Hardware

The Galaxy Note 8.0 works with an 8-inch display with 1280 x 800 pixels across its face – that’s not exactly the sharpest screen on the market, mind you, but it’s certainly sufficient for the basics. Compared to the biggest competition this device has – the iPad mini – it’ll certainly do enough to fight: the iPad mini rings in at 163 PPI while the Galaxy Note 8.0 brings a cool 189 PPI to the table.

There are going to be at least two versions of this device coming to the market, one of them being the wifi version we’ve got here. This version works with wifi connectivity alone, leaving the 3G/Phone abilities iteration to come internationally. There’s also the possibility of a 4G LTE version coming to the USA later this year. Any version of the tablet appears to be coming in at the same 210.8 x 135.9 x 7.95 mm – thin and light indeed at 340g.

The S-Pen you get here fits snug inside the side of the tablet right under the right-hand side when you hold the tablet in portrait mode. This particular S-Pen and tablet has a newly advanced set of features that work exclusively with one-another. One of the first – and perhaps most important – of these is the pen’s ability to tap the menu and back buttons below the display where past Galaxy Note devices were unable to do so.

You’ll be using the S-Pen to preview objects as well – “Air View” is what this is called, and it works not just with gallery images and videos as it did with the Galaxy Note II and Galaxy Note 10.1, it now has the ability to preview Flipboard stories, open website menues that normally require clicking, and preview an email attachment. Some/all of these features will be available to your finger with the Air View connection on your Samsung GALAXY S 4, too.

This tablet is just a bit too big to hold comfortably in one hand while you’re walking around and penning in notes with the S-Pen with the other. If you want top-notch on-the-go note-taking, you’ll want to check out the original Galaxy Note or the Galaxy Note II – they’ll even fit in your pocket! With the Galaxy Note 8.0 you’ll be popping your hardware out at the desk or on the bus more than likely. This device is just large enough to join the Galaxy Note 10.1 with the lap-balance family of tablets.

Meanwhile this device is, once again, small enough to fit into your purse, your backpack, or whatever kind of travel sack you’ve got on-hand. You’ll find the device to match the aesthetic of the Samsung GALAXY S 4 you’ll be purchasing this spring or summer and – for now – you’ll be getting it in any color you like (just so long as it’s white).

Remember also that this device is made of plastic and glass – the front panel is all reinforced glass while the back is a hard white shiny plastic. This device is not crash-proof in any way save the most basic of falls – you’ll likely want to pick up a case and/or screen protector or two before you head out for a night on the town with the Galaxy Note 8.0.

Software

The S-Pen that comes with this device is at the center of the excellence of the software experience. Though the processor in this device is more powerful than any other Samsung tablet at this size, if you’re not all about the S-Pen, you might want to consider a device like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 (see our full review here) for your money – its display is much sharper and the back casing is made of aluminum – hardcore! Of course the Galaxy Note 8.0 also has Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and all the positives that brings on – including Google Now.

With the S-Pen you can circle any piece of your screen and store it as a screenshot. Save it to a note and write about it to read about it later. You can add hand-written notes to your Office documents with Polaris Office, work on both Word and PowerPoint slideshows, and do it all in Multi Window view. With your Muli Window view you’ve now got the ability to watch a YouTube video while you draw a picture in S Note, move files around in My Files while you chat with your buddies in ChatON – whatever you like!

You can access a collection of Samsung Multi Window supported apps by holding down the device’s back button – that little white tab you see can be pulled out and bam! There you’ll see apps like Music Player, My Files, Polaris Office, S Note, and S Planner. Each of these apps can be run at half-screen, quarter-screen, or full-screen. This is separate from your basic Android app switcher (multi-tasking again, that is) which you can access with a long-press of your home button.

You’ll also have access to Group Play, an app that’s been part of the Samsung smartphone and tablet experience for the past couple of generations for smartphones and tablets. With this you’ll be able to join up with other Samsung smartphones and tablets in your local wireless network and share a screen – the screen you have up will be the same screen they see from their device. You can share photos, music, PDF files, and even PowerPoint slideshows!

You’ve now got more than one app right out of the box that’ll make use of your built-in IR-Blaster – that’s the black piece of plastic sitting on the side of your tablet. With that you’ll be able to control your television – and it’s not only smart TVs that work! You’ll simply have to choose your TV brand and go through a short troubleshooting session to get connected. Both Peel and WatchON are available now to bring you into your local television network’s listings day-by-day.

With WatchON you’ll be given not only the day’s television schedule, you’ll be able to get notified of shows several days in advance and will have access to detailed information about the programs you’ve got coming up! Tap in and head directly to the channel you’d like to watch straight from the tablet! Of course if you’ve got a 2013 Samsung Smart TV, you’ll have only to connect your TV and your tablet to the same wifi network – and you’re off and running.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 has a special “Reading Mode” that auto-tunes your settings for optimal reading levels. You’ll find the experience a bit more soothing to your eyes – you’ll certainly not be seeing everything at full-blast brightness. Reading Mode is accessible in your normal Settings – Display section and works with only certain apps until you add your favorites in manually. Thus far the Reading Mode option has not proven itself to be the eyeball-saver a true E-Ink E-Reader would be, but it’s fair enough, and nice to have as an option if you’re in the mood.

Awesome Note is now prepared for Android and will come with your Galaxy Note 8.0 right out of the box. Imagine an app that has every single option you could possibly want out of a digital repository for notes – that’s Awesome Note. Of course if you’re already using Evernote, you might just want to skip the Awesome Note experience. If you want your notes to be extremely well organized and lit up with friendly rainbow colors, go with Awesome Note.

You’ll find that this device busts out with its quad-core 1.6Ghz Exynos processor quite nicely – it’s not going to top the newest smartphones on the market as it does have a bit more screen real-estate to work with, but it’s certainly part of this current generation of multi-core beasts. Let us know in the comments below if there are any other tests you’d like us to run through other than the ones you see in the gallery above – we’d be glad to!

Camera

On the front of this device you’ve got a 1.3 megapixel camera and on the back you’ve got a 5 megapixel camera (with no flash). You’ll be taking some relatively nice photos with the back-facing camera, and the front-facing camera’s photos leave something to be desired. Like past Samsung tablets, this Galaxy Note 8.0 is able to take basic shots for uploading to social networks like Facebook, if that’s your poison of choice, but it’s certainly not something you’ll want to bring to replace your pocketable camera for a long vacation. It’s extremely likely that whatever smartphone you’ve got in your pocket takes better photos than this tablet.

Have a peek at a few example shots above and below and see what you think – also take note that the back-facing camera protrudes somewhat – this isn’t a tablet you’ll be wanting to bang back-down on concrete, that’s for sure.

Battery

If you plan on using this device non-stop from battery topped-off to battery zero, you’ll be working for a good 6 hours. Without mobile data running your battery into the ground, and if you’re not kicking out top-brightness or using your GPS to map the world, you’ll have some rather great battery life with the Galaxy Note 8.0. When the device’s display is off and you’re not downloading files – aka when the device is idle – you’ll find your battery drain flatlining.

That means that if you don’t use your tablet all that often, you’ll find charging to be a rather rare activity. If your display is off and you’ve got no internet activity going on, this device basically uses no power at all. That’s Samsung’s own Exynos processor you’ve got to thank for such a thing. Power Saving mode helps, too.

Wrap-up

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is going to be your perfect Samsung GALAXY S 4 companion – it’s got the same design aesthetic, it has a lot of the same features, and they both come in white! Of course when you find yourself marveling over the fact that the GALAXY S 4 is able to compete with this tablet for processing power, you’ll be a bit baffled about your Note purchase. The S-Pen will save the day, on the other hand, as there’s really nothing on the market that compares with what Samsung has done with this little value-added utensile.

The price on the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 may be prohibitive to some at the outset – $399.99 USD (MSRP) in the USA starting in mid-April. If you’re all about travel-worthiness, there’s really nothing more all-inclusive from this manufacturer. Unless you want forward-facing speakers that don’t get covered up by your palm when you’re holding it (the Galaxy Note 10.1 has those) or a pocketable size (the Galaxy Note II has that if you’ve got big pockets). If you’re set on getting one of Samsung’s S-Pen-laden Note devices and you don’t want it to be too big or too small, the Note 8.0 may be just your cup of porridge.

Hardware

As it was back when we showed our Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 wifi-only Review, this tablet is easily Samsung’s best. At this display size, anyway. If you’re looking for an experience that’s top-notch at essentially any other display size, Samsung has you covered there too – from the Galaxy Tab 7.7 to the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 to the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 and back again, Verizon also has you covered with 4G LTE. With the Galaxy Note 10.1 4G LTE, you’ve got the 10.1-inch display coupled with the quad-core Exynos processor and the S-Pen – not to mention the front-facing speakers.

With the release of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the company began pushing their speakers to the front of their tablets. This was a good move and generally regarded as such by everyone that likes to listen to the audio from their devices come out towards their face, rather than from the back side of the device straight into their leg. As it was when we reviewed the wifi version of this device: the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is the best entertainment station you can buy with a 10.1-inch screen.

There’s a lovely set of accessories you can buy from Samsung that’ll make this experience even better than it is out of the box: the clip-on case/cover is easily the most “must-have” of the bunch. With it you’ll be standing your Note 10.1 upright with ease, making it into an easel whenever you like. After that you’re set – the charger and the S-Pen come with the box, and the S-Pen slides in the back of the device when you’re not using it.

Have a peek at how this device compares in size to the Galaxy Note II as well – you may just want to make a decision between the two. They’re both carried by Verizon, and both have lovely Verizon branding splattered about as well.

Software

The change in software since the first time we had a look at the Galaxy Note 10.1 is ever-so-slight in it’s flip from Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and the Premium Suite that comes with it. Because Samsung places its own TouchWiz UX user interface for tablets over the top, you’ll not have noticed the change unless you knew what you were looking for. That said, one of the biggest bumps is in the addition of Google Now.

Hands-on with the Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

If you place your finger on the Home button and pull up, a Google logo will appear and you’ll be taken to Google Now. This is the interface that all Jelly Bean devices are allowed access to now on Android devices, complete with information for you based on your interests, GPS location, and the environment around you – for weather, that is. Have a peek at our original Google Now hands-on from back when it was launched for a general idea of what it’s all about!

You’ll also be able to work with multi-tasking features such as the pop-up collection of apps at the bottom of your display that appear when you tap the center of your menu bar. Each of these apps is able to open up as a pop-up window or as a section of your display. At the moment this software is generally fun to see work, but doesn’t work at a level where we’d call it mind-blowingly perfect. You’ll be using this multi-window feature for entertainment more than anything.

Benchmarks

Have a peek at a set of benchmarks run in the gallery here and let us know what you think. On the whole, they’re pretty much the same as they were when we had a look at the wifi version of this machine – this makes sense as, other than some of the software and the change over to the new set of radios, you’ve got essentially the same device, processor and everything. It’s basically the same machine when it comes down to it.

Also included there is a set of speed-tests so you can see how fast we’re rolling out here in Saint Paul, Minnesota. You’ll have to judge speeds for yourself wherever you’re situated in the USA for your own perfect score.

Camera

You’ve also got the same camera as we had a peek at before, so the quality there hasn’t changed a bit. This is an OK camera – not fantastic, but certainly better than the first generation of Android tablets and their terrible, terrible attempt at photo action. With this 5 megapixel camera on the back of the device you’ll be hot to trot – there’s a flash back there too if you need.

Wrap-up

With the Galaxy Note 10.1 you’ve got another excellent entry into the Samsung hero line of Note devices. This remains the largest Note-branded smart device on the market, and is now part of the 4G LTE family as well. Samsung continues to be the biggest opponent for the iPad on the market and – if they were both running the same software and we had to decide between the two – we’d have a relatively tough decision on our hands.

But because they aren’t, and because we’re truly lovers of a unique experience, it’s easy to recommend this tablet as one of the most versatile smart devices on the market today. With the S-Pen, fun and entertaining connectivity with the rest of the Samsung Galaxy devices for media and communication, and one of the newest versions of Google’s mobile OS onboard, the Galaxy Note 10.1 is certainly the hottest Android tablet carried by Verizon today. Have a peek and start penning away!

Hardware and Design

At first glance you could easily mistake the new Tablet 2 for just another Windows tablet, but its whats at the core that separates this from the others. Running on Intel silicon it is powered by a 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z2760 processor, 2GB of RAM, and has 64GB of storage under the hood all enjoying the full Windows 8 Pro experience. No arm-based processor here, yet not the full Core i5 of the Surface Pro.

Everything about this slate that doubles as a PC is perfectly in line with the traditional Lenovo design. Right down to the ThinkPad soft touch matte black rubber, red accents (on the stylus and optional keyboard) and a simplistic yet elegant design. The usual “ThinkPad” logo with a glowing red i is present, and the optional Bluetooth keyboard has the all too familiar red Lenovo trackpoint. More on the keyboard below. While this helps with Windows 8, you’ll be swiping and using the touch sensitive display most of the time, then if you opt for the stylus supported Tablet 2 that option is also available.

Now lets talk look and feel. Of course this looks like a Lenovo and it even feels like one. Add in the fact that they managed to squeeze an Intel Atom inside, an 8 megapixel camera, 64GB of storage, stylus, 3G/4G connectivity and more yet deliver something lighter than the original — we were happy to say the least. Weighing just 1.3 lbs this is lighter than the original, and certainly lighter than the Surface Pro coming in at just under 2 lbs. Daily use as far as a “tablet” goes was extremely comfortable here. The soft touch design, rounded edges and more all made for a ergonomic design that was complimented by the light weight yet durable build quality. There’s still a little flex in the rear using softer materials, but nothing worth docking points for.

We have the 30 pin port down on bottom accompanied by a mini HDMI-out option for streaming and screen sharing. The right side employes the screen rotate lock, volume up/down, and the 3.5mm headphone jack. Wrap around to the top left and you have the power/wake button follow by a door accessing the micro-SD slot for extra storage (which will be needed) and the optional 3G/4G SIM slot for those paying extra for connectivity. Then there’s the stylus, and the left bezel happily has a full-sized USB 2.0 port as well as micro-USB. The back has two small stereo speakers that get relatively loud, but are in odd places and not uniform, then you’ll enjoy an 8 megapixel camera with flash, but results were average at best. More on that below. Check out the video below for an idea of the hardware we’ll be working with.

In the end the hardware is a toss up in terms of comfort, design, and quality. The lightweight plastic makes it easy to hold, comfortable, and lightweight compared to the Surface Pro, yet obviously doesn’t feel as durable. In the end any previous Lenovo or ThinkPad owner will find it a joy to use.

Specs and Options

The ThinkPad Tablet 2 comes to market with an entry level price of $579, then from there the options are fully customizable. Ranging from 32 and 64GB of storage, stylus support, 3G/4G LTE connectivity and more. Then their mediocre bluetooth keyboard will run you $120 which was great, but is only a keyboard and offers no extension to battery life. You’ll enjoy a 10-inch 1366 x 768 HD resolution display, the next gen Intel Atom 1.8 GHz processor but it only comes with 2GB of RAM as a top option. Full size chart is 10.1” x 6.9” x 0.34” and it weighs in at just 1.25 lbs.

One thing you might want to consider is if you opt for the Stylus and digitizer model with 3G/4G support it will increase to 1.3 lbs, and you’ll also lose NFC which is available on the WiFi model. A fair trade off for business professionals needing the best of both worlds. This option runs you $679 instead, but is well worth it. The rest includes an 8 megapixel rear camera with flash, 1080p video support, 2 megapixel front camera for video conferences, full-size USB 2.0, micro-USB, and HDMI out as mentioned above. You’ll enjoy 10 hours of battery life according to Lenovo.

