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Touchscreen Tablet Reviews >

Packard Bell Liberty Tab

Romain Thuret
Translator: Jack Sims
Test date: June 30, 2011
Liberty Tab, how's the keying?

Typing on a Honeycomb tablet is child's play. All the various manufacturers have given their word, whatever the product and true enough, keying on the Liberty Tab is responsive and enjoyable. You can work rapidly on it without having to correct keying errors all the time and both portrait and landscape modes give comfortable use.

The virtual keyboard is broad and with a full compliment of keys but unfortunately you do have to scroll to another page for your number keys.
Since testing the AsusEeePad Transformer, which has a veritable physical keyboard representation on the panel, we've become quite uncompromising. We're just waiting for another brand to follow suit!

Packard Bell has been part of the Acer group since 2008. Acer launched its own Android 3 touch tablet, the Iconia Tab A500, in April. Rather than starting from scratch with it's June release of the Liberty Tab, Packard Bell has used the Iconia Tab as its starting point. The result is something that is theoretically identical, or almost, to the Iconia Tab A500.
 
The processor is the same, a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core with 1 GB of RAM. There are up to 32 GB of storage under the glossy shell and a microSD slot allows you to add an additional 32 GB. The PVA panel comes with a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution.


There's plenty of connectivity with a micro-HDMI, a USB 2.0 Host port and a proprietary connector on the underside to plug in your accessories (multimedia dock or keyboard). There's a 5 megapixel photo-video sensor with an LED flash on the back and a 2 megapixel sensor on the front for webcam usage.

The Liberty Tab will be on sale as of the end of June 2011 for around £350 in its 16 GB version and something under £450 for the 32 GB. 3G models are also planned for the forthcoming weeks.
This is a little more then than Packard Bell had originally led us to believe, which is a shame.

Design & Handling


With the wide black bands on its screen and strongly contrasting upper and lower lines, the Liberty Tab also owes a lot to the general look of the Acer Iconia Tab. Instead of mock brushed aluminium, Packard Bell has gone for a chrome-like glossy coating.
The back is also glossy, in a nice red that does however show up finger marks all too easily!


The red is a very nice alternative to the usual black or aluminium look we see on other tablets but won't be to everyone's taste. The finish is however excellent and this includes the upper cover for the microSD slot and space reserved for the the 3G module (not included on this model).


Everything is in the same mould as the Acer, except that on the Liberty Tab the space for the 3G module is sealed with a plastic cover rather than a sticker.

At over 700 grammes, its weight is not negligible but as it's well balanced you can hold it in one hand without straining your wrist.

Screen

Sound the gong, here's our new contrast ratio champ. At 1214: 1, the Liberty Tab is just in front of the Iconia Tab A500 from Acer (1126: 1).
Nevertheless, the colours on this PVA panel are far from being accurate with an average DeltaE of 8.8 (against 10 on the Acer), with only the black, cyan and red sort of accurate, while the rest are way off. As always, the image tends towards blue, especially in the dark areas.

At 24ms, ghosting times are around average though it doesn't include the compensation system used by Acer, which inserts a black frame for every three frames displayed. The Packard Bell has wide viewing angles but the image lightens a great deal when you're looking at it from the side.
All in all, the Packard Bell screen carries the day over the Acer thanks to better factory settings.
 

Interface & Navigation

What more is there to say about Android Honeycomb? Packard Bell hasn't gone crazy with any alternative system or personalised desktop (in contrast to the Iconia Tab) and simply uses the Google system. Note nevertheless the inclusion of a tool for sharing the tablet's multimedia with compatible tools via wi-fi, as well as HD Gameloft games and the Aupeo digital radio.
 

 
You still get direct access to Nvidia's TegraZone, a listing for Android Market games that are optimised for the Tegra 2 processor.
Honeycomb reacts very well, even with several applications open at the same time. Entering text with the keyboard is no different to what you find on the Acer, Motorola or LG tablets. It's clean, responsive and precise (see inset).
 

The Clear.Fi system (in-house multimedia player) that equips Acer's model has not been included here so no easy DLNA sharing. Nor are there any in-house features for, say, displaying photos or a media player.

Multimedia

Internet navigation on this Honeycomb tablet remains very enjoyable. Everything is fluid, simple and pleasant to use: the tab system, vocal search, management of favourites.
Pages are legible both in portrait and landscape, even if you do sometimes need to zoom in a bit in portrait mode, especially if you don't have particularly good eyesight. With a Tegra 2 processor under the bonnet, Flash holds no fear for this tablet. Flash content is displayed almost as fast as the pages it's used in.

 

 
Native video and music playback and the display of photos is restricted to Google tools, namely the gallery app and music player. Jpeg, mp3, wma, MEPG-4 and H.264 are on the programme. For increased compatibility, you'll need to turn to Android Market (moboPlayer for example). The tablet does very well during HD playback up to 720p. Beyond that, it's something of a lottery. The same goes for the HDMI connection (you can mirror what you see on the tablet on your TV).

When it comes to gaming, the more sensitive will enjoy pre-loaded titles such as Heroes of Sparta II HD. The TegraZone games (only one free one for the moment, Dungeon Defender, which we like) make the most of the Liberty Tab's power.

The audio capabilities on this model aren't bad. The sound is clear from both the speakers and the headphones but the overall output could be more dynamic. When you're lying on a couch watching a video or playing a game, the sound from the speakers can be somewhat muffled. Nevertheless the audio is amongst the best you'll find on the market..



The camera sensor is a little bit better than on the Iconia Tab. The image is no longer either too red or too blue but more neutral and homogeneous. The overall image lacks finesse, but it does pick up a lot of detail all the same.
The flash needs to be used advisedly... and a good distance away as it tends to burn anything that is less than a metre away.

Battery life

Packard Bell announces eight hours for battery life and after a few charge cycles, the Liberty Tab gave an average of a little over 7H30 (the last 30 minutes comes when the battery is well worn in).
Only intensive gaming (on the most demanding TegraZone titles) with wi-fi on really cuts your battery life down, which is true for any of the models we've tested. The results for battery life we got here are exactly what we got with the Iconia Tab A500.

At the end of the day, how does the Liberty Tab, so similar to Acer's tablet, stand up? The multimedia sharing that's such a feature on the Iconia Tab is missing here, but the screen settings are better on this model. We were feeling pretty enthusiastic about it at first but now that the pricing has been brought into line with the Acer, we're not so sure.
All the same this Liberty Tab does have its lot of accessories (keyboard, cover, multimedia dock) and constitutes a nice stylistic variation to the Iconia Tab A500 for those who like it glossy.

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Packard Bell Liberty Tab

Pluses

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High contrast

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Very nice finish in spite of the use of plastic

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Numerous connectors / nice audio

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Rapid Internet browsing

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Camera sensor isn't great but gives better results than the Acer

Minuses

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Glossy, red, finger marks: this won't please everyone

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The rest of the screen's qualities don't measure up to the contrast but it's good enough

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Hey you... yes you! Is anyone developing for Honeycomb?

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Can't charge battery via USB

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No media player / no extra software

4
Packard Bell hasn't given us anything new with its Liberty Tab, but is following a path already trodden by Acer. The fact that so little extra has been added by Packard Bell is a shame and it's missing some of the elements that make the Iconia Tab such a success. This tablet will however delight anyone who likes red! It also has good connectivity and a good screen, a flashy look and some practical accessories.

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