Top 5 Tablet PCs

Move aside iPad, this is definitely the year for touchscreen tablets, and they are powered by Android and WebOS. We may have known of the existence of tablets for a relatively long time now, but they have been perfected to being mainstream and user-friendly.

Lifestyleasia.com picks out the top five tablets you'd want to own, and no, the iPad is not included.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1


 

At 10.1inch, 8.6mm and 565g, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is both lighter and thinner than the iPad 2.

Running on Android Honeycomb version 3.1, you can now resize widgets and scroll through opened apps in the "recent apps" pop-up list. Downside to the Galaxy Tab 10.1, however, is not having a USB port, which could support the USB-connected peripherals of Android 3.1.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a 3MP rear camera, which is three times higher than the Apple iPad 2's camera, in addition to its front-facing 2MP camera. With a 7000mAh battery, the Tab can last approximately nine hours (for everyday tasks).

The basics of an Android tablet include: built-in GPS, Adobe Flash in the browser (upon download), 1290 x 800 screen resolution, bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Price: US$629.99 (32GB)

Lenovo IdeaPad K1

 

With a matte, chrome-colored side and back trim and red colour back panel, the Lenovo IdeaPad K1 might be one of the most attractive-looking tablets in the market now. This 10-inch tablet is rather bulky compared to its other competitors (10.4 x 7.44 x 0.52 and weighing 730grams).

The IdeaPad does, however, offer an extensive and useful range of ports and buttons: power button, up/down volume button, screen rotation lock switch and a microSD card reader on one side and another, mini HDMI-out port, headset jack and a proprietary docking port. The docking port is also used as a data sync (with a USB cable) to your PC.

Just like all other Android Honeycomb tablets, tapping on the Recent Apps button would reveal a list of scrollable apps you used, but the IdeaPad has innovated with the addition of "close" buttons to the corner of each thumbnail.

Price: US$499 (32GB)

HP TouchPad

 

The 9.7-inch HP TouchPad runs on WebOS 3.0, which is all about multi-tasking. It provides built-in support for Adobe Flash, a USB connector for charging and connection to your PC, Beats Audio-powered stereo speakers and wireless charging using HP's Touchstone technology.

There's no rear camera to the TouchPad, only a 1.3MP front-facing camera. It is also heavier than the iPad 2, at 740g.

The HP TouchPad makes a efficient work companion; read and write email, view work and personal inboxes together, and toggle between them all at the same time at ease.

Price: US$659 (32GB)

Dell Streak 7



This 7-inch Dell Streak 7 is quipped with a dual-core Nvidia Tegra and 3G mobile broadband along with the usual culprits: GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. With a choice of 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, the Streak 7 has support for SD, MMC and SDHC cards.

The front camera is 1.3MP and the rear one is a 5MP with auto-focus and flash. Software, however, is a bit dated with its Android 2.2 (others are already installed with 3.0). Nonetheless, an upgrade can be done.

Price: US$429
 

Blackberry Playbook

 

At seven inch, the Blackberry Playbook is relatively smaller than the 9.2-inch iPad and definitely strong in optics with a 3MP front-facing camera and a 5MP rear camera.

The Blackberry Playbook has a relatively light body, at 425grams. It also has powerful multi-tasking; run a video in one window and play game in another concurrently. The dual-core 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM makes running multiple apps at one time a smooth process.

The Playbook doesn't support external storage, but it does have a micro-USB port to connect to your PC. You can also configure the PlayBook so that it shares files over Wi-Fi.

Price: US$599 (32GB)

Thanks to 

and the people at Lifestyle Asia for this excellent review. 

PlayBook is all well and good, but it has no email application. A tablet from a company that is targeting the business community that does not support email is a major goof.

Word on the inside is that RIM's current set-up doesn't support same email account across multiple devices. If that's anyway true it just further compounds that BlackBerry are getting left behind.

Good point TechFan.

It seems the majority of Tablets will have Android 3.0 or above as their OS. It will make it harder for any Non Apple or Android tablets to breakthrough. Apple will retain their position as the high end experience whilst Android will consume the volume market.

[A bit of topic. Ed.] BUT we were looking at the new Samsung Galaxy SI II smartphone yesterday. Still seems to us that one area where Apple continues to be streaks ahead of its competition is in its basic icons. This smartphone is super slim (8,49 mm), powerful (Dual Core Application Processor) and the look of a 'phone's icons should not be important in the overall scheme of things but they are. Apple's always look slick; the Samsung Galaxy icons look like they have been designed by a Year 6 student. Take a look:
 

Seems like Apple's competition has still a long way to go: http://gigaom.com/apple/in-its-war-with-samsung-apple-scores-legal-victory-in-europe/ 

Buying a tablet today!