Display, Keyboard and Stylus

The Tablet 2 rocks some impressive specs, but we’d love a higher resolution display. Offering 10-inches with a 768p resolution it’s still HD, but we’d enjoy seeing 1080p these days. Lenovo’s equipped it with a beautiful IPS panel with wide viewing angles, inky blacks, and vivid colors that really enhances the beautiful tiles in Windows 8. The screen glare was minimal, but there’s no anti-glare option available either.

Now with a 5-point multitouch display you’ll be gesturing and enjoying Windows with ease, but they also offer the stylus for those opting to pay $50 more. While the experience didn’t seem as fluid or polished as the Surface Pro, it was enjoyable. The stylus is pressure sensitive but was a little hit and miss for us. It offers a unique experience some other Windows 8 tablets can’t provide, has shortcuts for screen capture and snippets, but is it worth it? In the end the feature is here, and great for those who need it, but personally we’d go without.

The optional keyboard dock from Lenovo is actually pretty nice, although it doesn’t enhance battery life in any ways. Being built of cheap plastic you’ll lack that premium feel, but it’s the usability that makes it worth the $120 price. This makes it a real ThinkPad — in a sense. Using Bluetooth you’ll be paired in seconds, enjoying the trackpoint for a full Windows Mouse-like experience, and the chicklet style layout is actually extremely comfortable. Cramming all those keys and 6 rows on a 10-inch slate size space we were worried, but this is one of the better ones we’ve tried as of late.

Their layout and ease of use replicates many of their previous laptops, even though they are obviously saving space. I managed to miss the backspace button often due to the smaller than usual size, but all the top keys for shortcuts sure are nice. Overall the keyboard has a familiar and comfortable feel, and should handle daily abuse with ease. Our only complaint would be the lack of angles, as well as it simply resting in place. Be careful while moving from the couch to your desk as it could fall out with ease. We’d love a magnetic latch, or even a Transformer-like option to extend battery life. For now this is just an expensive Bluetooth keyboard that gives it that Lenovo look and feel we know many love.

Windows 8 and Performance

Running the full version of Windows 8 Pro here you’ll be able to enjoy all those Windows 8 app store apps, as well as the full array of programs we’re used to. That aside, the Tablet 2 is essentially just another Windows PC — which there’s nothing wrong with — so feel free to check out our in-depth Windows 8 Review. The tile-based UI is a breeze with the touchscreen, and using the stylus was quite pleasant as well.

Running on the Intel Atom things certainly were speedy, but not quite Surface Pro speed since it rocks the Core i5. Prime example: installing Google Chrome (which we did immediately) took about 4-5 minutes on this machine. Flipping through pages of apps from the store, flowing over tiles and more was all extremely smooth and buttery. The multi-tasking worked like a charm and in general there was no noticeable slowdown. We did have a hiccup or two while using the front facing camera, but that was a one time event. Coming with 64GB of flash storage things were quick, but then you’ll only get around 33 GB or so left out of the box due to some bloatware.

Lenovo didn’t go Acer crazy, but we still have all those Lenovo companion apps and bundles. Lenovo apps, Norton Anti-virus trial (please opt for something else) Kindle, Skitch, Evernote, as well as Accuweather and Skype for video conferences. Overall they weren’t too bad on bloatware, so we give them a thumbs up for that.

We gave it a thorough rundown over the past few weeks, enjoyed some casual games from the Xbox list, did a Skype video call or two, and the usual daily activities all without a hitch. While we didn’t get into anything extremely processor intensive any hard video or photo editing might prove to be a big task for the Atom under the hood. However, for the average user this should suffice. Being a hybrid many other devices run on the same Intel Atom Z2760 CPU, so the performance should already be known for most. Here’s a quick Geekbench test.

Overall using Windows 8 Pro on a full fledged device was a nice change of pace compared to some of the others. While regular PC programs struggled on occasion to grasp the touchscreen and stylus uses, it’s something you’ll need to get use to that’s for sure. While we’d love a Core i5 here, in the end the Lenovo Tablet 2 handles the majority of Windows 8 with ease, and was quite pleasant for day to day tasks.

Camera and Sound

Lenovo equipped this slate with a mediocre 8 megapixel rear camera with LED flash, it’s capable of 1080p video as you’d expect but was stuttered and blurry at times. Essentially it was on-par with other tablets with a camera of this caliber, and their 2 megapixel front shooter worked great for Skype calls. Again we have an odd glitch or two of freezing in Skype the first few tries, but that eventually went away. As far as regular camera shots the low light performance was terrible and grainy, and the shutter speed was a bit too fast. Usually we like a fast shutter, but it was hard getting clear images without some noticeable grain.

The device is a tablet, so sound will only be as good as the little speakers, but here the stereo speaker output was quite decent. Obviously not as loud as we’d like, but on par with most tablets. We’d love to see front facing speakers like the Galaxy Tab 10 from Samsung, but no other tablets have been taking that route quite yet. It got loud enough for a YouTube video or a small conference room, but with any talking or things going on the audio will be overwhelmed in most circumstances.

Battery Life

Lenovo quotes this Atom-powered Windows 8 PC tablet as having roughly 10 hours of battery life, and they were dead on. Most manufacturers are a little generous on their suggestions, but we averaged over 9 hours on a seriously heavy day of almost continues use and looping video. However, using the Tablet 2 occasionally throughout the weekend I’ve not put it on the charger once in 3 days and I’m still sitting with about 36% remaining.

For those that may be doing some light photo editing or even downloading a few torrents (Linux distros of course) while streaming video or the full experience to a larger screen and playing Netflix the results may differ. It’s safe to say this had some of the best battery life of all the Windows 8 tablets we’ve tested as of late.

Wrap-Up

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 starts at $579 with the Atom processor, 32GB of storage, and no stylus but is probably sold out in most places like Lenovo’s online store. Then the 64GB model bumps up to $679 but you also get that stylus, and lastly you’ll be entering the $900 range for 3G/4G connectivity — something we feel should be much cheaper to integrate.

With the 128GB iPad available, a 64 and 128GB Microsoft Surface Pro, and many other Windows 8 tablets on the scene the choice might not be clear. Previously we haven’t been too happy with many of the Atom-powered Windows 8 machines, but this time Lenovo delivers an all around solid and usable product. The Samsung ATIV Smart PC comes with AT&T connectivity out of the gate and similar specs, so you could venture that route for $750. We still would rather go with the 64GB Tablet 2 for the stylus support and elegant yet simple design. In the end the Lenovo Tablet 2 is obviously geared at business professionals with the stylus and 3G connectivity, but we’d go as far as to suggest this to anyone looking for a Windows 8 slate.

For those comfortable with Windows 8 who needs the full PC experience without compromise, yet still in a sleek and lightweight portable option the Tablet 2 should be near the top of the list. Add the usual ThinkPad elegance and this is aimed to please. If you were looking for a good alternative to the Surface Pro, this certainly is it. Get it today and enjoy the rest of the photos below.

Hardware and Design

You could easily mistake the Surface Pro for the ARM-based Surface at first glance, given how aesthetically similar each tablet is. Look a little closer, though, and the key differences become apparent. Microsoft has used the same VaporMg treated magnesium alloy for the casing, and it still feels great in the hand: smooth and easy to hold, but still sturdy and scratch-resistant.

Surface Pro is a little bigger than the original Surface: at 10.81 x 6.81 x 0.53 inches, it’s slightly taller and noticeably thicker, a side-effect of accommodating PC-class components and a bigger capacity battery. That makes it heavier, too, a smudge under 2lbs versus the 1.5lbs of Surface. It’s still comfortable to hold, but for single-handed use we found ourselves cradling the slate in the crook of our arm, rather than gripping it by the bezel as we might do with an iPad. The fact that Windows still prefers landscape to portrait orientation emphasizes that too.

Microsoft’s approach to cooling is an interesting one. Rather than a patch of obvious grills for ventilation, there’s a slot that runs all the way around the edge of the Surface Pro, and from which warm air is pushed out while cool air is pulled in. Two fans, rather than one, have been used to dynamically adjust the airflow depending on what’s hottest and how you’re holding the tablet. Altogether, the design makes it difficult to figure out where, exactly, the tablet is venting from; plus, it helps mask the noise of the fans. In regular use, the Surface Pro is near silent, in fact.

On the back, there’s a kickstand to prop the Surface Pro up on your desk. It actually snaps out to a slightly different angle – a little further reclined – than the stand on the Surface RT, though whether you’ll notice the difference in day-to-day use is questionable. More interestingly, there’s a change in the selection of ports Microsoft spreads around the slate: you now get a full-sized USB 3.0, rather than USB 2.0, as well as a Mini DisplayPort instead of the Surface RT’s HD video output. Otherwise, there’s still a headphone jack and a microSDXC card slot, along with a magnetic cover port for attaching the same Touch Cover or Type Cover keyboard accessories as we’ve seen before.

Specifications

Where the Surface RT ran its pared-back Windows on NVIDIA’s Tegra 3, the Surface Pro has far more familiar fare inside. An Intel Core i5 3rd-gen processor is the tablet’s beating heart, with Intel HD Graphics 4000 driving the 10.6-inch display (more on which later). Memory is doubled, to 4GB, while two storage versions are offered: 64GB and 128GB.

Here, though, is the first of the issues the Surface Pro runs into. Windows is a notorious drive hog, and when coupled with the default applications and the mandatory recovery partition – provided in-lieu of recovery discs or, as Apple includes with its recent driveless notebooks, a USB stick with the OS – there’s a surprisingly small amount of space left for users themselves. On the 64GB version, in fact, only around 23GB of space is actually available, while the 128GB model does a little better with 83GB free.

Microsoft points out that owners wanting more capacity can throw in a memory card – a 64GB microSDXC can be had for around sixty bucks – but it’s still likely to be a surprise for those expecting closer to the number printed on the box. There’s also cloud storage, such as Microsoft’s own SkyDrive, which could help fill in the gaps, though without an integrated cellular modem you’d need to be within range of a WiFi network in order to actually access it. It’s possible to create your own bootable USB drive, and then delete the recovery partition manually, but we can’t help wishing Microsoft had done this for us.

In addition to the USB 3.0 port, the Surface Pro has WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. Inside, there’s an ambient light sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, and a digital compass, though no hardware GPS. Microsoft has found space for stereo speakers, as per the Surface RT, but only a single microphone against the RT version’s dual mic array. The pair of 720p HD cameras – one on the front, one on the back – remain.

Pen and Display

Microsoft had high hopes for its ClearType-blessed display on the original Surface, but we found the 1366 x 768 resolution to be underwhelming in comparison to better-than-HD panels on the iPad and Nexus 10. Happily, the Surface Pro brings with it a far better screen: still 10.6-inches and 16:9 widescreen, but running at 1920 x 1080 Full HD.

The difference is vast. Where once we had slightly fuzzy text, everything is now crisp. Viewing angles seem better too, and we’re impressed by the richness of the colors. It might not be the Retina-level resolution of the latest iPad, but it’s far more in keeping with what, at upwards of $899, is most definitely a premium tablet.

The Surface Pro’s talents don’t end at a great display, though. In addition to 10-finger multitouch – double what the Surface RT can recognize – there’s also pen support. Not the fake-finger capacitive styli offered for the iPad and other tablets, but a special pen that works with an active digitizer embedded in the screen.

Usually, the pen clings to the right side of the tablet, magnetically attached. It’s a firm grip – Microsoft says it purposefully increased the magnet strength from what holds the keyboard on – and should keep it in place even if you drop the whole thing into your bag. As the nib gets within a few millimeters of the display, the usual capacitive touch is shut off and everything is controlled via the pen instead: you can wave it above the surface of the screen to move the mouse pointer, and then tap to mimic a left mouse click. A button on the side does right mouse click duty.

On the opposite end to the nib is an “eraser” which, as long as the app recognizes it, allows you to rub out mistakes. Just as you’d expect, there’s palm-rejection that means you can lean your hand on the screen and not have it skew your digital ink. The pen is battery-free, too, getting its power from the digitizer layer in the Surface Pro itself.

Microsoft obviously intends for the pen to play a big role in the Surface Pro experience: it’s included as standard in the box, whereas the Touch Cover and Type Cover are both optional extras. Windows tablets aren’t exactly unfamiliar with stylus control, but in the early years of the iPad modern tablet use got associated with finger control, and the technology fell from favor. Since then Samsung has restarted interest in what can be done with a digital pen, with the Galaxy Note series, and the Surface Pro can wear its stylus with pride.

Windows 8

Special screen and VaporMg chassis aside, the Surface Pro is basically just another Windows PC. We’ve already comprehensively reviewed Windows 8, though it’s worth noting that the tile-based UI makes far more sense when you’re swiping and tapping through it with your fingers than it does when navigated using a mouse.

As you’d hope from a Core i5 processor and 4GB of memory, there are no noticeable slow-downs and the Surface Pro handled any app we threw at it. Capacity concerns aside, Microsoft’s use of flash storage also lends a welcome boost to software load times, while multitasking is instantaneous, flipping between apps without delay.

Slot on a Touch Cover or Type Cover, meanwhile – the same accessories for the Surface RT will work with the Pro – and you’ve got a workable ultrabook alternative. We still prefer the Type Cover for anything more than the basics of text-entry, mind; the zero-profile keys of the Touch Cover, while an improvement over on-screen typing, nonetheless lack the responsiveness that makes extended use comfortable.

An alternative to both is using the Surface as the hub of a desktop setup, something that’s easy to achieve if you opt for a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. The Surface Pro is more than capable of powering a large display over Mini DisplayPort, leaving the USB 3.0 port free for hooking up an external drive or other peripherals. Since this is full-fat Windows, there’s no making sure that your accessory of choice is on Microsoft’s “approved” list, as is the case with Windows RT.

When the Surface Pro really comes into its own is when the pen gets involved. Frustratingly, Microsoft hasn’t really done everything it can to demonstrate what benefits a stylus brings: the obvious showcase app would be OneNote, which was offering Evernote-style digital notetaking functionality long before Evernote sprouted in the cloud, but Surface Pro buyers will need to cough up $69.99 for a copy (or get it as part of Office 2013 or an Office 365 subscription).

It’s worth it, though, as is trying out a digital art app, such as the copies of Autodesk SketchBook Express Microsoft and Fresh Paint Microsoft had loaded onto our review device. The Wacom stylus can differentiate between 1024 different levels of pressure, automatically adjusting the thickness of the on-screen ink depending on how hard you press, for instance, and it’s a far more user-friendly way to sketch out ideas (even if your art skills fall short). Surface Pro also supports being turned into a graphics tablet of sorts: hook up an external display and you can tell Windows 8 to map your pen movements on the tablet to the external screen by default, mimicking a standalone Wacom tablet.

More patchy are plain Windows apps, which lack distinct touchscreen support and, as a result, can be a little more difficult to control with your fingers. Browsers are a good example: Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer gives the best touch experience, while others – Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc. – generally expect you to be using a mouse, and hence navigate by using the scroll bars on the side of the screen rather than flicking and pinch-zooming. In the traditional Windows desktop you can optionally enlarge the scroll bars to give yourself a bigger target, but it still lacks the immediacy of, say, the iPad’s Safari browser.

Where the Surface Pro’s internet experience does pull ahead is in speed. We expected strong browser performance from the grown-up processor and full OS, and sure enough the SunSpider results – the test of JavaScript performance, where faster results are better – delivered. In IE, the test was complete in 144ms, while Safari and Chrome took a little longer, at over 240ms apiece. Contrast all three results, though, with the 4th-gen iPad with Retina display, which took 879ms to complete the same test.

