The Acer Iconia Tab A500-10S16u 10.1 inch tablet running on the Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS has been developing a nice word-of-mouth following. With barely any marketing at all, the good looking 10 inch tablet has been consistently climbing up bestseller and wish lists and creating a buzz on the blogosphere. What is all the fuss about? That is exactly what I attempt to uncover with this Acer Iconia Tab A500-10S16u Android tablet tear down.

The first thing I notice is the aluminum metallic design. Very “Buck Rogers and the 25^th Century” look here. This tablet immediately makes a statement that it is different from other 10.1 inch tablets. This is the same screen size as many other tablets, like the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, as well as the bestselling iPad 2. The Iconia Tab A500 offers better resolution than some, with 1280 x 800 viewing, and video playback was great, if not jaw-dropping.

The stereo speakers located at the back on either side are not going to win any “best of” contests, but I have yet to find a Tablet PC with speakers I did not have to supplement anyway. Then there’s the Android 3.0 Honeymoon OS, which I have to say is the slickest OS out there. And on the Acer Iconia Tab A500, the interface is awesome.

You get multiple home-screens that are perfect for tablet use, and on the bottom left is a Recent App button that lets you switch back and forth between two apps instantly. And Back, Home and Recent App buttons move with you when you go from widescreen to portrait and back. Pretty cool. Top left has Google Search with an optional voice command that I love. This is not as simple a system as the iPad 2′s OS, but it can do so much more, and the 3D graphics makes it one of, if not the best visual representation of an Android OS anywhere.

As far as power goes, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 is powered by a dual core 1Ghz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor with 1GB RAM, so you can multitask to your heart’s content without the slightest hiccup. Social Jogger syncs your Twitter and Facebook accounts, Lumiread is an onboard eReader, dual cams are here, Bluetooth, USB, microUSB and microSD ports abound, and you get 16 GB of onboard storage. All in all a very nice package. I would highly recommend the Acer Iconia Tab A500-10S16u 10.1 inch Android tablet to any gamers, web browsers or multitaskers who are tablet shopping.