD Android tablet. Acer is more competitive in terms of pricing. For about £100 more you get the Infinity with another 32 GB storage and the Super IPS+ screen with much higher brightness. The storage disparity can be remedied by adding a 32GB microSD card, which doesn't cost more than £15 nowadays. The user experience of the two tablets is very similar. It means that what you are paying for is the very bright screen of the ASUS Infinity. If you will primarily use your tablet indoors and have no interest in a dock, then Acer would be the better option. However, for outdoor use you do need the extra brightness of the Infinity. Another option would be to go for the 16 GB version of the latest iPad, which costs a bit less than the Acer A700.
Back to the A700. We felt that interacting with the display was a bit sluggish at times, and there was the issue with incorrectly displaying our home page (which we did not experience on any other sites). The sluggishness is not unique to this tablet. We've seen it on other Android tablets as well, including ASUS' Transformers.
In the end the 10.1-inch Acer Iconia Tab A700 comes very close to the Infinity, and it's the best tablet that Acer has released up until now. It falls just short of the Hardware.Info Silver Award due to the relatively high weight, the relatively low brightness and the intermittent sluggish response of the touch screen. For the Bronze award the price of just below £400 is a bit too high.