The Surface Pro’s integrated graphics – rather than a discrete GPU – preclude any serious gaming or video editing, unfortunately. Still, we were able to load up Photoshop and complete some of the more day-to-day tasks without the tablet stumbling to a halt.

It’s in day-to-day use that the Surface Pro arguably shows its full hand. The combination of the kickstand and the broad display viewing angles meant the tablet generally followed us around the home, stood up on whatever surface was nearby. The kitchen counter was a particular favorite, at which point the Windows 8 Live Tiles showed their merit. Surface Pro sits quietly updating, flagging up new messages and the like; however, it’s also a great at what we’d call “natural discovery,” where content you might have forgotten about or overlooked is brought to the fore.

A good example of that is the photo integration. Windows 8′s abilities to bring online galleries through to the Live Tiles and cycle through photos meant we rediscovered whole folders-worth of images, including those shared by friends. It’s an engaging way to interact with the Surface Pro, and helped by the fact that software in the Metro-style interface co-exists neatly with what’s running on the traditional desktop. So, we could have the full Spotify app playing music in the background, while using the more finger-friendly UI to browse the web and flick through galleries.

Battery

To say Microsoft is shy on making battery life predictions is an understatement: beyond the confirmation that it’s a 42Wh pack inside the Surface Pro – up from the 31.5Wh of the Surface RT – there’s little indication of what sort of runtime owners might expect. Still, with specifications akin to a mainstream ultrabook, it comes as little surprise that the Surface Pro manages roughly ultrabook-length longevity.

In a test with the display permanently on, and playing streaming media constantly, the Surface Pro lasted for between 4.5 and 5 hours. In a slightly more mixed test, with a combination of web browsing while listening to Spotify, as well as streaming via Netflix and YouTube, that rose to six hours.

Both of those scenarios are probably some of the biggest battery challenges the Surface Pro might be expected to take on. More typical daily use, then, could see the tablet run for a few hours more, especially if you’re predominantly web browsing, emailing, and using art apps.

Wrap-up

With a new 128GB iPad with Retina display on the scene, it’s easy to make comparisons between Apple’s tablet and the Surface Pro. In practice, however, they’re very different beasts. The iPad is focused resolutely on the mass market, and if you want one you have to be willing to concede to Apple’s Way: their decision about what apps are worthy of the App Store, their decision about what accessories can be used, their decision about what, exactly, you can do with the tablet you just spent more than a few hundred dollars on. In contrast, the Surface Pro is a paragon of freedom. If you have unusual requests of it, you can probably find the software and/or hardware to achieve them. It is, after all, a touchscreen ultrabook wearing a different costume.

If you actually need a full Windows PC that you can strum with your fingers is the question. Not being limited to pared-down versions of apps is a big bonus if there’s particular software you need access to; however, that flexibility comes with its fair share of compromises, such as the limitations on battery life compared to ARM-based slates, the increase in bulk, and the higher price.

The Surface Pro is slickly designed, its digital pen a joy to use – if you have the need of it – and it comes without the software niggles that dampened our enthusiasm about the Surface RT last year. Think of it as a touchscreen notebook with an optional keyboard and it makes the most sense. That may be semantics, but it also means the Surface Pro is more likely to cannibalize ultrabook sales than eat into Apple’s iPad market. Whether that’s the market Microsoft was aiming for, we’re not sure, but the Surface Pro makes considerable sense for the prosumer.

Hardware

The Acer Iconia W510-1422 is not just a tablet first, notebook second sort of situation like many modern multi-mode machines are. Instead you’ve got full Windows 8 (as opposed to the tablet-centric Windows RT) along with a solid touchscreen display and a keyboard dock thats clearly made to be part of the full package rather than an after-thought. The keyboard here is clearly the bottom half of the unit rather than the piece you leave at home when you’re feeling no need to key.

Because you can bend the display back to a display position (with the keys of the keyboard then facing down towards the table) you’ve got a rather nice and nearly unique situation on your hands. While we’ve seen this position for tablet convertible machines several times over the past few months, you can rest assured that Acer does it right with a well-balanced and relatively rugged delivery of all pieces involved. And it feels natural to use this machine in each of its three major positions – that’s important when it comes to this modern touch-friendly Windows 8 environment we’re in here in the first part of 2013.

On this unit you’ve got a LED-backlit TFT LCD HD 10.1-inch display up front with 1366 x 768 pixel resolution covered by a smooth sheet of Gorilla Glass 2. Viewing angles are essentially perfect across the grid and the brightness you’ve got here is ready for everyday action (everywhere save direct sunlight). You’ll be rolling out with 5-finger touch as opposed to the 10 you’ll find on desktop PCs in 2013 for the most part, but unless you’ve got something rather unique on your hands that needs more than a couple fingers at a time, you’ll never notice.

Inside you’ve got wireless connectivity as well as Bluetooth 4.0+HS and all around the rim you’ve got high-quality connections and blasters of media. Two speakers sit on the sides of the tablet portion of this setup to the left and the right, this allowing sound to bounce off your palm and into your ears with ease. This machine has an integrated digital microphone that works well with the cameras in front and back and you’ve got a set of ports for USB connectivity as well.

On the tablet itself you’ve got a microUSB port and a microHDMI port for 1080p output as well as multi-display. With this port you’re able to use a massive display as a second screen – as you well should – and it works smooth as if it were a single-unit solution. The microUSB port allows you to connect to whatever other PC you’ve got handy and works with the microUSB-to-full size USB converter accessory that comes in the box as well – great for mice.

The keyboard portion of this setup also has a full-sized USB port for additional accessories, and the whole setup is powered by a port (with included power cord) that exists on the tablet itself and on the keyboard dock. When the tablet is connected to the keyboard, it does so with this port, leaving the keyboard dock to do all the powering of the whole unit.

Camera

The front-facing camera you’ve got here is more than ready for great video chat – better than some desktop machines these days with 1920 x 1080 resolution and 1080p video recording ready for action. The back-facing camera is also decent, though not exactly on-par with the camera you’re getting on most modern smartphones with the same specifications. have a peek at a few demo photos below to get an idea of what you’re working with here.

Note that most of the photos are taken with the back-facing camera indoors while the photo looking upward at the dog was taken with the front-facing camera. Again, this front-facing camera should be used primarily for video chat rather than photography, mind you.

Software and Performance

The full Windows 8 experience you’ll be working with here offers up a collection of Acer-added applications for cloud computing, security, connectivity with your other wireless devices on the web, and everything in-between. This machine features the “Acer Ring” with its ability to quick-launch apps and websites as well as take screenshots on-the-fly. Acer Ring is essentially a home screen replacement app that allow you to take control of your machine in tablet mode, this version of the app made specifically for this device. You’ll find each of the ports sitting in their right places and all of your media action controllable from one location – great stuff!

You’ll be able to run nearly every kind of app you’d be able to run on any other Windows 8 machine (within reason.) While the whole experience is fluid and surprisingly powerful for what the physical size of the unit implies, you wont be anywhere near the monstrous power of desktop machines like the Acer Predator. Don’t expect to play Hawken at full power here (not yet, at least).

Under the hood you’ve got an Intel Atom Dual-Core processor from the Clover Trail generation that proves its might by doing well with every app the device comes with and some of the more interesting nearly high-powered oddities you’ll find like Remote Desktop. With Remote Desktop you’ll be able to work with your computer from another over a wireless network – the Iconia W510-1422 keeps up rather nicely. The exact model we’ve got here is the Intel Atom Z2760 1.5GHz (dual core) complete with Intel Burst Technology up to 1.8GHz (1MB L2 cache).

Also under the hood you’ve got a 64GB Solid State Drive, 2GB of DDR3 SDRAM, and Intel Graphic Media Accelerator technology with 64MB of dedicated system memory. Battery time with the tablet alone has proven to be right between 7 and 8 hours when we’re using it and several days if it’s just sitting on the desk on its own, asleep. The tablet itself works with a 3450mAh battery while the base includes an additional battery that adds nearly as much battery time again. Together you’re looking at several days of standby time at LEAST with around 11 hours of up-time just so long as you’re browsing the web and playing videos (high-powered games give you a bit less).

Wrap-up

This machine is ready for the 2013 season of Windows 8 action, but it’s not going to replace your MacBook Air. It’s not meant to – if you’re a Windows user and want a mobile device ready for everyday action and a relatively large amount of battery time, that’s where you’ll find the greatness in the Iconia W5. The whole setup is solid, the presentation is ready to take on the top competition in the market today, and it’s easily one of our top choices for convertible tablets running full Windows 8 today – and not just because there aren’t many of them out there!

Hardware

The tablet you’re working with here is easily one of the higher-end units Samsung has ever produced – they’ve taken the successes of the Android lineup they’ve cultivated in the Samsung Galaxy Tab lineup and have brought it over to Windows 8 with a lot more boss energy. Here you’ve got a tablet that’s not meant to be as thin or mobile, instead concentrating on the idea that you’re going to be working with a backpack or a large carrying case to get this unit around, noting that it’s a large tablet first, and mobile second.

You’ve got just about every sort of port and plug you could possibly want out of a tablet and then some, this unit working with a full-sized USB 2.0 port, SIM card port, microSD card slot (for 64GB more storage than you get standard inside (also 64GB)). You get two microphone holes (built-in, not for larger microphones) that bring some noise cancellation, and there’s a microHDMI slot long the left.

There’s a power button that also locks the display, a button that switches off/on the rotation lock of the display, and there’s a set of three units you’re going to want to be aware of if you plan on moving forward with the full notebook experience. The first is the center power port and surrounding it are two docking slots. The docking slots are safely covered up with plastic covers you’ll never find yourself messing with unless you do indeed want to work with the dock, while the center power port stays open.

The back of the unit has an 8 megapixel camera and single LED flash while the front has a rather standard-quality camera for video chat. Inside you’ve got NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, gyroscope, magnetometer, ambient light sensor up front, accelerometer, wi-fi along a/b/g/n for 802.11, and you’ve got DLNA compatibility to top it all off. Of course you’ve got the gear inside to support AT&T’s own 4G LTE network as well for super-quick data speeds.

The 11.6-inch display up front works with PLS technology for fabulous viewing angles galore, but the resolution (pixel-wise) isn’t all that fabulous at 1,366 x 768. That’s 135 pixels per inch and much lower than the tablet competition – compared to the notebook universe it’s not half bad (unless you’re talking “Retina” quality displays which are becoming more and more prevalent by the month.) If you’ve only ever used a desktop PC before and this is your first tablet, you’ll be satisfied.

Inside you’ll find an Intel Atom Processor Z2760, dual core at 1.8GHz with 2GB of LPDDR2 RAM. This machine weighs in at 744g and comes in White or Mystic Blue (Blue for sure if you’re going for the LTE), and the tablet is 304 x 189.4 x 9.9mm on its own. It’s not light, but it’s certainly not the heaviest computer on the market at this physical size, and it certainly is comfortable to hold: Samsung has the curves that make your palms say “ahhh.”

Software

Inside you’ve got a full Windows 8 experience with Samsung’s twist on how you should be working with the touch-based universe. You’ve got the standard touch-UI interface up front with drag-up unlock and Windows 8 sign-in as well as all the touch-panels you can handle. This user interface is modified by Samsung in its Desktop mode where you’ve got a set of apps by the name of Easy Settings and Touch Supporter.

With Easy Settings you’re able to access your Network, Display, and Input in one easy-to-use location. It’s almost as if Samsung saw how Microsoft was handling user access to each of these vital areas and decided that they’d take it upon themselves to simply usher it all in on their own much more friendly plate. Network simply allows you to connect to wi-fi and your AT&T network via SIM card if you like, Display allows you to flip through a series of pre-set standard color tweaks for your screen, and Input turns your touchscreen off or on – simple stuff!

Touch Supporter is a rather un-intuitive addition to the touch interface that, again, feels like Samsung saw some holes in the Windows 8 touch environment and added a toolkit to keep you active as you were before you were relying on a touchscreen keyboard. You can use this toolkit to clip text, work with a floating keypad, and create some new key combinations for your onscreen keyboard.

It’s also worth noting that right out of the box if you’re on your desktop and you want to type words into a window, you need to pull your charms out from the right side of the display, hit settings, hit keyboard, and kick your keyboard out from the bottom of the display. That’s just about as many steps as it takes for me to say “no, thank you.” An automatic pop-up keyboard might seem like a simple thing to those of you that use tablets on the regular with Android and iOS, but here in Windows 8 it doesn’t seem to have been considered quite a top priority.

Beyond the quirks, it does appear that this machine is working relatively swiftly for a tablet – but compared to many notebooks working with essentially the same set of CPU and RAM specs we’ve got here, this machine takes second. Have a peek at the standard benchmark we’ve got lined up here with Geekbench and you’ll find a device that’s made for the standard tasks of today, but certainly not the most high-powered video games on the market by any means.

Also have a look at some more of the innards of this tablet here in a system readout to get a good idea of where that score above came from.

Camera

As it is with most tablets on the market, the camera on this device is made to be used sparingly. It’s said to be knocking out 8 megapixels of greatness, but we’ve found just basic performance on the whole. Compared to what we know a Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone can do with its own 8 megapixel shooter, this is a bit of a let-down. Have a peek below at some photo examples as well as a video shot with the back-facing camera too.

Battery and Data Speeds

The battery conservation on this device appears to be quite good, with nothing short of several days of standby time being an easy task just so long as you’ve got your mobile data shut off and no wi-fi poking around. If you’re streaming video using the LTE this machine works with exclusively, you’ll be looking at more like 7 hours of playback time without the device being plugged in.

Data Speed ended up being extremely similar to each of the Android smartphones we’ve tested recently with similar abilities. AT&T 4G LTE appears to be maxing out at 12Mps down in Arizona while up in Minnesota it’s closer to 7Mbps down on average. Upload is closer to 2Mpbs in Minnesota and 7Mpbs in Arizona. We’ve got a few conflicting reports of 12Mbps or more on average for both up and down depending on the region – NYC, for example – but we recommend you try the device in your local AT&T store to see data speeds before you buy if it’s extremely important how fast you go up and down!

Wrap-up

This machine is a PC without a keyboard attached to it – while we’ve yet to see the keyboard attached for any long amount of time, we’re confident that the full experience will be somewhere between a mobile tablet and a full Ultrabook-type-situation. The userbase for this device specifically will be small – we’re not quite sure that $700 USD or more on-contract or off will be worth the amount you’re dropping when you’ve got alternatives like the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 up for sale for significantly fewer dollars.

Of course the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 isn’t quite as “powerful” as the ATIV Smart PC, and you’ll have no Samsung-made standard keyboard to clip into, but you’ve got the pen that was promised as well as support from the super-diverse Google Play app store to boot. Here with the ATIV Smart PC you’ve got Samsung taking a media-ready swing at Windows 8 with a tablet form-factor that’s perfectly legitimate for the average Windows 8 lover. If you need hardcore PC power, this isn’t it. If you want Samsung’s vision for a Windows 8 tablet, this is the best you’re going to get at this very moment.

Hardware

This machine thrives on the unique nature of its shape – there’s really no other device like it when it comes to it’s back, it having the look of a book folded over. Because of this shape you’ve got a couple of pocket-like crevices where a microphone hole, notification light, power, and volume can sit on one side while a headphone jack and full-sized SD card slot can sit on the other. The folded-over portion of the tablet is a hard plastic with a slight dotted 3D pattern on it while the rest of the back of the device is cold metal.

As a reminder – this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this form factor, but it is the first time we’ve seen this unique device. The Sony Tablet S was released all the way back in 2011 while this new device, the XPERIA Tablet S is on the market now. Have a peek at our Sony Tablet S Review from back in August of 2011 for comparison purposes – that looks RATHER similar to this, but the two are, in fact, different in several ways.

