Here at IANtB we love our children…most of the time. Every parent at some point in time has experienced frustration with their kids and one of my biggest frustrations seems to come out when I combine electronic devices and little ones. It’s a love/hate relationship. There’s no better invention than a tablet with some educational children’s apps for long road trips and visits to the doctor’s office or grocery store. At the same time, my little girl broke a cell phone, spilled water on a laptop and my little boy treats these devices like he treats everything else…as a baseball. It’s for this reason that our family has invested hundreds of dollars in high-end cases to protect the screens on our devices and it’s why I fell in love with the Acer Iconia 10 tablet with Corning® Gorilla® Glass 4.
The tablet has a Gorilla Glass 4 display that provides enhanced drop performance along with anti-fingerprint coating. It’s the toughest Gorilla Glass yet and performs twice as well as competitors when dropped from a toddler height of 3 feet. Spending a week with the device, I witnessed my little guy drop it (let’s be real, he threw it at least twice) 4 times and I can honestly say it didn’t scratch or damage the glass at all. They claim that with Gorilla Glass 4, the focus has been on preventing damage from “sharp contact” against hard surfaces like concrete or blacktop and is better able to withstand damage from being dropped. One of those drops was on our concrete garage floor as he got out of the car and I thought for sure he broke it. I knew the drop was going to happen and let me tell you, it was *tough* not doing what I normally do and taking it from him while he got out of his car seat. But hey, this is in the name of science right?
The Iconia 4’s body features an elegant white design that is comfortable to hold thanks to the smooth finish and rounded edges. The 10.1-inch FULL HD display was easy to see from nearly all angles and handled glare really well. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio to provide a large viewing area for browsing websites and reading. The tablet is large enough to be shared, yet portable at only 1.12 pounds. This was key as the little guy doesn’t like carrying around a competitor’s tablet with the big, bulky case attached for protection. It actually made it convenient not having to have a big case for him to carry around and knowing the device had great screen protection.
The Iconia Tab 10 has a 5MP rear-facing Full HD camera that captures 1080p video and a 2MP front-facing HD webcam that captures 720p. I was actually really impressed with the camera and have attached a couple of pictures (although I’m far from being a good photographer). Both are great for video conferencing and recording video and comments for YouTube and Facebook.
It includes Android 4.4 (KitKat.) and we were able to easily sync our apps from other tablets using our Google account so the kids could start using it quickly. It also has a MicroSD slot that can take cards up to 128GB for media and photo storage.
Photo taken with Acer Iconia Tablet 4
Photo taken with Acer Iconia Tablet 4
The Acer Cloud Portal app is pre-installed on the Acer Iconia Tab 10, so you can use the tablet to sync and backup data from the tablet across multiple devices such as a smartphone and PC, as well as to the cloud for greater sharing and security. I actually have an Acer laptop so this was *really* convenient having access to my laptop files via my Acer tablet. I know you can do this with other services and I’ve used them in the past, but it was convenient having the two devices synced up really quickly.
Overall, I have to admit this took a little getting used to, not stressing about my kids playing with the tablet without a 10 lb. case attached to it. It survived the week being taken in and out of my backpack (which is usually tossed into the passenger seat of my car), and at least 4 drops from my little guy and who knows what else. Not a scratch on the screen and the tablet itself felt quick, responsive and without too much bloatware for my taste. My son and I had a great experience with it and look forward to its long-term survival as part of our family’s entertainment.
Corning® Gorilla® Glass has been used on more than 3 billion devices from 40 major brands. Is it on yours? Click here to find out
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Corning®. The opinions and text are all mine.
