Tablet pcs are coming more and more to the forefront of the technology world. Replacing laptops and challenging ultrabooks, but at a budget price (usually!) there are loads of options out there ranging from the well-known iPad 2 through to the Transformer Prime. Here is a brief roundup of our top 3:
1. Incredibly tough call and probably seems like a cop-out, but joint first would have to be iPad 2 (from £400) or the Transformer Prime (from £500). Starting with the iPad 2, its sheer usability and app market have to be the two main reasons it makes the list. Anyone can pick it up and go with no previous experience, whilst the app market is second to none with over half a million apps..yup, there's an app for that. Cringe.
The Transformer is the best of the android tablets. A quad core processor makes it just as powerful as a laptop and the additional dock expands battery life to a massive 16 hours! I've always maintained that the difference between Android users and ios users are that Androidians (that's a word) want to customise and tweak every user interaction on the device to make it personal and unique. ios users are much more practical, they look to have a device that just 'works' straight out of the box without the need to change much on it, although I personally feel this leaves the device with a lack of identity; the only things different on my ipod are the background and lock screen pic, otherwise it could be anyones!
2. Without any bias (yes I have one), this was (up until the start of this year) the best android tablet by a mile, the Samsung Galaxy tab 10.1 (from £400) - catchy name don't ya think? Amazing screen, great battery life (same as an ipad 2 at around 8-10 hours) slim profile and 2 cameras made sure this tablet rose above the rest last year.
3. Although not released in the UK yet, the Kindle Fire (roughly £130) will be arriving this year, although guesses as to when on a postcard please [Edit -Phil: I hear mutterings of late Feb through to early April]! Running android but with a complete Amazon redesign skin on top (making the androidness unrecognisable) this should undercut every other tablet on the market by price at least. The specs look decent too though, with a dual core processor, cloud storage through Amazon and the 'silk browser' which is meant to be one of the fastest on a tablet device all onboard, it will be interesting to see how this measures across the pond.
Honourable mention: RIM Playbook - Blackberry's effort however hardly made a dent in the market with a tiny app store and pretty average spec. Also I'd imagine there will be a sleuth of new Window's tablets to coincide with the launch of Windows 8 this year.
How do the Android phone apps scale up for tablets? I know that the iPad allows you to either run it on the resolution of the phone, or scale it up (hellooo pixelation). Is the Android the same?
ReplyDeleteI've been waiting a while for a Kindle with a colour screen. I don't read many books, but magazine subscriptions downloaded automatically would be great!
Well Drew, I'm glad you asked! All the apps on the android market that are 'HD' look wonderful on tablets! Otherwise there is a similar proposition to the ipad, with a button that upscales apps although I've never had a big issue with pixelation.
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple of greats apps for magazine subscriptions. Zinio simply gives you a copy of the paper version and is quite handy. I personally read t3, which just released a tablet edition of their magazine. This is brilliant as it has moving pictures (I know, sounds the same as a video!) videos and interactive links off to websites of relevance to the articles!