On the bottom of the back of the device you’ve got a Sony proprietary port for power that’s massive enough to work with a Sony-made dock that’ll hold this machine aloft. There’s also a couple of back-facing speakers that are rather healthy in their ability to blast sound, but like all back-facing speakers are not up to the task of facing down into your lap – imagine that!

The back also has a relatively lovely-seeming 8 megapixel camera that’s OK when you’ve got perfect lighting conditions. The camera software inside this machine bring the device’s cameras on front and back up to “fun” levels but do not generate photos that you’ll be wanting to print – social networking grade they are!

This machine also has an IR blaster so you can connect to your television for basic channel changing and volume adjustment with the Remote control app that also comes with the device. With universal remote access you’ll also be able to turn on more than one device at a time, audio systems, DVD players, and TVs included, and not just limited to Sony brands. Sony is making a big push for this device to be the center of your living room and makes it so with not just remote control connectivity, but Sony-branded music and videos available for purchase as well.

Software

You’ve got Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich here on the Tablet S complete with a user interface that adds on a set of buttons and shortcuts on to the basic Google homescreen. On the bottom of the display you’ve got a quick shortcut to the Remote Control which opens as a window that can float above whichever app you’re in at the pressing. The same is true of the shortcuts bar directly to the left of the remote control that’ll lead you to miniature versions of your Web Browser, Calculator, Memo, Sound Recorder, Remote Control (again), and Timer – there’s also a “Clip” shortcut that lets you take screenshots on the fly.

Sony adds a collection of their own apps to this machine that include a Sony vision for the photo album, movies, ereading (with connectivity to the “Reader” collection of books), Walkman (showing your music on the device and Sony-purchased music), Sony Select (shortcut to the website), and Socialife (for social networking). You can also connect to Music Unlimited from Sony, Video Unlimited, and PlayMemories (collecting your photos into digital albums for sharing with the web).

You’ll also be able to switch between users if you’re going to be passing this device around from family member to family member, “Guest Mode” allowing you personalized configurations (before Android 4.2 Jelly Bean gets here with Google’s version of this functionality), including wallpaper, app, and widget differentiation.

You’ve got connectivity to PlayStation Mobile and Xperia link, as well. The promise that you’ll be becoming part of the Sony universe here, including the PlayStation ecosystem, is met about half-way because of the relative lack of big-name game support that Android has seen centralized in the PlayStation brand. This means that while there have been some big releases from developers that’ve made their name on PlayStation in the past on Android today, they’ve done these releases in a wide way – not just limited to the Sony universe. You can get Grand Theft Auto’s two first biggest open-world hits on the Google Play app store right now no matter what device you’ve got, Sony or no.

If you’re part of the Sony universe already – that is if you’re paying for Music Unlimited and Movies Unlimited and also have a PlayStation and want to make the most of it all with a tablet form-factor, by all means, purchase the Sony Tablet S. There are some Sony televisions that even connect with this tablet to bring you detailed information on media you’re watching on the big screen – if you’ve got that hardware, this may very well be the device you need to bring your experience up to the next level.

Above you’ll see some standard benchmark results as well as an astounding battery readout. As with all of the devices on the market with the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor inside, this device has fantastic standby-time as it utilizes NVIDIA’s 4-PLUS-1 technology – in this case that means that the “ninja” core (there’s 5 cores inside the processor in this device, not just 4) works for low-power tasks and makes the time the display is off a time that the device isn’t hounding power – as it should be!

Wrap-up

If you’re looking for a great stand-alone Android tablet, this isn’t it – it wasn’t made to be the one perfect stand-alone tablet and it doesn’t pretend to be that piece of equipment. Instead you’ve got the best Sony has to offer in a tablet form-factor, and with a quad-core processor from NVIDIA to back it up, it’s perfectly capable as a Sony companion for the rest of your Sony devices.

Barnes & Nobles tablets have always been pretty great for what they are, but it’s their content and ecosystem that still wasn’t quite up to par with the competition. Now that they have even better hardware, millions of books, magazines, newspapers, apps and even a Nook video store it’s time to take another look at the Nook. Their new Nook HD has the highest resolution display of any 7-inch tablet, runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and is designed with readers in mind.

Hardware

B&N hasn’t wandered too far from the original tablets they’ve offered in terms of design, but it’s the small things that make the new HD their best tablet yet. B&N says their Nook HD display is “better than any other 7-inch tablet” while it features a 1440 x 900 HD resolution, still manages to be rather sleek coming in at 11mm thick and weighing only 11 ounces too. After using the tablet you’ll quickly see why. The screen is bright, vibrant, and crisp and the viewing angles are excellent. This makes reading a breeze. We’ll talk more on that below but for now lets round out the specs. The Nook HD rocks a 7-inch 1440 x 900 HD display, a 1.3 GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4 processor, 1GB of RAM, and comes with 8 or 16GB of storage options, not to mention a micro-SD slot for expanding those options.

The display rocks 243ppi and support for 720p video playback. Tipping the scales at 315g, it undercuts the Kindle Fire HD and, at 127mm wide, is narrower too. The Nook HD is lighter than the Fire HD, Nexus 7, and the iPad Mini and is smaller than them all except the Nexus 7. This makes it easy to use on the go, hold with a single hand, and of course you can read with ease. There’s no cameras on board, but then again this is more about content consumption than creation. The micro-USB port has been dropped in favor of their own 30 pin connector on bottom, which doubles as HDMI-out but you’ll need a special dongle for full support. We have the familiar Nook home button on the front, and they’ve placed the usual power and volume rocker buttons in easy to access places. The power is on the left top side, while the volume is placed on the right. They are out of the way during reading, but easy to find and access when needed. Overall we actually found the design in general to be quite pleasing after using the device for more than a day or two. It isn’t too pretty, but functions great.

Just like the Kindle Fire HD the Nook is more a reader than a tablet, but B&N has no problem showing us that. The Kindle is slowly becoming more and more a device for games and movies, while the NOOK HD is clearly geared for reading. You’ll notice that right off the bat with their soft-touch contoured design, curved edges for an easy grip, and the bezels up front. At first we weren’t too fond of the bezel on the front being in the way of the display, but once you read a few magazines you quickly realize just how comfortable it makes your experience — something no other tablets can tout. Despite the plastic edges and buttons the device doesn’t feel too cheap, but certainly doesn’t give you a premium feeling like the iPad mini.

The display was one of our favorite aspects on the Nexus 7, aside from Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but the NOOK HD takes the cake here. Viewing angles are great and overall reading a book or enjoying a video you quickly notice just how much effort they put into the display. Sadly they focused a lot of attention on the display and didn’t think about adding a camera or better audio. While we don’t miss the camera the SRS sound wasn’t nearly as nice as we’d hoped.

Software

With the new line of NOOK tablets B&N added a long list of new features. Trying to better compete with the Nexus 7 and the iPad mini they’ve certainly stepped up their offering, but you still get a feeling this is all about reading. We have over 3 million books, magazines, apps and more, and they’ve added a new Nook Video option for movies. Movies look amazing on the HD display, but it’s the reading experience that shines on this slate. Running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich but you’d never know it, B&N has added plenty to make this stand on it’s own. We have tabbed browsing now, something that sadly was missing before, and the Nook profiles are a breeze to set up.

Beating Google to the punch here we have multiple user accounts that work quite seamlessly. Each has its own apps, settings, background, profile picture and more. Flipping between them is as easy as hitting the power button and sliding in, but the delay to change backgrounds and apps was longer than expected. the carousel homescreen is ever so familiar if you’ve used a Nook or a Kindle Fire, and populates with recently opened apps or books for easy access. They’ve managed to keep the Android 4.0 multi-tasking feature with its own dedicated on-screen button, something that is sorely missing from those Amazon slates. Overall the Nook user interface has a nice 3D effect and pops out at the user, giving it another element of refinement. Sadly there didn’t seem to be a video resume option in their software (which were told will be addressed in an update) and the audio was lacking so much we tried to find a setting to turn it up — which wasn’t available.

Those few qwerks aside B&N has done a lot to make this more than a reader, even though at heart that is still what it is. As you saw in our video above they’ve added tons of new additions. From Nook Magazines that look amazing in both portrait or landscape for dual-page views, Nook Scrapbooks so you can easily crop out and save your favorite excerpts, and even Catalogs. Yup, New with the NOOK HD catalogs offer a convenient way to browse and shop HD catalogs such as the Pottery Barn, L.L Bean, Frontgate, and more. The NOOK will populate top choices, and again the HD screen makes viewing and turning the pages just gorgeous and vibrant. You can then use the Scrapbook feature to save things of interest for later, or share them with family or friends.

Newspaper and magazine reading has multiple options to enjoy the content, or to just read the text. There’s on screen keys to zoom out and get a full magazine view for easy panning through content, or you can cut out all the images and just enjoy the text if you choose. NOOK video is also a new option that brings the NOOK lineup closer to their competition. Offering thousands of films, movies, and TV from multiple major studios. They don’t have anything like Apple or Google yet, but it’s a work in progress and one more addition that makes the NOOK HD “do it all” instead of just being a reader. They even offer these in up to 1080p downloads to take advantage of their brilliant HD displays.

NOOK Comics and Books are just as they’ve always been, which are excellent, but they’ve put some focus on high quality comics as well as new fonts to make books have a “paper” feel while reading. With more than 3 million digital books and more you’ll always be able to find what you want — for the most part. Even Twilight if you must. Overall the software is quite pleasant, even if it doesn’t feel like Android, and their app store has grown enough to stand on its own for those that don’t need the full Google experience. With 10 times as many apps as last year they’re doing ok, but still don’t offer many games and apps that most tablets enjoy. However, B&N has secured most of the top 100 apps from competing platforms to stay relevant and keep users happy. So enjoy that Angry Birds and Words with Friends.

As mentioned above the browsers been improved and now finally supports tabbed browsing, and their new built-in email app also offers features that were previously missing. Things like Microsoft exchange support, as well as calendar and contact sync for Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo! and more. Sadly everything just wasn’t quite as fast as we’d hoped. And that’s in all aspects of the UI, not just email and browsing.

Competition

For $199 and $229 the NOOK HD is an awesome tablet and reading experience. That is for sure. Whether or not it’s worth the price compared to the competition is another story altogether. At the same price point the Nexus 7 is a complete tablet and Android experience, yet offers more storage at 16GB for $199. Then you have the iPad mini. Obviously there’s a little price premium topping the $300 mark but you’ll get much, much more. While not everyone wants to spend the extra for the iPad, the little difference just delivers so much more in terms of content. We only state that for the simple fact that B&N is trying to offer so much content for the device. In the end it still fails as a “tablet” and thus we must give the Nexus 7 and iPad mini the win here. For those seeking a tablet mainly for reading but will still enjoy those other features, we believe the NOOK HD is a better choice than most. The design is geared for reading and the experience just feels better than that of the Kindle Fire. B&N also doesn’t have ads in your face like those Amazon folks.

Wrap-Up

In the end Barnes & Noble invested a lot into both their hardware and software, and it shows. The screen is vibrant and crisp, performance is snappy and family friendly, and their unique industrial design stands out from the competition while remaining familiar. Overall while B&N has made an excellent product the software and ecosystem still needs some help. Riddled with poor performance in the OS and gaming, everything but reading books and magazines just takes too much effort when you’ve used iOS or regular Android.

When it comes down to what we want in a tablet this delivers in terms of hardware, but still fails just enough in the software and content to truly make it worthy of a full recommendation. While we love where the NOOK line is going — and hope it will get there — the Nexus 7, iPad mini, and Kindle Fire HD still offer more that make them an easier and better choice. Lacking the ecosystem of true Android or iOS, not having a camera, and not delivering enough content for consumption like the Kindle Fire HD achieves makes this a miss. If you’re invested in the B&N world already, this is a worthy update in all aspects and is by far the best NOOK yet.

Hardware

The 10.1-inch display on this device has 1920 x 1200 pixels and a 16:10 aspect ratio. The tablet is 8.8mm thin and weighs 580g – that’s just a bit heavier than it it seems like it should be given the aesthetics of the device. This just means that the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, which is 20g heavier than the MediaPad, seems light simply because it’s got plastic on the outside, giant-looking speakers on the front, and a pen built-in. The MediaPad 10 FHD on the other hand does too good a job of hiding it all – but the speakers can certainly be heard loud and clear.

The speakers on this device are nice – Dolby Surround Sound back them up and you do indeed get some impressive blasts when you hold the device the right way or have it propped up with a stand or up against a wall. What I mean is that, like the rest of the past generation of tablets out there, the speakers on this unit are facing the back. Even though we would like them to face the front, they still sound nicer than the vast majority of the smart devices out there – and that includes smartphones.

Above: Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD pictured with its release buddy, the Huawei Ascend D1 quad XL

This device is available in 8, 16, or 32GB internal memory configurations – there’s no microSD slot, so choose wisely on that internal number right out of the box. The battery is 6600 mAh large, you’ll be connecting to the device for charging with a unique port at the bottom. The bottom of this tablet also shows a couple of ports that allow for the keyboard accessory which – sadly – we have not worked with at this time.

The display on this device is relatively sharp at 1920 x 1200 pixels, that placing the pixel density at 224 PPI, well below the iPad 4th gen’s 263.92 PPI and in a different league compared to the Google Nexus 10 which has 300 PPI. If you’ve seen neither of these tablets up close and personal before, you’ll find the MediaTab FHD to be rather bright and sharp.

The tablet is not unlike many, many other high-end tablets on the market right this minute, coming rather close to the original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in its appearance and feel – it’s as if Huawei has taken a dash of Apple metal-love and placed it in a mixing pot with the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and out popped the MediaPad we’re looking at today.

Software and Performance

The Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich you see here is ever-so-slightly modified beyond its vanilla state. It’s not the abilities you’ll have added, but the slight side-steps you’ll be taking that really show you where Huawei was going with the user interface here. One example is the complete absence of an apps drawer – you’ll have everything out in the open here like MIUI or iOS rather than home screens and an app drawer separate.

There are also some slight changes in your standard settings in how you’ll be able to work with your device, but nothing to absolutely write home about. This device is not made to be competing directly with the US market for tablet dominance, so it’s not difficult to see why Huawei wouldn’t push too hard on the features list, especially in the software. You can play movies you’ve downloaded or transferred to the tablet with the standard movie playing app, you can play some MP3s if you wish, or you can straight up rely on Google’s suite of media-playing apps, which certainly is a viable option with Google’s family as mature as it is at the moment.

Above you’re seeing the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD next to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a 3rd generation iPad with Retina display. They don’t look or feel all that different from one another when they’ve got their displays turned off, that’s for sure. See if you can name each tablet by their corners and edges!

Then have a peek at a few benchmarks taking note that this tablet works with Huawei’s own quad-core processor (quad-core 1.4GHz Cortex-A9 to be exact) but doesn’t quite beat out the competition in a standardized competition. You’ll be able to run many high-powered applications here but don’t expect much more power than you had with your NVIDIA Tegra 2 tablet – don’t be fooled by a simple addition of a couple cores to the name. Have a peek once more at the hands-on video above to see how well it does in everyday switching between apps and you’ll see the truth.

Camera and Battery

This device works essentially as well as the rest of the top-tier Android universe as far as battery life goes, with a massive 6600mAh battery under the hood to keep you up all night. What happens with a tablet – unless you carry it with you all day long – is that you leave it asleep for the major part of your day. When you do this, the machine gets a relatively unfair advantage over the smartphone you’ve got in your pocket as far as battery life goes because it’s not getting punched in the gut all day long with mobile data. It’s true too with this Huawei tablet: because you’re not prone to using it all day long, you’ll be getting several days of battery life if you use it regularly (or 26 days if you don’t use it at all). If you’re a heavy user, expect as short a battery life as 8 hours.

