Acer Iconia A500 with external drives

[Drillbit]

I always wondered what the USB port on the A500 port is all about and now I know. This can be killer feature that differentiates the Acer tablet from any other tablet including Android ones.

One the drive is connected, go to Settings, then Storage, and Mount the USB drive. Photos and videos will appear on the Gallery app, music files on the Play Music app, PDFs on Adobe Reader and whatever file type is relevant to a corresponding app. Its that easy. For file manipulation and management, get a File Management app like Astro.

The Tegra2 might sound venerable now, but it still chews high definition videos without a sweat.

Take some precaution if you don't want stuff accidentally synced to Google Photos and your Google storage inundated. Make sure that Google Photos is disabled on the Gallery app and on Accounts and Sync under the main Settings. Disable Instant Uploads on Google+ if its activated.

With a big external drive like 500Gb to 1Tb, you are praying for USB 3.0. Flash drives seem faster and take up less power. I can see why the new A510 has a hefty battery supply as the external hard disk can do a job on your battery consumption not to mention playing music, videos or just panning through pictures.

Away from my PC right now, so I have to use my Transformer to write this while fiddling with the Iconia A500 and the drive in the other.


Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk 2

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk 2

[Tom LaPrise]

My Archos 80 G9 has a USB port on the back that's meant for a 3G stick, but it has full host capability. I keep a tiny Staples 16GB USB drive in there.

[jigwashere]

The Samsung Galaxy S2 micro USB is capable of hosting with an adapter, but the E4GT doesn't have the drivers. (not really )

[Adama D. Brown]

I always wondered what the USB port on the A500 port is all about and now I know. This can be killer feature that differentiates the Acer tablet from any other tablet including Android ones.

Curiously, a lot more of the cheap generic tablets have a full fledged USB port than the high-end name brand items. Most Samsung and Motorola tablets can do USB Host, I know, but only through an adapter cable. Even my father's $99 EPAD had a regular USB Host port.

[internetpilot]

Yup, been using external drives and other USB devices on my A500 since I bought it almost a year ago. What blew my mind was when NTFS support was quickly available through a 3rd party developer --now it's built-in to the HC and ICS OS. I love being able to download pics from my DSLR camera, edit them, and upload them while still on vacation and without lugging around a bulky full-sized notebook PC.

[Tom LaPrise]

Yep! Oddly, my Canon SX130IS will open the Gallery app on my tablet (to allow importing pics) when it connects but the Nikon D40 mounts like a removable drive.

[Varjak]

It is surprising that more don't offer the full USB port. I have to think the extra cost is negligible at best.

[Adama D. Brown]

It is surprising that more don't offer the full USB port. I have to think the extra cost is negligible at best.

I suspect that a lot of it has to do with design ethos. Case in point, I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is all about the thin and light. It has built in USB Host, so they could have just as easily added a USB port instead of making you buy an adapter, but that would require a little bit of a bump on the bottom and another connector, interfering with it's sleekness, which to some is more important than the added functionality.

There's also the accessory angle. Leave out the full size port, and you can sell those adapters, or docking stations, or whatever to add to the experience and help lock them into your brand. It's the same for HDMI, even though HDMI is available with such a tiny, inoffensive connector these days.

[Varjak]

Are you saying a USB port would put a bump on the bottom? I think you could integrate one without too much of a bump.

Sure, I get that short-term thinking (selling accessories); but you could also 'sell' the port by bumping the price by a bit. Most people break or lose those accessories that make even more of a 'bump' on the edge of a tablet. But you're probably right about the rationale.

[Adama D. Brown]

I mean that the edge of the GT 10.1 is thin enough that a regular-sized USB port would disrupt the lines; it's only about 0.34" thick in the middle.

What devices like this need is a standard miniaturized USB Host port, the way we have micro-USB and micro-HDMI.