Top tablets: reviews

A quick look at each of the top eight tablets currently available, in no particular order
 Apple iPad 2

Score: 4.5 /5

Pre-eminent and still the best tablet currently on the market, the iPad 2 is light, slim and a delight to use. But it’s not just the fact that you can read books, check your emails, browse the webs or watch videos that mean Apple, for now, own this market: the iPad has spawned a library of Apps that is continuing to grow rapidly and that has changed how many consumers think of media.

That means that there are countless, excellent games as well as apps that reinvent magazines and serve purposes that were impossible on other devices. Even cab drivers collecting passengers at airports are using iPads for the name of the person they’re picking up.

Operating System: Apple iOS 4
Dimensions (WxDxH): 18.6 cm x 0.9 cm x 24.1 cm
Weight: 601 g
Display: 9.7" IPS TFT - LED backlight - 1024 x 768 ( 132 ppi ) - Multi-Touch
Processor: Apple A5 1 GHz ( Dual-Core )
Memory: 16 GB integrated
Digital Camera: Rear + VGA front
HD Video Recording: 720p

Asus Transformer
Score: 4/5
Asus’s Transformer is a departure for tablets: it combines an excellent Google Android tablet with a fully-fledged keyboard. The result is both a decent netbook and tablet that does everything an Android tablet currently can. That means web browsing, movies, a range of apps and scores of other uses are all possible, but so too is the longer-form work that demands a keyboard.
The Tranformer may not be the lightest or the most elegant of the forthcoming Android tablets, but it is certainly the first to really tackle the problems of typing on a touchscreen. An added bonus is that they keyboard effectively acts as a battery pack for the tablet and so can extend life to up to 16 hours.
Specifications:
Operating System: Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) Platform
Display: 10.1-inch WSVGA IPS capacitive multi touch display
Chipset: NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2 Mobile Processor
Memory: 1GB DDR2
Storage: 16GB eMMC Flash
Camera: 1.2 megapixel (Front); 5.0 Megapixel (Rear)
Dimensions: 10.67” x 6.89” x 0.47” –inches (W x D x H)
Weight: 1.5lbs

BlackBerry PlayBook
Score: 3/5
At 7”, the PlayBook is more portable than the best rival tablets, all of which are currently around 10”. It is as well built as the iPad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab and its screen makes for a bright, sharp viewing experience whether you’re playing games or watching movies. So it looks and feels like a really professional-grade device. You could justify paying £399 for it.
As has been much reported, the PlayBook also lacks the thing for which makers Research in Motion are so famed: email. If you tether your phone to your BlackBerry handset, software called Bridge means your email and calendar appear properly. Without a handset, you are left simply to access email via the web, as you could on any other device.
The logic behind this is that it’s more secure to keep your email on just one device, and simply use the PlayBook as a larger screen. This may be the way to the heart of a corporate IT manager, but users deserve better. Confronted with a security problem, BlackBerry have bodged a workaround rather than provided a solution. That's a real pity, because the operating software itself is slick, whether its editing documents or playing music.
When it comes to apps, the secret to the iPad’s success, there simply aren’t enough for the PlayBook. Yet.
Critics, however, would be foolish to write off the PlayBook. Corporate apps, from RBS to many others, are already impressive because the company has capitalised on rich relationships in those sort of markets. Accessory makers, too, are excited by the PlayBook because its users are likely to be well-heeled. Proper email is coming soon as well. RIM are playing a longer game here.
Specifications:
Operating System: BlackBerry Tablet OS
Dimensions (WxDxH): 19.4 cm x 1 cm x 13 cm
Weight: 425 g
Display: 7" TFT - 1024 x 600 - Multi-Touch
Processor: 1 GHz ( Dual-Core )
RAM: 1 GB
Memory: 16 GB integrated
Wireless: 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1
Digital Camera: 5 Mp rear + 3 Mp front; 1080p video record

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2
Score: 4.5 /5
The Galaxy Tab 2 is the only Android tablet to rival the iPad 2 for style. It’s light, slim, powerful and elegant. At 10.1”, the screen is big enough while the surprisingly light weight means it’s genuinely portable too. The only real downside is that the Tab 2 isn’t out yet. Using one extensively before release, however, indicates that at launch it will only be the availability of apps and the ease of use that differentiates the Tab 2 from the iPad.
That’s a double-edged compliment, however: the Tab 2 has a single dock port, rather than any bells and whistles that might let you connect HDMI cables etc. In due course, however, wireless technologies may render that complaint irrelevant.
Specifications:
OS: Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)
Display: 10.1” WXGA 1280x800
Processor: 1GHz Dual Core application processor
Camera: Rear: 3.0mp with LED Flash; front : 2.0mp
Playback : 1080p Full HD Video @ 30fps
Recording : 720p HD Video
Memory: 16G / 32G / 64G, microSD (up to 32GB)
Size: 256.6 x 172.9 x 8.6 mm, 595g

