Acer Android tablets get Honeycomb 3.1 upgrade

The Acer Iconia A500 Android tablet

Acer has joined Motorola in announcing an upgrade to Android ‘Honeycomb’ 3.1 for its Iconia tablet PCs beginning this week.

Iconia A500 owners will receive a message from today informing them of the option to upgrade to Honeycomb 3.1, which promises increased system performance and better support for USB and Bluetooth devices like keyboards and mice.

Last week it will start pushing out the Honeycomb 3.1 update to coincide with the release of the Wi-Fi-only Xoom tablet.

Other 3.1 features include HTML5 video content support, additional video file format support, improved Wi-Fi networking, and Microsoft Exchange server support (ActiveSync).

Acer Computer Australia’s smart handheld devices product manager David Niu, said every Iconia Tab A500 owner will receive a notification today prompting the update which will “improve the entire user experience”.

For business users, 3.1 offers easier management of e-mail accounts; the proxy and IP address configuration is now backed up and restored across system updates and resets; and there is an encrypted storage card device policy for devices with emulated storage cards and encrypted primary storage.

In March Acer launched the Iconia A500 and A100 tablets. Both shipped with Google Android Honeycomb 3.0 and will receive the 3.1 update.

Inside the A500 is a dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 and connectivity is either Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and 3G. It has a HDMI port for 1080p video out.

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