Tackling the Tablet Conundrum: Which One is Right For You?

Posted 11/21/2011 at 2:14pm | by Jon Phillips

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Do you even need a tablet? If so, which one? We review the current crop of tablet mainstays. We explain the hardware and OS features that matter the most. Follow along as we unravel what tablets are actually good for.

When a consumer electronics category confuses the masses, it’s usually because the technology is hard to understand on a fundamental level. Have you ever tried to explain texture fill rates to your GPU-ignorant brother-in-law? Or RAID levels to your mom—who shouldn’t even be asking about RAID in the first place?

Videocards and storage devices can confuse the lay consumer, but at least the prospective hardware buyer usually knows he or she needs a videocard or storage device in the first place. Your game won’t play at a high resolution? A new videocard is probably the answer. Your hard drive is full? It’s time for more storage.

But tablets are different. From a raw technology standpoint, they’re not particularly hard to understand. They’re closed-box systems, and the specs of competing devices generally fall within a narrow range.

The bigger question concerns whether anyone even needs a tablet. TV commercials, tech pundits, and even the struggling magazine and book industries would have you believe that tablets are essential 21st‑century gear. But note-book replacements they are not, and this has to be reconciled before any tablet purchase.

Some Maximum PC staffers couldn’t live without their tablets, but others show no interest in them whatsoever. It all comes down to individual use cases. No one really “needs” a tablet, but many people are discovering that a tablet is a wonderful supplement to their core hardware arsenals. In fact, Maximum‑caliber tech enthusiasts are often the folks best served by tablets. But you need to know what they do well, what they do poorly, and which hardware and software features really matter at the end of the day.

In the following pages, we’ll explain all of that, plus review the eight most-talked-about models currently available. Six of the contenders run Google’s tablet OS, Android 3.0 (aka Honeycomb). Another, the iPad 2, runs the latest version of Apple’s iOS. The final entrant is RIM’s oddball PlayBook, which is tied to a software ecosystem so funky, the PlayBook can’t really be included in any serious tablet conversation. The most oddball tablet of all—HP’s WebOS-based TouchPad—was left out entirely because it was discontinued a few weeks before we started working on this article.

Excited? Anxious? Maybe a little scared? Simmer down, amigo. Tablets are a confusing proposition, but they need not be feared.

Tablet Talents and Tablet Fails

Before you begin comparison shopping, make sure a tablet is right for you

We'll get into specific use cases in a moment, but let's first provide an overview of how tablets trump notebooks, their closest hardware cousins.

First, they're imminently more wieldy. By eschewing a hinged clamshell design and mechanical hard drive, a tablet is lighter and less delicate. It's easier to tote in a book bag, and you'll feel more comfortable tossing it on your couch or mattress.

Second, a tablet is the perfect device for "kick-back computing." When you're chilling on your couch, supine and relaxed, you'll probably find it easier to hold and manipulate a tablet than a note-book. And thanks to their virtual keyboards, data entry on a tablet is easier, too—assuming you don't have much to enter (more about that soon). All in all, if you want to perform computer-like tasks while lying on your back, tablets are a goshsend.

Third, apps. Even in the Android Market (whose offering compare in neither volume nor quality to those of Apple's App Store), there are hundreds of awesome apps that don't have desktop counterparts. Indeed, some of the most interesting software development of the last two years has been focused in the tablet space. These apps make unique use of touch navigation, accelerometers, and location awareness, and will probably never find a home in your Windows computer.

Now let's dig a little deeper into what tablets do—and don't do—well.

[+] CASUAL GAMING

Tablets absolutely rock for card and parlor games, sim golf, and pinball—like the feature-filled Navy Seals board, which is part of a $2.99 war-themed pinball pack from Gameprom (iOS only).

Touch controls suck for first-person shooters and action sports games, but you won't find a better platform for card games, casino sims, virtual pool, trivia challenges, and digital versions of Scrabble, Yahtzee, and other "family game night" fare. Tablets are also tailor-made for physics-based games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, and Doodle Jump—all use touch control and accelerometers to fantastic (and addictive) effect. EA just released an iPad version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 (tablets are perfect for golf games), and Gameprom's pinball sims are probably the best tablet games of all. There are currently three tables available for Android tablets, and seven for the iPad. All boast excellent ball physics, and are chock-full of the ramps, targets, and table toys you'd find in a late-model Williams pinball machine.