Motorola Xoom
Score: 4/5
Motorola’s Xoom, in both the US and the UK, was the first tablet to come to the market using Google’s Android operating system. It remains an impressive device: a decent 10” screen, a powerful processor and the real faults at launch were simply down to the lack of apps for Honeycomb, the codename for the tablet version of Android.
Although critics suggested that the placing of the on button on the back, for instance, was a design flaw, in fact it was simply different from the iPad: the Xoom remains a viable alternative because most users of tablets will be focused on web browsing, email and ereading. With that in mind, it’s as good an Android tablet as is currently available in the UK.
Specifications:
Android Platform: Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)
Camera: front-facing 2MP webcam; rear 5MP Camera with LED flash, digital zoom; HD recording; playback in 720p HD
Screen: 10.1-inch
1280 x 800 pixel resolution, at 150p per inch
Processor: dual-core processor
Memory: 1GB
Size: 9.8 inches, 6.6 inches, 0.5 inches (LWH)
Weight: 1.61 pounds

HP TouchPad
Score: 3/5
Wireless charging. Audio from Dr Dre. An operating system unlike that made by either Apple or Google. HP’s new tablet, the TouchPad, ought to have a lot going for it. It’s even got a magazine to tell you all about the best apps to buy.
It feels solid, albeit slightly plasticky in the hand. At 740g, it’s slightly heavier than an Apple iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab, although perfectly portable enough.
Perhaps it would be perfectly forgivable if WebOS, the operating system that HP bought from Palm, lived up to the hype. And indeed there is a lot to like. In many ways the TouchPad rewrites – reinscribes? – the tablet handbook. Gone is the homescreen with icons and widgets indicating programmes or services. Instead, there’s a desktop that is basically just a staging post each of the apps the TouchPad runs. So press the home button and each ‘card’ is arrayed in a line. Swipe up to close or tap to select. If you’re writing an email message, the message gets a new ‘card’ so you can also refer back to your inbox. This is progress, compared to other tablets.
But is it enough when the email app itself takes five seconds or so to grind into action every time you fire it up? When other apps take more like 10 seconds? This doesn’t sound like long, but other tablets don’t keep you hanging around. And is it enough when, inexplicably, the TouchPad decided to duplicate my inbox nine times, offering a range of different unread message counts? These may all be teething troubles. When the TouchPad works, it does work very well.
Specifications:
Screen: 9.7” (1024x768) Touch Screen Display
Weight: 740g, 14 mm thick
Operating system: HP webOS 3.0
Processor: Dual Core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon Processor
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Storage: 32GB Storage
Camera: 1.3 MP Front-facing Camera – video chatting capability

Acer Iconia Tab
Score: 4/5
Available in both 7” and 10” versions, the Acer Iconia is a reasonably priced (from £299) device that surpasses expectations. It has more ports and consequently can do more than most of its counterparts, and it’s also nicely put together. A Windows version is also available, making it plain that tablets really need to have proper tablet interfaces such as Honeycomb to be effective.
What the Iconia really reveals, however, is how different a 7” and a 10” tablet is: one device feels like there’s enough space for browsing the web and watching films in relative luxury. The other, however, is far better suited for portability. That means consumers should decide what’s most important to them and buy accordingly, rather than simply going for the 7” because it’s cheaper.
Specifications:
Dimensions:260 (L) x 177 (W) x 13,3 (H)
Weight:700g
Processor:nVidia Tegra 250 Dual cortex A9; 1GHz
OS:Android v3.0 Honeycomb
Memory: 1GB DDR2 RAM (1x1GB)
Screen:10.1" WXGA LED
Resolution:1280 x 800
Hard Drive:eMMC 32GB
Webcam:Front 2.0 MP & Back 5.0 MP with flash

HTC Flyer
Score: 3.5 /5
The HTC Flyer is one of a very few tablets that is distinctly different: featuring a pen, it might feel like this is a technological instalment of Back to the Future, but in fact the ‘stylus’ is used to write on the 7” device and take handwritten notes in a way that has genuinely not been easy before. Integration with Evernote and other applications means that it could replace a notepad and also record audio too.
Aside from the pen, the Flyer also offers a version of HTC Sense, the company’s own interface, that runs over an older version of Android. The result is a tablet that’s genuinely very different from the others, although not necessarily a rival to larger models.
Specifications:
Operating system: Android 2.3 with HTC Sense
Screen: 7 inch touch-sensitive screen with 1024 X 600 resolution
Weight: 420 grams (14.82 ounces) with battery
Processor: 1.5 GHz
Camera: 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus; 1.3 megapixel front camera
Internal storage: 32 GB
RAM: 1 GB

HP plans major enterprise push for TouchPad

HP straddles two worlds: enterprise systems and consumer electronics. Its new TouchPad tablet is intended to satisfy the needs of both. But you'll have to look harder and wait longer to see HP's unfolding enterprise plan for TouchPad.