The camera is OK, certainly nothing to write home about. It’s utterly blown away by competitors such as the HTC Jetstream and the Google Nexus 10 tablet from Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1‘s camera takes the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD to the cleaners even though the Note has 5 megapixels under the hood and the MediaPad has 8 – food for thought. The video it captures, on the other hand, is fairly nice.

Wrap-up

This device is a rather nice addition to the Android tablet universe, and certainly offers up a unique option where otherwise you’d be handling either a Samsung tablet or going over to Apple for an iPad. If you’re thinking about grabbing the highest quality Android tablet on the market today, I would still personally point you toward the Galaxy Note 10.1 simply due to its much more well-rounded ecosystem and matured device family. [See: "Smart Device specs are over, long live the ecosystem" column for more information.]

If on the other hand you want to take a fresh look at the Android tablet and don’t mind that your device looks strikingly similar to an original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Huawei is here to back you up. The speaker system is strong, the display is fairly nice, and you’ll definitely be the only one on your block with this tablet, guaranteed. The cost of this device for anyone outside of China will certainly be prohibitive at $600 USD or more, on the other hand, so unless you can get this machine for next-to-nothing, you’ll be better off skipping it and waiting for Huawei to present a more complete package – and a wider release, to boot.

Design and Build Quality

I have to say, the IdeaTab S2110A looks pretty great. It’s really thin – we’re talking 0.34” – and pretty lightweight to boot. With a weight that sits right around 1 pound, 4 ounces, this 10-incher feels pretty good in the hand, if not a little on the delicate side. It doesn’t feel like it can take a lot of abuse, so if you pick one up, be sure to treat it gently, otherwise it may not be long before you’re flushing your investment down the drain.

Lenovo has opted to go for something of a simplistic design with the S2110, as there aren’t any face buttons. It’s just the 10-inch screen, a black bezel that surrounds the whole thing, and a silver Lenovo logo underneath. On the top (assuming you’re holding the tablet in landscape orientation) is the power button and microphone. On the left side there’s a little more to see, as it’s here that you’ll find a mini HDMI port, the headphone jack, and a SIM card slot you can use for mobile data. On the bottom, the mini USB port for charging, data transfer, and docking has taken up residence, while the volume buttons are the only thing of note on the right side.

You’ve got a nice silver trim on the sides, which goes well with the black. On the back you’ll see another Lenovo logo, but aside from that, the textured surface, and the 5MP camera, there’s isn’t much to see back there. The Lenovo S2110A sure does look sleek, and it’s a good choice if you’re looking for a tablet that’s extremely portable.

We’ll get more into the included keyboard dock a little later, but for now let’s talk about it merely in relation to the overall design of the device. The dock matches the color scheme of the tablet, with a gray, black, and silver scheme that looks really nice. When the tablet is plugged into the dock, you’ve got a miniature laptop that still manages to be incredibly thin, so you may find yourself with the dock on hand at all times. In short, the tablet looks great while connected to the dock, but we’ll talk about the quality of the keyboard later on in the review.

Hold on though, because even though the IdeaTab S2110A is a good looking device, it suffers from some sub-par build quality. Hopefully you’re a fan of pressure spots on your LCD, because you’ll get them whether you like them or not. Just causally holding the device can set these pressure spots off, so it isn’t as if you need to be applying a ton of pressure from the back to get the spots to show up on the LCD screen. Some spots of the tablet seem weaker than others, so these pressure spots won’t be appearing everywhere, but still, the fact that they happen at all is no good.

The pressure spots are bad enough, but the S2110A just feels like a cheaply made product. It seems like it wouldn’t take much to damage this thing, so you’ll need to be careful with it if you pick one up. It’s also worth pointing out that my S2110A had a dead pixel out of the box, but that’s a bit more excusable. After all, dead pixels are going to happen from time to time – that’s just a risk you take when you’re buying products with LCD screens. While the dead pixel is a forgivable issue, the overall build quality is not. I would understand poor build quality in a less expensive tablet, but you’ll spend a considerable amount of dough on the S2110A, and for $400 (at the least), I expect much better build quality.

Hardware

As stated above, the IdeaTab S2110A comes with a 10-inch IPS display, which runs at 1280×800 resolution. I was very impressed with the screen on the S2110A, especially after hearing some less-than-stellar things about the screen on A2190. The viewing angles are really something excellent – it takes a lot to get the screen to appear washed out, which is always a good thing. The screen is bright and colorful too, and on-screen visuals are nice and sharp. I would have preferred a better resolution, but as I said, text and images on screen are still sharp (seriously, reading on this thing is a pleasure), so 1280×800 resolution really isn’t much of a problem.

The screen is glossy, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering that matte screens on tablets (or anything else these days, for that matter) are a rare sight. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the S2110A’s screen seems to attract more fingerprints than other, similar displays. It could just be the fact that the lighting on the IdeaTab’s S2110A screen is really good, but with that black color scheme, finger prints are going to stick out. It’s a problem that can be solved easily with a quick wipe-down, but you’ll want to do that frequently – the screen looks too good to have it covered in ugly fingerprints all the time.

The S2110A is running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060A dual-core processor that’s clocked at 1.5GHz, so you’ve got a quick little CPU working under the hood, despite the fact that it’s only a dual-core. The processor is working in tandem with 1GB of RAM, though it might have been a better idea for Lenovo to include 2GB of RAM, just to make the S2110A a bit more fluid. Things can get pretty choppy when transitioning through homescreens and swiping between screens in the settings menu, so know that you’re not going to get an entirely smooth experience if you pick up the S2110A.

You’ve got two internal storage options when it comes to the IdeaTab S2110A: 16GB and 32GB. The model we received for review came with 16GB, and I don’t really have any complaints about that amount of storage. If Lenovo offered an 8GB version of the tablet, you might run into some issues, but 16GB should be more than enough to tide you over for a while. Of course, if you store music or movies on the tablet, you might run out of free space sooner rather than later, but if that happens, the tablet’s dock has a full-size SD slot to take advantage of. It’s important to note that the tablet itself doesn’t have an SD slot to speak of, so if you buy the tablet alone without paying the extra $100 for the dock, the internal memory you have on the S2110A is what you’re stuck with.

The hardware on the S2110A is decent, but there are some things that leave me scratching my head. I’m bummed that you’ll have to purchase the dock to get an SD slot, and even though the hardware is decent, the choppiness is something that will certainly annoy. Still, the hardware this thing comes packing should be able to handle the apps you download from the Google Play Store, and makes the S2110A a tablet that can at least hold its own in the hardware space.

Software

Like most tablets and phones, the IdeaTab S2110A comes with its share of bloatware, and it appears that you can’t uninstall most of it, meaning you’re stuck with the programs whether you like them or not. We’ve got a bunch of card games installed out of the box, including Solitare, Hearts, and Spades, along with rara.com, Papaya Free, and ooVoo. Naturally, all of Google’s apps are there, as are Norton Security and News Republic.

The majority of users probably won’t touch most of those (expect for Google’s stuff), but thankfully, the IdeaTab S2110A comes with some handy apps installed. These include Amazon Kindle, Evernote, Skype, and SugarSync. I was happy to see all of those installed on the IdeaTab S2110A, and I’m sure that a lot of people will appreciate the fact that Evernote and Skype are present from the start.

The IdeaTab S2110A runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but you’re not getting stock Android with this tablet. Lenovo has put its own home screen layout in place with the S2110A and has filled the screens with its own widgets, which I have feeling contributes to the choppiness you’ll undoubtedly experience at points.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, as manufacturers frequently like to add their own touches to the Android operating system, I just don’t think that decision was for the best this time. In any case, after the operating system and the pre-installed apps are accounted for, you have just about 12GB of free space left on the tablet (remember, we were sent the 16GB model to test), so at least Lenovo hasn’t gone as crazy as some manufacturers do with bloatware.

Keyboard Dock

Lenovo is also offering a keyboard dock alongside the IdeaTab S2110A, and I have to say that the whole package looks really nice once the tablet and the dock are attached. The keyboard dock will help improve battery life, and it actually feels like a solid piece of equipment. The tablet feels a little heavier than the keyboard dock, so as a result, your mini notebook will feel a little top heavy at times – something to watch out for so you can make sure your tablet doesn’t take a spill.

The buttons on the keyboard feel really nice, as does the trackpad, though it’s going to take some time to get used to both. At first, the trackpad feels a little too sensitive, and since Lenovo has crammed a keyboard into such a small space, the keys are not only tiny, but they’re pretty close together too. That’s something I struggled with at first, but that may have more to do with my big hands than anything else. Expect to spend a few days getting used to the keyboard before you can really begin typing up a storm while keeping errors to a minimum.

The dock has a mini USB port for charging, accompanied by two full USB ports so you can use to connect a mouse or jump drive (or any other USB device for that matter). It’s here that you’ll also find the aforementioned SD card slot – it’s a full-size slot too, so microSD cards aren’t going to do you any good unless you have an SD adapter. There’s isn’t too much going on as far as ports on the dock are concerned, but considering that there’s already a number of ports and jacks on the tablet, less is more in this case.

Above the row of number keys is a set of hotkeys that allow you to do all sorts of things on your tablet. You can use these keys to turn on wireless, activate Bluetooth, and lock the tablet, which will help limit the number of times you’ll be reaching for the screen. However, the touchscreen still works while the tablet is connected to the dock, so you’ll have the option of using the S2110A’s touch capabilities if you need to.

I really like the way the whole package looks when the tablet is connected to the dock. The tablet actually locks in place once you connect it to the dock (meaning that you don’t have to worry about it falling out once you’ve connected it), which is definitely a nice touch. In all, I don’t have any major gripes with the dock – yes, it will take some getting used to, but Lenovo actually did a pretty good job considering the small space it had to work with.

Don’t let the fact that the dock with take some getting used to dissuade you though, because in my mind, it’s the dock that really makes this package worth checking out. On its own, the IdeaTab S2110A doesn’t have much to make it stand out from the sea of other tablets out there, but when you’ve got it attached to the dock, you’ve got a solid unit on your hands. It’s a shame that Lenovo isn’t including the dock with every IdeaTab S2110A, because the experience of using the tablet without the dock is vastly different than using it with the dock. If you ask me, it’s worth shelling out that extra $100 for the dock, even if the makes the total price a little difficult to swallow.

Battery

Lenovo has packed the S2110A with a 2 cell Lithium-polymer battery that it says will last for 9-10 hours of surfing with Wi-Fi enabled. Turning the screen down to 50% brightness and using the IdeaTab S2110A to surf, watch video, and play a few games of Solitaire, I was able to get about four hours of use out of a fully charged battery with right around 35% left over. This means that casual users should be able to get right around 6 hours of power out of a full charge, but naturally that all depends on a few variables.

Most importantly, these variables are screen brightness and Wi-Fi. Leaving the Wi-Fi on all the time (as I did) will obviously drain the battery faster, and keeping the tablet on auto brightness will help conserve battery. Aside from auto brightness, the IdeaTab S2110A comes with three brightness settings. The first is a little too dim for my liking, while the second setting, which places it at 50% brightness, is plenty bright. On the third and highest setting, colors will be their most vibrant, but you’ll also drain the battery very fast with the S2110A on that setting.

Lenovo says that you can double the life of the battery by using the dock, and again while those quoted times will vary, getting a full day of heavy use while the tablet is connected to the dock certainly isn’t out of the question. In other words, use the dock, because it makes almost everything about the IdeaTab S2110A much, much better.

Camera

I’ll just say this right away: the five-megapixel rear-facing camera on the IdeaTab S2110A isn’t great, so don’t pick up this tablet expecting to use it as your main-shooter. It also comes equipped with a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, but that’s really only good for video chat and nothing else. The sample shots taken with the rear-facing camera show us that the snapper on this tablet is nothing to get excited about; there pictures aren’t anything special, merely average in quality. I’m not sure that a camera should be one of the key features in your hunt for a tablet, but if for whatever reason it is, keep on looking.

Benchmarks

In Quad and AnTuTu, the IdeaTab S2110A showed some very promising results. It isn’t at the top of it’s league, but it definitely isn’t near the bottom either. These benchmark results show us that dual-core isn’t dead yet, and indeed, the processor on the S2110A is quite speedy, despite the fact that lag on the home and settings screens suggest otherwise.

In Quad, the IdeaTab S2110A was given a score of 4953, which was enough to beat out the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Nexus, and Nexus S all by a wide margin. That may not be all that surprising, considering that all three of those devices aren’t exactly considered young and sexy these days, but it’s worth pointing out that the S2110A more than doubled the score of the Galaxy Tab. That certainly isn’t bad.

In AnTuTu, it’s much the same. The S2110A came in under the Galaxy Note II, HTC One X+, Galaxy S III, and Transformer Prime by a significant amount, but managed to beat other devices like the original Galaxy Note, the Galaxy Nexus, and the Galaxy S II. In other words, don’t expect to be blown away by what’s the under the hood, but at the same time, don’t be tricked into thinking that the S2110A is a slouch.

Wrap-Up

I have to say that I have very mixed feelings about the S2110A. The screen is beautiful, and bright colors, sharp images, and wide viewing angles make the tablet a pleasure to use. The optional keyboard dock is also a winner in my book, and I like it so much that I can’t recommend picking up the S2110A without one. There we run into a problem though: the keyboard dock is an optional accessory, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s an integral part of the S2110A experience.

But then there are some issues with the tablet too. Even though the S2110A looks really nice, it’s obvious from the first time you hold it that someone at Lenovo slacked off when it came to build quality. It definitely doesn’t feel as sturdy as it should, and seeing those inevitable pressure spots on the screen is enough to send anyone into a rage.

For that reason, it’s hard for me to recommend the S2110A. If the stellar keyboard dock came standard, then I might be willing to suggest that users overlook the issues with build quality and go for it. As it is, though, the keyboard dock sends the price of the IdeaTab S2110A up well over $500, and that’s simply too much money for a tablet that, aside from the dock, doesn’t have many qualities to make it worth that price tag. Even without the dock, I think the IdeaTab S2110A is still on the expensive side.

You might be able to live with the build quality issues, and if that’s the case, knock yourself out. For most, however, I think it would be a better idea to look at other tablets before settling on the IdeaTab S2110A. There are instances when the S2110A threatens to be a really nice tablet, but unfortunately, the issues with the device hold it back from greatness each and every time.

Hardware

While ASUS and Google made some brutal decisions to bring the Nexus 7 down to its sub-$200 price point, the Nexus 10 demands far fewer compromises. In fact, Samsung has delivered a few “firsts” in its new tablet, most notably the 10.1-inch 2560 x 1600 WQXGA display (more on which in a moment). The Nexus 10 also gets a dual-core 1.7GHz Exynos 5250 A15 processor with Mail T604 graphics and 2GB of RAM, and a choice of 16GB or 32GB versions. Like the Nexus 4 smartphone, though, there’s no memory card slot for adding your own storage; Google would rather you opted for its Drive cloud.

Recent Samsung tablets have generally been lightweight plastic, but while the Nexus 10 sticks with plastics rather than metal, it feels far higher quality despite keeping things low on the scales. In fact, the tablet weighs 603g and measures a curved 263.9 x 177.6 x 8.9 mm, finished in a pleasant and grippy soft-touch material that’s easy to hold even single-handed. It’s reminiscent of the original Motorola XOOM Android tablet, though also reminds us of HP’s TouchPad, albeit considerably thinner.

