Acer unveils high-res iPad rival

Beats high-profile competitors in pixels.

Acer’s new Iconia Tab A700 is poised to become one of the iPad’s biggest competitors.

The tablet boasts a screen resolution comparable to Apple’s much-touted retina display and, with a lower price tag, is a more affordable alternative.

Officially unveiled this week, the 10.1-inch Iconia Tab A700 presents what Acer claims to be a "new level of clarity and realism" with its 1920x1200 high-res display.

It delivers a 55 percent higher pixel density compared to the 1280x800 displays native to most tablets.

Though the new iPad’s retina display still takes the crown with its 2048x1536 resolution, the Iconia Tab A700 surpasses the iPad 2, the 10.1-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, and the Asus Transformer Prime as far as pixel counts go.

The A700’s display, coupled with Dolby Mobile 3 surround sound and an HDMI port that allows it to stream content to other larger displays, positions the new tablet as a media-consumption powerhouse, Acer said.

The Iconia Tab A700 is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core mobile processor and runs on Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS. Applications including the document-editing program Polaris Office 3.5 and Evernote come native with the tablet, as does Acer Print, a mobile print application the company said is compatible with 87 percent of brand name printers.

The new device also boasts 1GB of RAM, along with a five-megapixel rear-facing and one-megapixel front facing camera.

Acer said the new Iconia Tab A700 is available for pre-sale now, starting at $US449.99. An Acer Australia spokesperson confirmed the tablet will retail locally, but declined to comment on pricing or release date.

This article originally appeared at crn.com