The Wi-Fi TouchPad, running the webOS firmware created by Palm, goes on sale Friday starting at $500 in stores ranging from Amazon to Walmart, the same outlets that handle its PCs and printers. But the tablet is "enterprise ready," says HP's David Gee, vice president of marketing and enterprise solution for the Palm Global Business Unit. He oversees the marketing strategy for all webOS devices as well as development of webOS-based "solutions" for business customers.
He's got a tough job ahead of him. Analysts are lukewarm about the TouchPad's prospect for success against Apple's iPad 2 and the latest crop of tablets running the Android 3.1 firmware. But the market is still barely a year old, since it was created in 2010 with the release of the first iPad.
Via webOS 3.0, TouchPad offers what HP calls "essential management and security." HP, like Apple and Google, is relying initially on the features in Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, a push synchronization protocol that links mobile devices with Microsoft Exchange Server and leverages features like password management, remote device wipe and others. The OS also supports a full panoply of Wi-Fi authentication and security standards, and two VPN clients: IPSEC VPN, and Cisco Any Connect VPN. TouchPad leverages HP's wireless printing and ePrint technologies.
With today's launch, MobileIron will offer a native webOS client to its mobile device management application. HP is in talks with all the other leading MDM vendors to do the same thing, Gee says.
But Gee readily admits that these "essential" features are "table stakes" -- the basic necessities to meet a minimum level of security and manageability.
"Since we have one of the world's largest [IT] service organizations and software for IT management and security, for application development quality assurance and security, and experience in how we run data centers, the real opportunity is in asking, 'What lessons can we learn from all this and then build into webOS?'" Gee says. [See HP's Web page for its enterprise software infrastructure offerings.]
He would only talk in generalities, such as the need for centralized management in deploying and supporting thousands of webOS devices, or the value in leveraging software quality assurance capabilities for webOS development. He declined to be specific about upcoming products or their availability, but insisted HP is committed to this course.
"We are dead set on turning those into reality, really fast," he says.
Only Microsoft is in a similar position to integrate a mobile platform, in this case Windows Phone 7, with an extensive, existing corporate IT infrastructure. Neither Apple nor Google, by contrast, have presence in the back end of the corporate network, though some of that is changing as back end services migrate to a mix of public and private clouds. And both rely heavily on Exchange ActiveSync and third-party device management software for security and management features.   No major business wakes up one day and says, 'We want a bunch of tablets,'" Gee says. "Instead, they're asking, 'How do I extend an existing legacy infrastructure to a mobile workforce and mobile customers?' You have to look at webOS in the context of modernizing an existing [IT] infrastructure."
That modernization trend includes storage virtualization and network threat analysis and management. Last year, HP invested heavily in both these areas by buying 3PAR, a storage utility vendor, and ArcSight, which offers security event monitoring, analysis and correlation to detect threats or compliance violations. "It's logical to assume that technologies from 3PAR and ArcSight will be closely integrated into webOS, and customized for the specific requirements of HP's clients," says Mykola Golovko, an analyst with Euromonitor International, a U.K.-based global market research company.
One person willing to test Gee's claim that the TouchPad is enterprise-ready is James Gordon, vice president of Needham Bank in Needham, Mass. He's on a list to get one of the new tablets for evaluation. "We're supporting the 'consumerization' of IT," he says. "I want to make sure that our mobile projects are as technologically agnostic as possible. And I want to gauge the security of these [new] platforms. I have real reservations about [Google] Android every time I read about it."
The community bank has about $1.1 billion in assets, five branches, and about 95 employees. Half of them, up from a quarter just six months ago, and most recently the board of directors, are equipped with mobile devices running Apple's iOS: about 30 iPhones and 20 iPads.
Gordon says he likes the fact that the TouchPad's firmware is webOS 3.0 and not 1.0. It's the latest version of the OS first released on Palm smartphones two years ago. He's also intrigued by HP's plans to bring webOS to a wide range of new and existing products, a plan he calls "reasonably brilliant."
"A lot of their devices and netbooks have a 'prelaunch' mode," he says. "If you just want to play a DVD or take a picture or surf the Web, you can do it without having to run the full Windows OS. But it's ugly. As they replace this prelaunch with webOS, it will be a game-changer. When users realize they can go into webOS and have five times the battery life and six times the performance of Windows, they'll have an epiphany."
The current thin crop of webOS applications is "not a huge issue for me," he says, in part because he favors a combination of Web apps and secure, remote access by mobile devices to Windows PCs via Array Networks' DesktopDirect application and appliance.
HP will also be attacking the enterprise through a vertical market strategy of working with systems integrators and value-added resellers with expertise and products for specific industries.
"It's not just about knocking on the CIO's door and saying, 'Hey, look at our new TouchPad,'" says Gee. "That's piecemeal. Our value proposition is incorporating webOS into solutions that we're delivering to our customer base. A hospital with legacy clinical applications wants to deliver these securely to mobile devices. Or an airline wants to change the passenger check-in experience."  
The webOS online applications catalog will shortly feature "enterprise shelves" that will let business customers publish mobile apps that are only visible to and downloadable by company employees.
"HP needs to target the TouchPad at the enterprise, but it must build in enough features to make it attractive for enterprise users," says Jack Gold, principal of J. Gold Associates, a Massachusetts-based strategic consulting firm. "But it's going to be hard-pressed to go against the momentum of the iPad, even though the iPad is not especially enterprise-friendly in terms of security and management