On the front, there’s a 1.9-megapixel camera for video calls, with a 5-megapixel main camera on the back with autofocus and an LED flash. Ports include microUSB and micro HDMI, and in a welcome change the Nexus 10 charges from microUSB rather than using a proprietary connector; there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack and Pogo pins for use with a dock. Inside there’s WiFi b/g/n (with MIMO support for faster connections and better range) and Bluetooth 4.0, together with not one but two NFC chips – one on the front, one on the back – for use with Android Beam.

All of the usual sensors are present, including an accelerometer, digital compass, ambient light, gyroscope, barometer, microphone, and GPS, while the battery is a sizable 9,000 mAh Li-Poly pack which Google says is likely good for up to nine hours of HD video playback.

Accessories haven’t been fully detailed yet, but we’d expect to see a docking station eventually, and Google will offer a flip-cover the hinge of which swaps out with a panel on the back of the Nexus 10. It will automatically power on the tablet when opened, much as Apple’s Smart Cover does on the iPad.

Overall, despite being plastic not metal, the combination of the soft-touch materials and light weight makes for a very easy tablet to hold, and one that doesn’t add much to your bag. The matte finish does gather fingerprints and greasy smudges with great ease, however.

Display

Samsung calls its display a “True RGB Real Stripe PLS” panel; we just call it incredible. At 10.1-inches it’s slightly larger than Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad with Retina, but its 2560 x 1600 resolution – for a pixel density of 300ppi – means it packs in more dots than the iOS tablet’s 2048 x 1536 (264ppi).

Of course, the idea of “Retina” resolutions, as Apple would have it, is that at a typical usage distance the individual pixels are indistinguishable from each other; you could argue that once you pass that point a greater number of dots is unnecessary. Samsung’s panel does have obvious advantages for some of the uses Google expects most users to have for the Nexus 10, though, with its 16:9 aspect ratio screen and more-than-Full-HD resolution making it ideal for widescreen video playback without black framing bars.

In general use, it’s tough to find anywhere to complain about Samsung’s screen. Viewing angles are broad and colors vivid, and brightness is consistent across the display. Text is crisp, photos look fantastic, and video is smear and lag free. Happily there’s a slab of Gorilla Glass 2 across the top to protect the excellent panel.

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

Google’s incremental update to Android doesn’t even warrant a new confectionary-themed name, but there are a couple of improvements that make particular sense for tablets. Unfortunately, they’re also the features that won’t go live until the final build hits the Nexus 10 when it ships on November 13, which means we were unable to test out the new multiple user support and lock-screen widgets.

Still, from what Google has shown us, the ability to set up multiple user accounts answers a complaint that has been aimed at most tablets – not just those running Android – for some time now. While it’s usual for individuals to have their own smartphone, a tablet is more often a communal device, and there are times when you don’t necessarily want others in the household to access your data. That could be email or calendar entries, or bookmarks in the browser, or indeed apps or multimedia you’ve downloaded, that may not be suitable for younger children.

Google calls it Multi Screen, and it allows each user to have their own homescreen settings, wallpaper, widgets, apps, and games (including high score achievements and save points). When you download new apps, they’re limited to your account by default; however, if another user wants the same software, Jelly Bean 4.2 is sufficiently clever to know not to download it again, but instead just copy over a fresh version from the other user account. It should alleviate a huge pain-point for families with a shared tablet.

As for the new lock screen functionality, that will show various widgets for email, calendar entries, and information from other apps without having to unlock the Nexus 10. Just as they can with homescreen widgets, third-party developers will be able to create lock screen widgets for their apps.

Android 4.2′s other changes include a new version of Google Now with a greater number of “cards” – now including nearby events and concerts, imminent hotel and flight reservations, places known for being photography hot-spots, and what movies are opening in nearby theaters – which v4.1 users can already try by updating the Google Search app on their device.

It also updates voice search, which can now be used to create appointments as well as search for upcoming meetings, together with launching apps, all by spoken command. As we’ve found before, voice control can be hit or miss, and you need to make sure you’re speaking clearly with minimal background noise if you want to be understood first time.

Those not wanting to talk to their tablet can use the new Gesture Type keyboard, which borrows swipe-style text entry from apps like Swype and pairs it with new auto-prediction of words. Google has moved the prediction box from above the keyboard, where you need to glance up from the keys to see it, to hovering just above your fingertip, too. Even with fast swiping between letters, that box – and the prediction – kept pace without lagging behind or stumbling.

If the Nexus 10′s excellent display isn’t quite large enough for you, and you haven’t an HDMI cable to hand, Android 4.2 now supports wireless displays. At the touch of a button you can push the content over to a nearby, compatible monitor or TV, and be watching a video or browsing the web on the big screen. It also works well for gaming, with the Nexus 10′s accelerometer used for navigating around race tracks, for instance.

Google’s Play store offers movies and TV shows, streamed from the cloud rather than occupying your limited onboard storage, though it does mean you need an internet connection in order to watch them. It also works well with Google+ Hangouts, which makes for a useful impromptu video conferencing setup.

Otherwise it’s a general polish to what, by Jelly Bean’s first iteration, was already a solid platform. The Gmail app – hands-down the best mobile experience of Google’s email service – finally adds zoom support and introduces new gestures for triaging messages, while the notifications system has been made more useful in how alerts can be handled. An alarm, for instance, can be snoozed directly from the notifications drop-down, for instance, or a new email to attendees at a meeting opened straight from the reminder.

Performance

With a dual core 1.7GHz processor under the hood, we had high expectations for performance from the Nexus 10. In practice, day to day use and raw benchmarks told a slightly different story, with the tablet doing better at the former than it did the latter.

In terms of benchmarks, the Nexus 10 scored 9,123 in AnTuTu, falling short of the Galaxy Note II and HTC One X+; it also fell behind those smartphones in Quadrant, scoring 4,704. Smartbench 2012 gives two sets of results, for productivity and gaming, with the Nexus 10 scoring 3,423 and 2,741 respectively. That was better in gaming than other recent Android tablets, but was still bested by Android phones.

In CF-Bench, the Nexus 10 managed a total score of 10,814 (17,377 native; 6,439 Java), while finally we looked at browser JavaScript performance, with SunSpider coming back with 1,419.9ms (faster is better). It’s worth noting that the 4th-gen iPad with Retina display scored 879.2ms in SunSpider.

While the raw numbers weren’t necessarily the most impressive we’ve seen, in general use the Nexus 10 held up to all we threw at it. Full HD video played back without lag, and webpages rendered swiftly; the gaming we tried suffered no stuttering, either.

Camera

Android 4.2 also introduces new camera features, most notably Photo Sphere. This, like Photosynth on Windows Phone, allows you to create 360-degree images by panning the Nexus 10 around the scene. Clever software stitches them together, and they can then be shared as flat stills or even added to Google Maps. With the latter, the same Street View panning can be used to look around the picture, as if you’re stood in the middle of it.

Photo Sphere works, though not every time. Some images come out particularly well – landscapes and other expansive scenes seem particularly well suited, just as is the case with traditional panorama modes – but interior shots seem to introduce more problems with stitching the sections together. It’s a gimmick, really, but when it works it’s an impressive one.

Unfortunately, neither of the Nexus 10′s cameras are particularly worth shouting about. The ergonomics of taking photos with full-sized tablets has always been questionable, but the shots that the new Samsung tablet produces aren’t in the same league as what, say, its recent smartphones can achieve. The front-facer is sufficient for video calls, but the 5-megapixel main camera produces stills that are only average. Still, the new camera app UI – which puts quick settings for things like the flash just a quick swipe away – is clean and a usable improvement over what Android offered before.

Battery

9,000 mAh is a big battery, but it has a powerful processor and lots of pixels to satisfy. Google’s prediction of up to 7hrs web browsing or up to 9hrs HD video playback actually turned out to be over-cautious, however, when faced with more typical mixed use. Browsing, streaming Full HD movies from Google Play, reading digital magazines, and doing some emailing and photography, and the Nexus 10 managed 11hrs, which is particularly impressive.

Pricing and Value

Google demonstrated how ambitious it could be with hardware pricing with the Nexus 7, bringing the 7-inch tablet in at under the $199 price point and making other Android slates look over-priced at the same time. The obvious rival to the Nexus 10, however, is Apple’s full-sized iPad, and Google undercuts it by $100. $399 gets you the 16GB version, while $499 hooks the 32GB model.

The hardware, then, is more competitively priced, but there’s more to value than upfront cost. Google has renewed its call for Android tablet apps, but the range of titles available still pales in comparison to what Apple’s App Store offers for the iPad. That’s been our criticism of Android slates since they first arrived in early 2011, and it’s a sticky situation Google has yet to conclusively address. Many apps are simply oversized versions of their phone equivalent, and while that might be just about acceptable on the Nexus 7′s smaller display, it squanders the capabilities of the Samsung tablet’s pixel-rich panel.

Wrap-up

There’s no denying that Samsung and Google have put together an impressively specified tablet in the Nexus 10. The incredibly high-resolution display is wrapped up with a very capable processor, and while the Nexus 7 feels like it makes some compromises in order to hit its price point, there’s less of a sense that the 10-inch version was built to a budget.

That, and Jelly Bean 4.2′s software improvements, only serve to highlight the lingering drawback to Android tablets: the shortage of good applications. Android phone users have a significant number of titles to choose from, but too many expect tablet users to make do with magnified versions of the same on their bigger screens. When you’re talking about a panel as pixel-dense as the Nexus 10, that’s a travesty.

Of course, developers will only begin coding for slates when there’s a sufficient market for their apps. Google can’t make every app that Android tablet owners might ever want to use: it needs to motivate third-party developers to wade in. Compelling hardware such as the Nexus 10, undercutting well-known alternatives in price, is the best way of doing that. For browsing and multimedia playback, the Samsung tablet is ideal, but early-adopters will have to wait for it to work its magic on developers before the Play store begins to catch up with apps worthy of the Nexus 10′s abilities.

Hardware

You have to look closely to spot the differences between the third-generation iPad and this new fourth-generation model. In fact, from all angles but the very bottom, it’s the same as before: the only outward difference is that the old, 30-pin Dock Connector has been replaced with the new Lightning port as on the iPhone 5 and latest iPods. 

That means compatibility with new accessories moving forward, but not with any old docks or gizmos you might have already bought for previous iOS devices. iPad docks are less common than those for iPhone or iPod touch, though there are still some out there, but Apple is shifting to prioritize AirPlay for streaming audio and video and you’ll need a $29 adapter if you want to use your old, 30-pin add-ons.

Inside, though, it’s a different matter. Apple has thrown out the A5X chipset and replaced it with a new, A6X version, which the company says is it’s fastest yet. On paper, it’s up to twice as fast as the A5X, in both graphics and CPU, as well as including updated image processing technology for better results from the iPad’s 5-megapixel camera. 

That’s the same camera as before, but the front facing iSight gets an HD update, stepping up from VGA resolution to 1.2-megapixels and now capable of 720p video. The Wi-Fi also gets a polish, supporting dual-band 802.11n (2.4GHz and 5GHz) for better range and speed with compatible wireless routers. 

Overall, though, it’s the same slick tablet we’ve seen before. You still get the beautifully crisp, bright, and responsive Retina display, sturdy construction with glass and aluminum sandwiched together neatly, and the same three options for storage: 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB. 

Software and Performance

With iOS 6 being pushed out this summer to update the third-gen iPad, it’s no surprise that the iPad with Retina Display runs the same. That means you get all of the usual apps and services – Safari, Apple Maps, Messages, Game Center, the App Store, Siri, and more – it’s just that they’re running on a faster processor. 

Day to day, there’s not a significant difference in usability. By its third generation, the iPad was already smooth and showed little in the way of lag, and that same polish is evident here on the A6X powered model. There isn’t the obvious swell in performance that we’ve seen before in, say, stepping from the first-gen iPad to the second, however. 

That doesn’t mean the power isn’t there, of course. In Geekbench, which benchmarks processor and memory performance, the 1.4GHz A6X iPad scored 1,768, more than double the A5X iPad’s score of 751. By way of comparison, the iPhone 5 – with its A6 chip – scored 1,616, while the iPad mini, which uses the same A5 chip as in the iPad 2, scores 757.

One place you do get a useful boost is in the browser. We turned to the SunSpider test of JavaScript performance, and were mighty impressed by the iPad 4th-gen’s score of 879.2ms (faster is better); that’s near desktop browser level (286.1ms on MacBoook Pro 13” Retina core i5), and a significant leap ahead of the iPad 3rd-gen’s score of 1,688.9ms.

We then looked to iMovie HD video processing, which is a solid test of CPU and GPU performance. Apple has gradually massaged the video crunching workflow with each generation of iPad, to balance speed and video quality, and the output from the latest model is the best – to our eyes – so far. 

In terms of raw speed, the iPad 4th-gen crunched through a 1 minute 720p video in 48.1 seconds and a 1 minute 1080p video in 51.3 seconds. In contrast, the iPad 3rd-gen managed a 1 minute 720p video in 45.0 seconds and a 1 minute 1080p video in 48.2 seconds. 

The updated processing abilities became something of an advantage for the iPad 4th-gen when dealing with longer videos, however: a 5 minute 720p clip processed in 3 minutes 57 seconds and a 1080p version in 4 minutes 17 seconds. The iPad 3rd-gen did its 5-minute 720p video in 3 minutes 40 seconds, and its 1080p version in 4 minutes 56 seconds.

With the iPad with Retina, there’s the sense that you’re paying for potential. The current level of apps simply don’t take advantage of the improved chipset – save, perhaps, the browser – but you’re getting the newest connector and the reassurance that your tablet will keep up with whatever App Store developers throw at it over the coming months. 

Battery

Apple promises the same 10hrs of browsing, media playback, or music over Wi-Fi from the newest iPad with Retina display, or up to nine hours if you’re doing that over a cellular data connection. In practice, we saw no difference from our iPad 3: that is, in excess of 10hrs of general use from a full charge, suggesting there’s no real penalty for opting for the A6X chipset.

Wrap-up

The third-generation iPad arguably didn’t need refreshing; in fact, if Apple hadn’t opted to change to Lightning, it could realistically have held off changing its largest tablet until early 2013, as per its typical yearly refresh cycle. That makes for a reasonably straightforward upgrade decision if you’re a 3rd-gen iPad owner. Unless you’re desperate for Lightning – perhaps you’ve also got an iPhone 5, and want to use all the same accessories rather than buy the adapter dongle – then we’re yet to see apps that really demand the potent A6X chipset.

On the other hand, it widens the distance between the iPad 2 – which remains on sale as the “budget” full-sized iPad – and the iPad with Retina display. Tomorrow’s battle is the decision between the speed and glorious graphics of the iPad with Retina display, or the portability and convenience of the iPad mini. The incredible, high-resolution screen was already enough to justify the $100 premium over the iPad 2 to our mind; the future-proofing of the speed increase (and the new iPad mini, undercutting the iPad 2 by $70) is simply the coup de grâce.

Hardware

At first glance, the iPad mini’s familial resemblance is obvious. Available in white and black finishes – with matching aluminum rear shells, unlike the full-sized iPad with Retina display, which only changes bezel color – it’s considerably reduced in size, down 23-percent in thickness at 0.28-inches deep, and down 53-percent in weight, at 0.68-pounds for the Wi-Fi-only model. 

It’s the width and length which are most notable, however. Held in portrait orientation, the 5.3-inch frame is easy to grip in a single hand, your fingers tucked around the edges without feeling stretched. It makes the iPad mini a legitimate alternative to a Kindle or other, similarly-sized e-reader, light enough and scaled the right way to grip for extended periods in bed. The 7.87-inch length, meanwhile, makes for a tablet that’s great for thumb-typing when held in landscape orientation, the iPad mini cradled in your hands. 

