Acer Iconia Tab A500 Not Actually Able to Output 1080p… Yet. Update Coming in June to Enable Full HD Output

Posted on 09 May 2011, Last updated on 17 March 2023 by


Despite pushing the “1080p” line all up and down their press release, it looks like the Acer’s Iconia Tab A500 [tracking page] isn’t actually walking out the door with 1080p capabilities.

According to a tiny footer I’ve discovered on the A500’s official product page, the unit can only currently push 720p video through its mini-HDMI port. However, an update slated for June will allow the A500 to output 1080p, more than 2x the current output resolution.

It’s a good thing that the A500 is using the Nvidia Tegra 2 processor as it is indeed rated to handle 1080p output. Tegra 2 also supports decoding of a pretty impressive list of codecs, but in our testing so far, we’ve found that the A500’s built-in software can only play a very limited number of file-types.

Here’s to hoping that this update promise doesn’t go the way of just about every other promised Android update from carriers or OEMs, you know… the way that they tend to come months later than expected.

There’s no word yet as to whether or not the same update treatment will have to be given to the soon to be released Acer Iconia Tab A100/A101 [tracking page], or if it’ll actually ship with 1080p output capability.

5 Comments For This Post

  1. chippy says:

    Good to know they’re planning a firmware update and I hope it includes new codec support too. USB keyboard crashes are also an issue.
    Chippy

  2. Matt Oakes says:

    Does the Acer work with unpowered mini-HDMI to VGA adapters? The xoom requests a powered on which means lugging round a box with an extra power adapter if you want to output to most projectors.

    Are you able to test this? The adapters are about £5 and for me it’s major shortfall for the Xoom, so it would be nice to know the Acer could do it.

    The problem on the Xoom is to do with the HDMI not outputting 5 volts that these adapters rely on to work.

  3. Tokyorob says:

    The Tegra2 chipset is not very good it’s doesn’t even encode 720p high profile (L4.1) standard .. Jailbroke my iPad 1 and installed XBMC plays the 720p files that the Tegra 2 Chokes on .. another lemon from Nivida

    I have a L-06c Optima pad which uses the same chipset .. avoid NVidia if you want to play high profile (L4.1) 720p files

    (There is a reason that the Boxee changed it’s chipset to intel from nvidia)

  4. Mike Cane says:

    >>>However, an update slated for June

    Anyone know yet if this will actually be Honeycomb 3.1?

  5. Ben says:

    Good question. Their update to 1080p playback could come along with the 3.1 update, but I don’t believe that vanilla 3.1 has anything to do with enabling 1080p (nothing is mentioned in 3.1 changelog). I think the lack off 1080p playback is specific to the A500.

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