First Look review: the HP TouchPad, though uneven, shows promise

The first tablet from Hewlett-Packard is also the first to run on the webOS mobile operating system. In design, the HP TouchPad is reminiscent of the original Apple iPad (it’s bulkier than the current iPad 2). But once you start using the glossy-black TouchPad, the differences—both positive and negative—become apparent.

Despite some performance issues and missing capabilities, the TouchPad has some features that set it apart from its competitors. Most significant is the webOS platform, which allows for capabilities such as stacked-app windows (the “card” interface), features for combining e-mail accounts and calendars, and the pairing of webOS phones with the tablet, a feature called “Touch to Share” (more on these below). And the TouchPad runs Flash video, unlike the iPad.

We have been trying out a press sample of the TouchPad since yesterday. We'll continue testing and include the tablet in our next batch of tablet computer Ratings (available to subscribers). Meanwhile, here are our first impressions.

Specs: The TouchPad measures 9.45 x 7.48 x .54 inches and weighs in at 1.62 pounds (the iPad 2 is 1.35 pounds). It features a squarish 9.7-inch diagonal screen, just like the iPad, with a resolution of 1,024 x 768. We noticed that the screen is dimmer than those of most of its competitors when they're set to the brightest level.

The TouchPad connects to the Web via Wi-Fi (no 3G option is available) and has Bluetooth built in. Powering the TouchPad is a 1.2-GHz dual-core chip.

Hardware: The tablet has a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera that can be used only for video chats, not for taking photos or video—at least not yet—and there’s no rear camera at all. It also lacks a memory card slot and an HDMI port for streaming video out to other devices, features some premium tablets do offer. Nor does the TouchPad offer GPS, though that’s rumored to be coming.

An optional dock powers up the tablet via inductive charging—no cables needed, just physical contact. And the nifty keyboard has numbers over the letters, so you don’t need to switch views to find them. The TouchPad will print to Wi-Fi-connected HP printers.

Navigation: You launch apps from either the menu or a customizable launch bar (you can place up to five apps on it). The unique card interface lets you move among launched apps with ease. Whichever apps you’ve opened stay open, and you can stack them up, shuffle them, and then close them by swiping them off the top of the screen.

We noted that apps were mostly slow to open, though; in fact there’s some lag with many actions on the tablet. Even moving from landscape to portrait orientation took around a second longer than it does on iPads. Hopefully, this can be addressed with firmware updates.

Touch to Share: This feature lets you pair an HP webOS phone (such as the upcoming Pre 3) by touching it to your TouchPad screen. You can then share e-mail, SMS messages, and Web pages between the devices. We paired the tablet with an HP Veer (the only webOS phone to hit the market so far), but Touch to Share didn't work with it. One feature that did work: We made a call to the Veer, and the call appeared on the tablet, where we were able to answer it. We'll continue testing this feature.

Apps: This is a key area where HP and webOS has some catching up to do with Apple's App Store and even the Android Market: Currently, HP’s app store carries 300 tablet-optimized apps and only 6,200 webOS apps overall. There’s a notable dearth of entertainment apps, for gaming, music, and video streaming. To be competitive, the company must quickly ramp up the number and variety of apps for the TouchPad and other webOS devices it’ll be releasing.

Bottom line: The HP TouchPad has promise. Its original take on navigation and integration with sibling devices set it apart from its competitors. But its design is bulky, performance is uneven, and it needs apps. HP has some fast catching up to do, to be competitive—especially since it’s charging the same price for this tablet as Apple does for the state-of-the-tablet-art iPad. The HP TouchPad is available for pre-order today in two configurations: 16GB for $500, 32GB for $600.