Inside, there’s a dual-core 1GHz processor, the same Apple A5 dualcore as in the iPad 2, along with a choice of 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of storage. All versions have the same Wi-Fi a/b/g/n – with dual-band 802.11n support, for improved range and speeds with compatible routers – and Bluetooth 4.0, while Apple also offers Wi-Fi + Cellular models that support LTE on select networks (and HSPA+/DC-HSDPA on others). The cellular iPad mini also has true GPS and GLONASS, while the Wi-Fi-only makes do with assisted-GPS. 

Both variants use Apple’s new Lightning connector, and have a mono speaker and a stereo headset jack that, with a wired hands-free kit such as comes with the iPhone 5, can be used for voice calls such as over Skype. The cameras are carried over from the full-sized iPad, with a 1.2-megapixel front-facer above the display that supports 720p HD video recording as well as FaceTime calls over both Wi-Fi and cellular connections. 

On the back, there’s a 5-megapixel camera with a backside-illuminated sensor, five-element lens, hybrid IR filter, and autofocus; the size of the iPad mini makes it a far more comfortable device to actually use to take photos with, unlike the 9.7-inch iPad which can feel somewhat unwieldy and seems more suited to the occasional, impromptu shot when your smartphone isn’t immediately to hand. Panoramic shots benefit from the smaller size of the iPad mini, which makes it easier to hold still and steadily pan across the scene. 

Display

Given Steve Jobs’ well-known attitude toward 7-inch tablets, Apple was never going to launch an iPad of quite that size. Instead, the company opted for a 7.9-inch screen for the iPad mini; while that 0.9-inch extra on the diagonal may not sound like much, it actually makes for a panel that’s 35-percent larger than a 7-inch screen on, say, Google’s Nexus 7. In total, you get 29.6 square inches of display, versus the 21.9 square inches of a 7-inch panel.

The screen itself is an LCD IPS panel running at the same 1024 x 768 resolution as the iPad 2. It’s bright and clear, with great viewing angles no matter which way round you’re holding the tablet; as with the larger iPad, the iPad mini’s UI will flip to suit any of the four orientations. What you don’t get is “Retina” resolution, Apple’s shorthand for a display where the pixel density is so great that, at a typical operating distance, the average human eye can’t differentiate the individual dots.

Higher-resolution displays of a similar size to that of the iPad mini are available; Apple’s compromise, however, is to maintain compatibility. By sticking to one of the two established resolutions – either 1024 x 768. or 2048 x 1536 as on the iPad with Retina display – it means all of the applications intended for existing iPads will fit properly on the iPad mini. 

Had Apple opted for a halfway measure with the ambition of increasing the pixel density from its current 163 ppi – picking a display somewhere between the resolution of the iPad 2 and the Retina version – it would have delivered smoother visuals but at the cost of simple compatibility. Developers would have to update their apps to suit a third resolution; as it stands, even though it’s a different size, the iPad mini has access to the near-300,000 iPad-friendly App Store apps out of the box. 

To accommodate that particular 4:3 aspect ratio panel, and achieve that all-important fit in the hand, Apple has dramatically shaved away the bezels on the longer edges. It can leave the iPad mini looking a little unusually proportioned at first glance, compared to the thicker frame of the full-sized 9.7-inch iPad, but it’s a decision that makes sense after a little time with the tablet. As for whether the 1024 x 768 resolution itself has an impact on usability, while it’s lower than 720p HD, video playback still looks solid. Webpages at minimum magnification in the browser inevitably require at least a little zooming in order to make the text a comfortable size for reading, though that’s more down to the sheer size of the text on a display of this scale, than it is the resolution it’s rendered at. 

One of the little-recognized reasons for the 9.7-inch iPad’s wider bezel is that it helps keep your thumbs away from the edges of the display when holding it. That avoids mis-touches or swipes, which can be particularly frustrating when they change page in an e-reader app like iBooks or Kindle for iOS. For the iPad mini, Apple has replaced the physical grip-space with software cleverness: the thumb-rejection system promises to differentiate between the touch of a typical grip on the body of the tablet, and a specific point of contact when selecting an app or control. 

Not all apps support thumb-rejection, at least initially, and we noticed around 10- to 15-percent of the time it didn’t work as expected. However, the remainder of the time it’s surprisingly effective: you can hold the iPad mini with the edge of your thumb resting along the border of the display, without it being recognized as a touch or swipe. Apple says the number of compatible apps will increase in time, as well.

Apple offers both AirPlay Video for streaming up to 1080p Full HD to an Apple TV, or an optional video output dongle. The Lightning to Digital AV Adapter is compatible with the HDMI port found on most current TVs, while the Lightning to VGA Adapter hooks the iPad mini up to a computer display.

Software and Performance

iOS 6 on the iPad mini may be smaller than we’ve seen it on an Apple tablet before, but it’s a familiar platform and we were quickly up to speed despite the diminished scale. All of Apple’s regular apps are present – Safari, Mail, FaceTime, iTunes, Game Center, Maps, and more – along with Siri, which expanded to the iPad line over the summer. iBooks isn’t preloaded but is available free from the App Store, and now supports auto-scroll for touchless reading; again, it underscores the iPad mini’s suitability as an e-reader alternative. 

The iPad mini may not have the A6X processor of the new flagship fourth-gen iPad, but the A5 is sufficient to keep things moving smoothly without making a huge dent in battery life. Navigation around iOS shows no real lag or delay, and apps load quickly; the A5 doesn’t have to drive all the pixels involved in a Retina display, after all, and so it’s overall a satisfactory experience. For those particularly curious about raw benchmarks, the iPad mini scored 757 (higher is better; the iPad with Retina display scored 1,768 in comparison) in Geekbench and completed the SunSpider test of browser JavaScript performance in 1,698.9ms (lower is better; the iPad with Retina display managed an impressive 879.2ms).

One of the more taxing challenges Apple’s tablet faces is video editing, and with its 5-megapixel camera and Full HD video capture, iMovie performance is an important metric. We tested the smaller tablet with both 1 minute and 5 minute video clips, each at both 720p and 1080p resolution. It processed the 720p short clip in 56.8 seconds, and the 1080p short clip in 1 minute 2 seconds. As for the 5-minute clip, that took 4 minutes 31 seconds for the 720p version and 4 minutes 56 seconds for the 1080p. 

They’re unsurprisingly slower than the iPad with Retina display managed, but not outlandishly so, flattering to the iPad mini’s potential. Video clips can also be imported using the Lightning to SD Card Adapter or Lightning to USB Camera Adapter, making the whole thing a competent portable movie studio. Opt for a 4G version and you could shoot, edit, process, and upload your entire movie while on the move, without ever having to plug the iPad mini – or your camera – into a computer. Compatibility with Bluetooth keyboards, meanwhile, means entering text is more straightforward, in effect turning the iPad mini into a tiny workstation. 

Battery

Apple quotes up to 10hrs of wireless browsing over Wi-Fi for the iPad mini, or up to 9hrs if you’re using the tablet’s cellular connection. In practice, with a mixture of browsing, some video playback, games, music – both locally-stored and streaming – and messaging, we comfortably exceeded Apple’s estimate. In fact, we exceeded 11hrs of use before encountering a battery warning.

Accessories

With the same Lightning connector as on the iPhone 5 and the iPad with Retina display, the iPad mini has access to the same range of accessories as elsewhere in Apple’s range. In addition to the external display adapters for HDMI and VGA, and the SD Card and USB Camera import cables, there’s also a new iPad mini Smart Cover. 

The premise is the same as the existing Smart Cover Apple has been offering for its full-sized iPads: a flexible, rollable screen protector that both covers the display when not in use and wakes the tablet from sleep when opened. It can be folded into a stand to prop the iPad mini up at angles suited either for typing or for watching video, and attaches to the side of the slate magnetically. 

Unlike the metal bar hinge of the larger Smart Cover, the iPad mini gets a new, fabric-covered design, which is sleeker and doesn’t make the tablet bulky. On the inside there’s a microfiber lining, gentle to the touchscreen, while the outside is available in a choice of six colors: dark gray, light gray, blue, green, pink, and (PRODUCT) RED.

iPad Mini vs Nexus 7

Wrap-up

As the pre-launch rumors proliferated, some questioned whether Apple really needed a product that slotted in-between the 4-inch iPhone and iPod touch, and the 9.7-inch iPad. Others questioned what sort of price bands Apple would target: whether the iPad mini would be a budget option to directly take on the spray of low-cost Android tablets. 

Instead, the iPad mini is a product that’s resolutely “Apple”: it distills the essentials of the 9.7-inch iPad – iOS app compatibility, multimedia functionality, premium build quality, and comprehensive connectivity – without diluting them to unnecessarily meet a budget price point the company has no real interest in achieving. The iPad mini isn’t a cheap tablet in comparison to $199 Android-powered options, but it feels better in the hand, has a huge number of applications specifically intended for tablet use, and delivers what it promises to in a cohesive and predictable way. 

What it also means is that the iPad mini isn’t the iPad you buy simply because you can’t necessarily afford the larger iPad with Retina display. There are legitimate arguments for the smaller model, not undermined by flimsy construction or compromised capabilities. If you spend much of your time mobile, the iPad mini is easier to transport; if you’re a keen reader, the iPad mini is easier to hold and navigate through. If you’re addicted to the internet and don’t want to view it through the 4-inch window of the iPhone 5 or iPod touch, Safari on the iPad mini delivers more size at a scale that’s still bag or purse-friendly.

In the end, it’s about an overall package, an experience which Apple is offering. Not the fastest tablet, nor the cheapest, nor the one that prioritizes the most pixel-dense display, but the one with the lion’s share of tablet applications, the integration with the iOS/iTunes ecosystem, the familiarity of usability and, yes, the brand cachet. That’s a compelling metric by which to judge a new product, and it’s a set of abilities that single the iPad mini out in the marketplace. If the iPad with Retina display is the flagship of Apple’s tablet range, then the iPad mini is the everyman model, and it’s one that will deservedly sell very well. 

Hardware

Windows on an ARM processor is new territory for Microsoft. With Windows RT, the field is open for companies like NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and others to push the sort of frugal chipsets that are more commonly found in Android tablets, reaping potential benefits in power frugality and reduced heat output.

In the case of Surface, Microsoft opted for NVIDIA’s quadcore Tegra 3, here paired with 2GB of RAM. It’s a chip we’re very familiar with from Android phones and tablets, and in fact much of Surface’s other specifications are par for the course in the mobile world. A choice of 32GB or 64GB of storage – no 16GB option, though Microsoft prices its entry-level Surface directly against the 16GB iPad 3 – with a microSDXC card slot, WiFi a/b/g/n, and Bluetooth 4.0.

As you’d expect there are stereo speakers – which are on the quiet side, even at maximum volume – and dual digital microphones, an HD video output which, with the right $39.99 dongle, hooks up to an HDMI or VGA connection, and a cluster of sensors: ambient light to control screen brightness, an accelerometer, gyroscope, and digital compass, though no GPS. Microsoft also isn’t offering a 3G/4G version of the tablet, claiming that consumer research suggests the vast majority of tablets of a similar size to Surface don’t ever get taken outside of the home or office.

LifeCam video recording demo

LifeCam photo examples

Unlike most rival tablets, however, Microsoft has also outfitted Surface with a full sized USB 2.0 port, opening the door to regular peripherals like printers, keyboards, mice, and other accessories. There’s also a “Cover port” which works with Microsoft’s magnetically attached keyboard covers – more on which later. Finally, there are front and rear “LifeCam” cameras, each capable of 720p HD video recording.

Microsoft currently has three hardware packages: the entry-level $499 Surface with 32GB of storage and no cover; the $599 Surface 32GB with a black Touch Cover; and the $699 Surface 64GB, again with a black Touch Cover.

Design and Construction

You have to give Microsoft its due when it comes to design and build: the company’s hardware division may be best known for its range of simple peripherals – keyboards, mice, and trackpads – along with Xbox, but Surface is another level of focus and thoughtful materials selection. If Microsoft needed to borrow any sort of strategy from Apple in tablets, it was attention to detail, and while Surface is distinctly different in its design and approach to mobile computing to the iPad, both slates share an exacting and rigorous conception.

Where the iPad is all curves and tapers, Surface musters angled edges and bevels to make its design mark. It’s crisp, and clean, and beautifully cohesive: its 676g weight is evenly spread through the chassis, meaning it doesn’t feel top-heavy or biased when you hold it in your hand, no matter the orientation. The “VaporMg” – Microsoft’s name for the specially treated magnesium alloy it has used – casing is both smooth and easily gripped, and though it’s still early days has proved reasonably resilient against scratches. It’s also meant to be fingerprint-resistant, though our unit had little trouble picking up enough prints from us to be a goldmine for law enforcement.

Surface with Windows RT unboxing and Accessories

Surface – and Windows RT – seems intended for landscape orientation use primarily, and so Microsoft has fitted the tablet with one of its most distinctive physical features: the pop-out kickstand on the back. Spanning the whole width of the slate, and almost half of its height, the slice of neatly machined metal clicks out with a thunk that’s both aurally and physically satisfying, propping up Surface at a 22-degree angle for typing or watching video. Closing it is equally pleasing, with hidden magnets making sure the stand snicks into position without vibration or wobble.

It’s not just a design afterthought, either. The rear camera shares the same angle – 22-degrees – as the kickstand, which means that when Surface is standing upright the webcam is pointing straight back, not down at the table. The front camera, meanwhile, points straight out from the fascia of the slate, since users are likely to be looking down at it, even when Surface is stood up.

Display

Beyond Windows RT itself, the display is probably the most contentious aspect of Surface. Microsoft opted for a custom-sized 10.6-inch panel that best fit with its keyboard sizing ambitions and the split-pane multitasking of Windows 8/RT, falling in-between the more typical 10.1- and 11.1-inches we’ve seen on slates from other manufacturers. What the company hasn’t done is go beyond the usual 1,366 x 768 resolution, rather than chasing Apple’s third-gen 9.7-inch iPad with its so-called Retina Display.

So, while other tablets are chasing pixels so densely packed you can hardly make them out individually in normal use, Microsoft refuses to join the resolution arms race despite complaints that Surface isn’t at least HD (oddly, even Microsoft seems to quietly agree on some level, since the Surface with Windows 8 Pro due in a few months time has a 1920 x 1080 display instead). Instead, it’s relying on “ClearType HD”, the latest iteration of Microsoft’s subpixel rendering system.

ClearType in fact dates back to late 1998, though it was only turned on by default in Windows from Vista onwards. It works by individually controlling each of the three subpixels – the red, green, and blue segments – in each overall pixel, and in the process effectively tripling the resolution of the screen. So, rather than just treating each LCD pixel (e.g. block of three subpixels) as a whole, ClearType can individually turn on or off each subpixel, allowing for more granular control.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, ClearType met with mixed reactions. On the one hand, it allows for a greater degree of detail than the on-paper resolution of the display would imply; however, because each of the pixels is a different color there is color fringing introduced. Depending on which subpixel is active, that fringing might be red, green, or blue. Some users find the fringing more noticeable; others complain of fuzziness around text. During our testing, at least one person using Surface found reading extended amounts of text could trigger headaches.

Happily other aspects of the display treatment are more successful all round: for instance, optically bonding the LCD and cover glass so as to reduce the distance between the two layers, increase the amount of light transmission, and cut out internal reflections that can lead to glare. It’s a process that’s increasingly being seen on smartphones, but has been slower to appear on larger devices like tablets due to the cost and complexity of the lamination process.

