Ice Cream Sandwich Update Ready for Acer Iconia Tab A200

With the Ice Cream Sandwich update rolling out to Acer's Iconia Tab A200, tablet shoppers can now pick up a comparatively inexpensive 10-inch tablet with Google's newest mobile operating system. The A200 is a brand new tablet, and in a lot of ways, it's the successor to the popular A500, but with a few notable exceptions. It's cheaper, lacks an HDMI port or rear-facing camera, and now it has Android 4.0 before the A500. By getting the ICS update before it's older sibling, the A200 joins the Motorola Xoom and Asus Transformer Prime as the only other tablets running the new system.

Acer Iconia Tab A200 features a 10-inch screen with 1280x800p resolution, 16 gigabytes of storage, a full gigabyte of memory, microSD card reader, full-size USB port, around eight hours of battery life and not-too intrusive software overlay allowing for a mostly pure Google experience. It's also just $350 (Best Buy), easily one of the least expensive 10-inch devices out there. Being that it's brand new and now has Android 4.0, it's tough to turn down this device. It's not the thinnest one out there due to the full-size USB port, but that feature alone will attract plenty of buyers because of how easy it is transfer files from a laptop.

On the other hand, no HDMI port, and to a lesser extent, no rear-facing camera, may deter some potential buyers, but lacking those features is what makes the device so affordable. Acer officially announced the A200, A500 and A100 would all be getting the Android 4.0 update, and the A200 is the first to get it. The A500 and A100 should get the update in April, Acer announced Feb. 16. Android 4.0 brings all new screen animations, widgets and browser features to the A200.

One great new feature is the ability to choose whether or not to view the full version of a Web site over the mobile version. Some Web sites have quite bare mobile versions, but in previous Android versions, there was no choice, and the mobile version would load by default. Tell us in the comments if this news would nudge you in favor of the A200 or if you already have one and are running the new system now.