I will spare you the Android 3 reviews, if you really want to know more about Honeycomb, there are many good reviews out there and you just need to spend about 1.5 nano seconds with Google. I will however, talk a litte about the hardware.
My previous tablet was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7". That was a well rounded device. Although the A100 is not as hefty as that, it does have a good feel for a 7"'er :P I chose the A100 over its bigger brother the a500, a 10". Personally, if I was to use a 10" I would rather just use a laptop. The A100 is small enough to actually get in your pants pocket if need be.
Its construction is quite solid. However, the screen seems like very low grade plastic. I fear that its going to get scratched easily. More over it picks up finger prints and oils from your hands VERY fast on both front and back. Other than that, its very solid. It has a nice feature, the Rotation Lock. With a rocker switch on the top right, you can lock the rotation in. (If you are like me, a screen rotating when you dont want it to is very annoying)
It has a dedicated home button (capasitive). The lower edge features, a pin hole reset button, Left/Right speakers, dedicated Micro HDMI port, Dock Port and a Micro USB Port. Its power is a dedicated coax plug. A little annoying, however, the Tab never charged from a standard usb supply anyway, you had to use the supplied adapter. So in another way, at least you can charge AND use the USB at the same time.
I should note that a feature that I would have liked to see, was what its brother the A500 has, is a dedicated standard USB Input port. However if I am not mistaken, this can be done with an adapter for the Micro USB.
I find the touch on the screen not quite up to par. Touching notifications on the edge are often miss interpreted. Also touches are not as sensitive as one would like. I actually found myself wondering if it was resistive. However once I installed a better keyboard into the system, things got much easier.
The camera is very quick to focus and grab your shot. This was a very refreshing thing to see. Its rotation is also very fast compared to other devices I have used. Notifications are shown by flashing the LED on the power button and the home button as well.
Something that really is important in my opinion is the SD Card slot. There is also a MicroSD card slot to compliment its onboard 8 or 16 gig memory. I see things like the iPad, Galaxy Tab 10", Playbook without a simple MicroSD card slot. WHY?? I dot get it. So this has a slot that can accomodate up to 32GB.
So all in all, for a sub $300CDN device I can't complain. The value of a dual core 1Ghz tablet usually sits at 400-500+ This one costs $250CDN. If you can deal with the finger prints, add a screen protector, install better keyboard software, you are good with this device.
Happy Tabbig!
//Ian\\
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