Circa 2011, everyone and their grandmothers want a tablet. Amobile device that is much bigger than a smartphone, but smaller than a laptop,tablets are fast gaining popularity as a secondary device of choice for anyonelooking for the power of a laptop - sans its complexity.
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Most people jump at theidea of a tablet because its size makes it so much more convenient to carryaround, simple to use while serving multiple purposes. Along with theportability and simplicity what appeals to even the non-tech crowd is theintuitiveness of a tablet's natural user interface-touch.
While there is a surfeit of options in the market, thetablet world is predominantly divided between the Apple iPad and Androidhemispheres.
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Apple, the company solely responsible for making the tablet anearhousehold word today, continues to lead from the front-in both innovationand popularity.
The Android OS, on the other hand, has many torchbearers andspans across the majority of tablets today. (The only exceptions being theBlackBerry PlayBook from RIM and a smattering of Windows offerings).
The widespread of the Android operating system across varied manufacturers-along withits common pool of apps - serve as Great Equalisers in the non-iOS world.
This makes choosing an Android tablet all the moredifficult. So it boils down to looking for subtle, oblique differentiators,personal preferences and peer references. By and large, the whole affairs hasbecome a matter of the iPad vs the Rest.
HEY HONEY, WHERE ARE THE APPS?
Hear ye, hear ye, all and sundry, harken to our tale of woe…While there have been conspicuous strides - nay, almost a swagger-in Android'sstrides in the past year, it is still far from reaching the promised land.
We've been trawling and tunnelling the Android Market, but we're hard put tofind sparkling apps. It's been six months since the birth of Honeycomb, themuch ballyhooed tablet-specific version of Android, yet the apps on it are fewand far between. It's thumbelievable!
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The fewscore and ten that have managed to emerge are mere me-toos of apps that havebeen around on the Apple iOS for months. There is nothing arresting,eyecatching or something that will make you go WOW! Not yet, at least. Forgetthat, the Android developer community is yet to conjure up even something asarresting as Flipboard-an app that have been on the iPad for over a year now.
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Ruefully, instead of attempting to leapfrog the iPadworld-as one would expect from Google-app development on the Android tabletplatform is still barely there. Until we can see something creative, compellingand breath-taking, Android will continue to swim upstream and play secondfiddle. As they say, great results always require great ambitions.
Dear Android, we wish you had more steak to go with yourundeniable sizzle. Just as one fat turkey doesn't an eagle make-hardware musclealone will not help Android tablet manufacturers win this battle.
To reiteratewhat has already been said a zillion times before: Apple has proved-first withthe iPhone and then with the iPad-that it's no longer about the chip with thefastest heartbeat, industrial-strength Tupperware, or bells and whistles thatcan take you to the top of the heap.
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It's the whole bloomin' bundle. Or, to usethe world's most bloodied and battered buzzterm: the entire ecosystem. And bynow no one needs radical intellect to figure that out. Coming together is abeginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success.
The advent of the Kindle Fire, the $200 Android tablet fromAmazon-slated to arrive in mid-November 2011, even as you read this-promises toshake and stir things up. No, it will not dim the dazzle of the iPad sun, notin the short term certainly. But it will cause motion in the Android tab oceanfor sure. You can expect the Fire to set the price tags of quite a fewcompetitors aflame. After all, who would want to pay more bucks for for theirbang?
THE BOTTOM LINE
Basically, it comes down to what you want from your tablet. If it is a portable computing gadget to check mail,gawk at Facebook, watch a lot of movies by plugging in a USB source and playgames, any of the top contenders in this round up will do. Just pick one thatsuits your preferences, pocket and panache.
You can do all of the aforementioned on the iPad, and thensome… If you're looking for something new every now and again, the iPad neverdisappoints, serving up a dollop of excitement periodically. That monster bankof fascinating apps just keeps growing constantly. Besides, once you've pawedan iPad, you realise it offers the best user experience among everything outthere. It also remains the most intuitive, compelling and wellthought-outtablet on the market today.
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Much is made of a tablet's ability to make voice calls overthe networks. Yes, this is undoubtedly an advantage. How many times have youseen anyone-other than someone trying to demo it, test it out or simply showoff-making a call over a tablet? And no, we are not referring to VoIP (Voiceover Internet Protocol) kind of Skyping here.
Apart from the "psychic RAM" the Apple device consumes, thewhole iPad package has a lot going for it at the moment. As nothing succeedslike success, the iPad boom is riding the crest of a wave, right from apps toaccessories. Saturation and superfluity be damned, developers, publishers andaccessories manufacturers are tripping over themselves to push their wares intothe iPad market-all to the benefit of consumers.
Courtesy: Gadgets & Gizmos