According to a March 2011 survey conducted by Google's AdMob subsidiary, gaming ranks highest among all tablet use cases. Given the survey's timing, the vast majority of the 1,400-plus queried must have been iPad owners, as Honeycomb-based tablets (the first real Android tablets) weren't yet available. In today's climate, where Android devices reportedly account for one out of every five tablets sold, we might expect games usage to slip just a little—if only because Honeycomb supports fewer killer games, and the platform is decidedly more utilitarian than iOS. All of which leads us to…

[+] WEB BROWSING AND EMAIL

Available for both Honeycomb and iOS, the IMDB app provides access to the world's best database for checking TV and movie information.

In the March AdMob survey, participants were asked to name all the ways in which they use their tablets. "Playing games" took the lead with 84 percent, but this was followed closely by "searching for information" (78 percent) and "emailing" (74 percent). What's more, 82 percent said they primarily use their tablets at home. The upshot? Tablets are ideal for web-surfing and emailing from the comfort of one's couch, bed, or chaise lounge! And this is really how most people—even power users—use their tablets. To wit: A February 2011 In-Stat survey ranked emailing and web-browsing as the top two tablet uses.

Web surfing and email already top the charts of desktop use, and tablets simply deliver those services without the inconvenience of ambulatory visits to a stationary device. So, if you check email about 100 times a day, and are unable to survive without constant fact-checking on Wikipedia, IMDB, and the like, then a tablet might perfectly suit your lifestyle needs. Even better, many notable news, reference, and cooking sites offer slick app wrappers for their web content, providing navigational experiences that better their own web offerings.

[+] SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is all about quick check-ins and look-ups wherever and whenever you want, and tablets suit this activity perfectly. Twitter's eponymous app offers a UI that's vastly more feature-rich and user-friendly than the service's website interface, and it's available for both Honeycomb and iPad.

Facebook makes smartphone apps for both platforms, but hasn't released any versions optimized for the more generous screen dimensions of tablets. The company expects you to use its web interface when posting and liking on tablets, and that's fine by us, as the site renders well in the neighborhood of 10 diagonal inches. And because Facebook activity rarely involves extended data input, virtual keyboards are suitable for anything you may need to post.

[+] VIDEO

On the iPad, you can stream the latest ABC video content—one of a few video streaming services that just isn't available on Honeycomb.

You're not going to gather the whole family around a tablet for a night of movies and popcorn, but both Honeycomb tablets and iPads have the rendering power and screen dimensions for satisfying single-person video viewing. Both platforms render onscreen video at 720p, and Honeycomb tablets can output 1080p via HDMI, if you absolutely must assemble the clan around the big screen.

Both tablets have slick YouTube apps, but Team iPad pulls ahead of Honeycomb when it comes to streaming Hollywood movies and TV shows. For example: Netflix subscribers can stream "Watch Instantly" content on their iPads, but the Lenovo IdeaPad K1 is the only Honeycomb tablet to support Netflix streaming without a hack. And then there's HBO, ABC, and Xfinity On Demand. All offer video streaming via iOS apps, but Honeycomb support is nowhere to be found. Both tablet platforms let you rent and download content from their online stores, but the offerings in Apple's App Store are vastly better than what you'll find in Android Market.

All that said, Honeycomb tablets do support a wide variety of video codecs, and because they don't interface with the clusterfrack that is iTunes, it's much easier to rip DVDs and quickly place video files in your Android video folder. The end result is a very effective platform for video playback—at home, on an airplane, wherever.

[+] RANDOM NICHE APPS

Junior astronomers can use Google Sky Map on their Honeycomb devices. Just point your tablet to the heavens, and see what stars lie above.

Apple's "There's an app for that" campaign positions the iPad as a platform for sundry lifestyle activities one can only imagine. That's an optimistic promise. If you buy a tablet, you'll find almost all your activity in the realm of gaming, email, and web browsing. Having said that, certain eclectic souls may stumble upon a niche, highly focused tablet app that dovetails just perfectly with their own business or enthusiast needs.

