Acer Iconia A200

Disclaimer: rough language ahead.

So we bought an Acer Iconia A200. Reasons are not important, and I was hesitating about an Android device. But features are good, I can't indefinitely deny that Android is the option to Apple. A clear case of choosing the lesser of all evils.

Today it came. I did the classic deboxing photo shooting, and that was that. I opted out from all the options that were presented to me that meant telling google what I was doing or where, got the wifi working, upgraded to 4.0.3, and started testing.

First things first, play with the widgets. There's a 4 square panel one that uses the top 2 panels for showing the hour, the lower right one for the date (which is not a shortcut to the agenda... WTF?) and the lower left one has a small sun-and-clouds-and-sky image that suggested a weather applet. So I hit it and it tells me that because I opted out from using wifi spots as alternative ways to find the device on the surface of our unique world planet, I can't simply use the applet. I mean, there is no way to tell the applet, "hey, you know what? for no particular reason I want to know the weather in, let's say, Saint-Symphorien-du-Mahun, France". I can either enable the "network Location Service" (or something like that, I set the device in Spanish) or not use it.

So I forget about it. Next step, install a real map application. For that, of course, I had to yield a Google account. I have one, or several, laying around, so I use one of those to let Google Play install things. That's already shitty. But then what does it do? It also uses that account for configuring the gmail client. Who the fuck told it to do it? I was expecting to set it up with my girlfriend's account. I hope I will be able to do it later. Do these people ever thought that a tablet could be used by more than one person? ¹ Also, account sync got activated. I had to go to the settings and turn everything off. Still, the gmail app keeps being linked to that Google account.

At some point, too, a multimedia server went on. WTF from? Who set it up? Why is it enabled by default? Who decides these things? Ok, this is getting close to a rant. I see a tag coming. It also comes with an app that shows in the "task list" (there is no concept of app in Android) which is actually a "apps you last used up to certain value of «last»" or something like that; the app is called VirusScan. When I try to activate it, it gives me back to the home screen. Go figure.

So back to Google Play. I had already skipped the yielding of credit card info. Now it's time to opt out of being spammed about news and offers from Google Play. I think I see a pattern here, but at least some things are being asked, "can I, pretty pretty please?". Most of the time, my answer will be "No!", sometimes followed by "Go to your bedroom, no dinner or dessert!".

I select Maverick, which I remember from the time I had a Motorola Droid from work. I choose it because it can handle offline maps. This tablet has a GPS, but it does not have GPRS. The rights it asks for are a little permissive (for instance, taking photos and videos), but I hope it's just a matter of not using those features and that's it.

I fire it up. I choose OSM maps and it works just fine. The guide for the offline maps is nice, not fancy, but it doesn't have to be. It only needs an µSD, VFAT formatted, which I don't have (I lost an 8Gb recently with a lot of wine labels from wines that I liked. It's hard to live in a country where wines sold by features completely orthogonal to what you're used to). Makes me wonder why I bought a 32GiB device. I'll have to fix that soon.

For some reason I try the image viewer. Of course it went to the picassa account associated to that Google account. That was really a bad move. Even the calendar is tied to that account. I'll have to check how to reset that shit. Probably I'll have to reset it to shipping state. Not that I did a lot in it. Also, I missed some privacy settings, like the backup in Google servers, which at least deactivating them erases that data from Google servers... or so they say >:-)

Android apart, the tablet is nice. Not very heavy, looks good, responsive, can act as USB master, has internal GPS as I already said, and whatever else. I will be actively looking for an app that lets me embed another two, so I can use it as a GPS and media center in the car, which is the primary goal that I had for my non-charging-from-USB-anymore N900 :(

So last tests: The GPS didn't got a good signal in my balcony (My god it's cold outside. What's the temperature? I don't know ², the weather applet does not work, the second one I put in the home screen reset itself to NYC (!??!) and I didn't try the third I installed), but at least it found it fast. The first guess put me some 80 meters from my actual position, but it slowly got it right.

Now audio: let's see how well it plays MP3s, OGGs and FLACs. I connect it via USB and simultaneously I get two surprises: a) the tablet does not seem to charge via USB. Now, sincerely, WTF? I corroborate this by plugging it to a wall USB charger. Nothing. I should had suspected something when I saw at first that the wallwart has a cylindrical connector. And b) it announces via MTP device, not an USB mass storage as others do, with an option of PTP for the photos. Amarok can handle MTP devices, but then Amarok tries to bee too clever and handling a big-ish collection with lots of missing data and inconsistencies is a nightmare, so I skip it. mtpfs is somehow broken in Debian Sid, and I don't have the willpower to compile kio-mtp.

So that's it: I have a nice 11" tablet with a operating system I knew I hate, which in spite it has GPS can't charge via USB and is not even a USB mass storage, when it can act as a USB master. Probably the bottom line is: I should have investigated better the device before buying it. If only my N900 would charge via USB again ⁵...