The Acer Iconia Tab A500 started out with Android 3.0 and the usual promise of an upgrade to the more user friendly Android 3.1 at a later date. Well, it seems the date has arrived and the process of ushering the later version of Android Honeycomb is well on its way, though in a phased manner.
Those in Germany should have already started receiving Android 3.1, though company sources have revealed it could take almost a month for the update to reach all users of the Iconia Tab A500.
There is no word, however, as when those in the US will start receiving the update to Android 3.1.
For Indian users of the Aconia Tab, Acer has said they will have to wait a bit longer; until end of July or early August for the updates to start rolling in. Acer has attributed the delay to the lack of proper support for Over the Air (OTA) upgrades from telecom operators.
“We will be releasing the upgrade by the end of July, which is much later than its international debut date which starts from today,” revealed sources at Acer India.
The delay, according to the company spokesperson, is due to “the unavailability of OTA (over the air) upgrades in India as many of the service providers here in India do not support it.”
This might seem a bit strange, as HTC devices have always received the OTA updates in India.
In a related development, Acer has launched a a new low-end version of the Iconia Tab in the UK with 16 GB of internal memory. Price has suitably been reduced by £100. UK retailer Comet is now offering the new Iconia Tab for £349 making the tablet even more affordable.
In any case, the Iconia Tab and the Asus Tranformer are already among the better known and more affordble of Android Honeycomb tablets. However, Asus had already upgraded the Transformer to Android 3.1.
It would be interesting to note that the upgrade to Android 3.1 for Acer Iconia Tab has already been available unofficially via a leak in China much earlier. So those who have missed out on that can surely cash in on the official release.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
