Acer Iconia Tab A501 4G (AT&T) (photos)

The Acer Iconia Tab A501 is the Acer Iconia Tab A500 with 4G and a no-commitment price of $480 (16GB) and $550 (32GB); about $100 or so more than the A500.

For the price of a two-year contract, AT&T offers the tablet for $350; the lowest initial cost of any 4G Honeycomb tablet yet. If two-year contracts for tablets scare you (and they should), AT&T also offers session plans at $15/250MB and $25/2GB, if you absolutely need that "anywhere" access. But, with its hefty build and Acer's strange decision to ship it with Android 3.0.1, instead of a later version of the OS, is the A501 already too far behind to even enter the race?

The Acer Iconia Tab A501.

The back of the Acer Iconia Tab A501's metallic silver plating is surrounded by two plastic grip areas on either side.

Here we have the Acer Iconia Tab A501's microSD and SIM card slot panel cover, rotation lock, and volume rocker.

The Acer Iconia Tab A501's reset pinhole, full USB 2.0 port, Micro-USB port, and power adapter slot.

The Acer Iconia Tab A501's dock connector.

The Acer Iconia Tab A501's power button, headphone jack, and Micro-HDMI port.

The Acer Iconia Tab A501's SIM/microSD card slot opened and ready to be used.

The Acer Iconia Tab A501's 5-megapixel back camera.

The Acer Iconia Tab A501's 2-megapixel back camera.