For example, OmniGraffle (iOS only) is perfect for creating flowcharts, diagrams, and other quasi-freehand drawing during business meetings. Or let's say you're a hardcore astronomy nerd. With Star Walk (iOS only), you can point your iPad 2 at the skies for augmented reality overlays of constellation and satellite information. Google Sky Map performs a similar function for Honeycomb, but without augmented reality features. Other apps specialize in music and art creation, medical services, and even credit card processing, so you can use your tablet to collect payments on the road. These are all very niche-use cases—but for the people who use tablets in these ways, the benefits are profound.

Are you sufficiently stoked to buy a tablet? Not so fast, laddie. We'll now describe what tablets don't do well.

[-] E-BOOKS

If you're looking to read e-books into the wee hours of the night, eschew a tablet for an e-reader like the Barnes & Noble Nook. The "first edition" version displays soothing E ink for reading, while a secondary screen uses a color LCD for navigation.

There's an undeniable convenience in loading hundreds of e-books into a single hardware device that's already shaped like a book. But, sorry, we're not fans of reading long-form content on tablets. Projected-light displays (like the LCDs found in all tablets) often cause discomfort and eyestrain during long periods of extended, continuous use. So, while we're happy to use tablets to catch up on the latest news headlines, we'll not so happily partake in an all-day George R.R. Martin marathon.

If you really want to get your e-book on, invest in a dedicated e-reader like the Amazon Kindle or Barnes & Noble Nook. Both use E Ink, which displays grayscale text and images with soothing, eyeball-friendly reflected light. Relative to tablets, dedicated e-readers also perform much better in direct sunlight, and are imminently more portable than even the thinnest, lightest tablets, such as the iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

[-] PHOTOS

The best smartphone cameras trump the best tablet cameras. In fact, the camera on the iPhone 4 is one of the best phone cameras available, while the camera on the iPad 2 is one of the worst cameras you'll find on any tablet. That should tell you what the market-leading tablet vendor thinks of cameras on its larger mobile devices.

Tablet cameras are generally crappy, suffering from compression artifacting, color shifts, and other image-quality problems. And once you consider the truism that the best camera is the one you have with you, then we have to ask why anyone would ever carry around a big-honking tablet for photo-acquisition purposes. Use your phone instead. It's in your pocket.

Having said that, we'll reserve just a wee bit of respect for the video creation capabilities of any Android device that comes with Google's Movie Studio app. Chasing the action with a 10-inch tablet in your hands may not be easy, but the app lets you quickly grab all the video clips already sitting in your device, edit them with titles, still photos, transition effects, and audio tracks, and then output everything to a single new video in one fell swoop. It's plenty adequate—and quite convenient—for YouTube vlogging and similarly low-level video projects.

[-] TYPING AND OFFICE/PRODUCTIVITY

The virtual keyboards on tablets offer generous layouts, but you won't receive any tactile feedback—and auto-correction can lead to many mistakes.

Tapping out sentences on the virtual keyboard of a tablet beats smartphone data input any day, but we don't know anyone who can touch-type on either iPad or Honeycomb tablets. Besides lacking tactile feedback, the auto-correction features of both iOS and Android lead to vexing spelling mistakes. Even worse: Turning off auto-correction leads to text that looks like something Latka Gravas might utter in his native tongue.

Sure, you can buy a keyboard dock for the Asus EeePad Transformer, but you still won't be able to use any Windows apps.

Yes, you can connect to a Bluetooth keyboard (rarely a satisfying or even reliable solution), and some tablets—notably the Asus EeePad Transformer—can be teamed with physical keyboard dock accessories. But to what end? You might be approximating a computer workstation, but iOS and Honeycomb don't support any office, productivity, or serious content creation apps that would make you want to ditch your desktop or even notebook (and don't even mention Polaris on Office, which comes on the EeePad—it's quite vexing in and of itself). The upshot is that neither tablet platform makes sense for extended typing projects, and a tablet just can't serve as your only computing device when you're working out of hotel rooms on the road.

[-] GAMES—REAL GAMES

There's no iOS or Honeycomb version of Steam, and you'll find no Dead Island, Portal, or WoW. Get our drift? 'Nuff said.