Overall, then, it’s a mixed bag. If your eyesight and ClearType HD play nicely together, then the combination of that and the optically bonded panel help bypass the need for the sort of huge resolutions Apple and Samsung are chasing on tablets. It’s worth remembering that more pixels require greater backlighting and thus a bigger battery (which adds weight, bulk, and takes longer to charge) too.

However, zoom in on graphics in the browser on the Surface and, side by side with an iPad 3, the difference in resolution is clear. It’s the same when you’re viewing photos in the gallery app: the Surface screen just doesn’t look as good.

Windows RT

To say there’s a lot of confusion about Windows RT is an understatement. Microsoft’s decision to split Windows 8 into two versions – one “full” build for the sort of x86 processors from Intel and AMD that Windows has been running on for years, and one pared-back version for ARM chipsets – makes sense in many ways, but poor communication as to the differences between the two means there are bound to be some tears early on.

Although there are numerous factors that separate Windows 8 and Windows RT, the biggest difference is in how software is handled. Windows 8 gets the full gamut of apps, whether they’re from the Windows Store – the on-device app store – or loaded separately, just as Windows users have been installing software for years now. The OS works with so-called “legacy” software; that is, apps designed and released when older versions of Windows were current.

Windows RT, however, is a cleaner break with the past. It doesn’t even try for compatibility with older apps, with no backward-compatibility. If you want software, it will have to be available in the Windows Store, though obviously with Internet Explorer onboard you have access to webapps too.

Muddying the waters somewhat is the fact that Windows RT still allows access to the traditional desktop, even if you can’t load traditional software to it. This is primarily of use with Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 RT Preview edition, preloaded on Surface, and the key app which uses the more familiar interface. Still, in a way, it’s as if the iPad had an option to peel away the iOS interface and reveal OS X underneath, only an OS X that you couldn’t really do much with. There’s no escaping the feeling that Microsoft left the desktop in place in Windows RT simply because it hadn’t had time to refresh Office with the Metro-style interface; indeed, no third-party apps will be allowed to use it.

So, Surface is a balance between two environments, and they do a good job of reminding where Microsoft struggled with tablets in the past. The Live Tile based homescreen, and apps designed specifically to fit in with it, are clean, clear, and easy to use: the epitome of finger-friendly. As on Windows Phone, they can pull in updates from social networks, the calendar, and other sources, and cycle through those new tidbits automatically. You can pin new apps, bookmarks, contacts, or other content to the homescreen; organize your icons into groups and subgroups; pinch-zoom to see your entire app landscape.

Swipe from the right edge into the middle of the display and you get the Start bar, with a button for the homescreen – mimicking the hardware Windows button below the display – as well as Search, Share, Devices, and Settings shortcuts. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen summons the contextual menu, its contents varying depending on what app you’re using at the time. A swipe in from the left flicks through the stack of open applications, in order of their most recent use.

Somewhat confusingly at first, Microsoft has gathered the search functionality into a single, unified hub. When you open the dialog, you can choose to either search across all areas, or to narrow your query down to a specific app, or the Windows Store, or for a particular setting. In addition to local content, you can access files plugged into the Surface’s full-sized USB port, such as from a thumb-drive. Unlike iPad, which isn’t really set up to handle external storage, Surface and Windows RT have no problem mounting an external drive and copying files to and from the slate’s own storage. Alternatively, if you’ve a folder full of videos, photos, or music, you can play them directly from the external drive itself.

If the new interface is a lesson in touchscreen usability, the legacy desktop shows why Microsoft has struggled for so long with its tablet software. For all its UI finessing, you can draw a line between Windows in traditional mode back to Windows XP: small text that is tricky to accurately hit with a fingertip; drag’n'drop that all too often results in a prematurely dropped file or folder. Those prior versions of Windows were designed for mouse navigation, and while it works well with the trackpad on the Touch Cover and Type Cover, it’s simply not intended for fingers to stab at with any degree of accuracy.

Overall, performance has proved solid from the Tegra 3 chipset. The Metro-style interface is slick and responsive; apps open without delay or lag; and the slide-in dialogs like search appear on a single swipe despite what the current app is doing. Microsoft’s multitasking system works similarly well, pulling in an adjustable second panel to the side of the current app, for side-by-side work or play. It’s particularly useful for keeping an eye on Twitter messages or Skype chats while otherwise browsing.

You’ll be spending a lot of time in the browser, since the Windows Store still lags behind in titles compared to iOS and Android, and webapps are a good alternative (or, indeed, the only option in many cases) to native code, so it’s a good thing it’s fast. Side by side with the iPad 3, the SunSpider browser benchmark test came in with a score of 1,128.0ms on Surface and 1,688.9ms on the iPad (faster is better). HTML5 apps and sites run very well, and streaming sites like Netflix have no issues whatsoever.

There’s limited Flash support – in fact, only those sites Microsoft decides simply have to use Flash to give a good experience get to access it – and, while Windows 8 users will have the choice of the Metro-style IE10 browser or the regular IE10 browser on the desktop, the latter with full Flash support, those running Windows RT have the same Flash limits in both variants. That, and the fact that Microsoft’s Flash access policy demands it actively add permission on a site-by-site basis, means most of the time Flash is a no-go on Surface.

That arguably puts RT – and Surface – somewhere in-between iPad and Android tablets for flexibility. For what it’s supposed to do, Windows RT does well. Problem is, Microsoft has done a pretty appalling job of explaining what it’s supposed to do. The baseline guidance is that with RT you miss out on Windows Media Player and Media Center, lack the ability to create HomeGroups and join Domains, and can’t install apps from anywhere other than the Windows Store. On the flip side, it promises instant-on and inescapable Windows Update and Windows Defender, automatically keeping Surface up-to-date and secure.

How much of those messages actually make it through to consumers is questionable, though, and the at-a-glance similarity between Windows RT and Windows 8 is unlikely to help differentiate between the platforms in stores. Surface Pro will span the divide when it arrives in early 2013, but we can envisage early confusion about the limitations and advantages of Windows RT overshadowing its strengths.

It’s fast and straightforward to use, the live tiles are convenient, and the first batch of apps made according to Microsoft’s Metro-style specifications are distinctive, but many users come to Windows – irrespective or unaware of version – expecting to be able to use the legacy software they’re familiar with. And, unless the developers of that software have cooked up a Windows RT version, they’ll be out of luck.

Touch Cover and Type Cover

Windows-based tablets have a long history of working well with keyboards. In fact, slate form-factors have been the Windows tablet minority so far: more common is the so-called hybrid or convertible, usually consisting of a rotating touchscreen that can flip around and then fold flat on top of the keyboard, switching a notebook into a (usually chunky) slate.

Times change, however, and keyboards have become optional accessories not integral parts of the tablet experience. Nonetheless, Surface and its keyboards have been closely developed: one of the reasons Microsoft chased a screen size larger than 10.1-inches was because it reduced tablet width and therefore made the keyboards cramped.

Right now, there are two keyboards to choose from, Touch Cover and Type Cover. The Touch Cover is the thinner of the two, a 3mm-thick slice of touch-sensitive fabric and plastic that docks to the bottom edge of Surface and functions as both a protective cover for the fascia and as a method of faster text entry. Microsoft says it put in several months of experimentation to ensure the magnetic clasp was both sturdy enough that you could dangle Surface from it, but still be so readily detached that a three-year-old could do it (something we tested ourselves).

There are no moving parts, only the outlines of keys laser-etched onto the plastic. Inside, pressure sensors track each touch of your fingers – all ten can be tracked individually at any one time – and decide whether the weight being applied is indicative of your hands resting on the ‘board or actively pressing a key. That point is around 40g of pressure, apparently, though Surface also uses the touch sensitivity to track whereabouts you’re consistently hitting the keys, so that it can continue to register key-presses even if you’re not dead-on with your aim.

It’s not a perfect alternative to a traditional keyboard, but it’s functional and – while we’re now reasonably speedy with on-screen ‘boards – if you stick with it you can reach higher speeds than when typing on glass. There’s a little give and a little textural feedback involved, and together they’re sufficient to coax a few more words-per-minute out. Microsoft claims it takes less than a week to grow familiar with the system, and that in time you can reach roughly double the speeds of a traditional on-screen layout, and though we didn’t quite achieve that sort of rate we were still able to punch out longer emails and other messages in relative comfort.

Those who simply can’t get the hang of a zero-profile keyboard have the Type Cover to opt for instead. Twice as thick, at 6mm, it has mechanical keys – albeit with minimal travel – and adds 0.55lbs to the weight of the Surface, versus the 0.46lbs of the Touch Cover. You get a full five row ‘board, as well as function keys that double as media and navigation shortcuts, plus a trackpad; as with the Touch Cover, closing it on the screen automatically puts Surface into standby.

Even with the extra depth, this is no buckling-spring keyboard. The feel when typing is akin to some of the more recent ultraportable notebooks: key-travel is noticeably curtailed, though we could quickly achieve a faster rate – with fewer errors – than with the Touch Cover. The broad spacebar is a particular boon.

Perhaps the biggest drawback is availability; Microsoft’s launch bundles mean that the only way to buy a Surface with the Type Cover but not the Touch Cover is to opt for the 32GB model. There’s no way to buy the 64GB variant without the Touch Cover too. Alone, the Type Cover is $129.99 (versus $119.99 for the Touch Cover).

Battery

Microsoft rates the 31.5 Wh battery Surface is equipped with for “all day battery life”; it’s a nebulous term, though it translated to real-world performance reasonably well. With heavy use, we managed a full day out of the slate, with a mixture of web browsing, some app use, local and streaming media, and a little camera work. It’s a good, solid showing for the Microsoft slate.

Where things get shaky is in standby time. While we’re used to plugging in our smartphones overnight, every night, tablets can be more sporadic in their usage. The expectation is that they can hold onto a reasonable charge for a more extended period, so that there’s juice available whenever you pick them up from the coffee table.

On that front, Surface falls behind its better rivals. Whereas you can leave an iPad unused for a few days, and come back to it with a fair expectation of having power left, Surface proved more profligate with its standby power. One time, we left it with a claimed 30-percent left on the battery meter, and after around 6hrs – with no active use in that time – it ran itself down and shut off.

Microsoft is still undoubtedly finessing its power management firmware, and it’s entirely possible that a software fix could stem the more aggressive flow of battery life. As it stands, it’s not an insurmountable problem, nor a deal-breaker – like we said, when active Surface posts admirable runtimes – but it’s something you’re forced to consider in your everyday use.

Wrap-Up

In the end, it all comes down to ecosystem. If you’re already invested in Microsoft then it’s a good solution: if you’re a Windows Phone user, or an Xbox 360 gamer, or simply have a background with Windows 7, then Surface will likely fit into your world more smoothly than an iPad or Android tablet might. If you’ve considered subscribing to Xbox Music, Microsoft’s streaming audio service, then Surface makes sense there, too, considering cross-platform apps for that haven’t been released yet.

Personal reactions of ClearType HD aside, it’s hard to be too critical of Microsoft’s hardware. The Surface team has cribbed some of Apple’s notorious attention to detail and applied it with its own spin, and the result is a well-constructed slate with legitimately useful design elements like the kickstand. You could argue that the focus on the Touch Cover and Type Cover are Microsoft proving reluctant to let go of physical keyboards, but using Surface without them is undoubtedly practical and their convenience (and the fact that Office is preloaded, albeit in preview form) means you get the best of both worlds.

Windows RT will undoubtedly prove the sticking point. That it comes late to the tablet game and thus with fewer apps than competing platforms is a given. That there are some for whom Windows itself is anathema is no surprise. However, the poorly-explained – and not easy to ascertain at first glance – differences in abilities between RT and Windows 8 will need time to bed down before Surface finds its niche. That will happen, but with headaches along the way, and it may not be until Surface Pro arrives with its higher-resolution screen and digital pen that Microsoft’s tablet gets the respect it deserves.

Hardware

This device is 259.8mm x 178mm x 11.65mm (9.3″ x 6.5″ x 0.46″) in size and 570g, that is, just under 1.3lbs. The device is certainly not the lightest 9-inch tablet on the market, nor is it the thinnest – but it sounds great. It’s got 2 stereo speakers with SRS Surround Sound, both of them with ever-so-slightly raised bits of plastic near their grilles to assure sound delivery even if the device is flat.

You’ve got a 1.3 megapixel camera on the front for video chat and a 3.0 megapixel camera on the back that takes OK photos and video – don’t expect to get too many masterpieces from either unit. See a few examples of the quality of this device’s main camera lower in this review. The sound collection quality is surprisingly decent, on the other hand, with one mic hole on the left and the other on the right of the device, this aiding in sound cancellation.

The ports you get around this device are relatively abundant for how expensive the device is, starting with a microUSB port on the right side near a micro-HDMI port for HD video output. The quality of the video you get here to an HDTV (provided you’ve got the right cable) is generally good – not spectacular, but certainly good enough for basic Google Play video and YouTube viewing. You’ve also got a basic combo jack for your headphones and microphone if you’d like, too.

You can get this device in 8GB and 16GB internal storage iterations and right under the top-back panel you’ve got a microSD card slot where you can expand your memory by another 32GB if you wish. The overall build quality of the tablet is rather high, with Lenovo letting us know that they’re not skimping on the construction just because it’s not a laptop or a desktop unit.

The display, on the other hand, is of a surprisingly lower-quality build than the rest of the device. The viewing angles are OK for the most part save – believe it or not – the top angle which does a color-flip once you’re at about 45 degrees. It’s a bummer, but if you’re the kind of person that keeps your tablet flat on the table most of the time, you’ll have a fine time. You’ll want to check this out in the store before you pick it up for this reason alone.

Software

This unit works with Lenovo’s own flavor of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich – this means there are a few modifications in the way you move back and forth between homescreens and you’ve got a vast collection of apps right out of the box. You also have some lovely widgets that are essentially giant folders where you can store your apps, get weather information, access music you’ve got stored on the device, and write notes.

You’ll want to check out our hands-on with the device in the video in this post to see how the software functions – there are a few hiccups here and there due to what we must assume is a firmware build that’ll be updated by Lenovo in the future. Lag here and there and some tiny one-pixel-row skips. Nothing to get too bent out of shape over.

The list of apps that you get in this device, if I’ve not said it enough already, certainly appears large compared to its competition. GO Keyboard, AccuWeather, Amazon Kindle, Lenovo App Shop, Cut the Rope HD, Docs to Go, ES File Explorer, Evernote, GameTanium, Lenovo Registration, LoPokeTALK for low-priced calls (for real, really), News Republic, Norton Security, ooVoo, PrinterShare for Lenovo, Skype, SugarSync, Wi-fi Direct, and Zinio – and these are only the apps added by Lenovo, there’s also the full set of Google apps you get with basically every Android device on the regular – the list also changes based on which region you pick this device up in.

This device is designed for the first-time Android user – one who wants to see what a variety of apps can do without looking for them first on the Google Play app store. If that’s you, you’ll feel perfectly comfortable in this environment. There’s also a lovely app simply called “UI Intro” that shows a video for your benefit – a lovely presentation of the user interface on your device – and it looks nice!

Camera

The camera on the back – all 3 megapixels of it – is in place for basic shooting only. Don’t expect it to perform any miracles. That said, if you’re into the Instagram scene, you’ll have some great success. Have a peek at some examples of highest-definition-possible photos and video.

Battery Life and Benchmarks

With the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor under the hood here with 1.2Ghz clock speed, you’ve got what’s basically the best piece of architecture in the whole device. NVIDIA’s constructed a processor that makes this device run smoothly – for the most part – with its only limits appearing to be the user interface in certain areas which seem to lag upon opening. Having seen the processor in action on several tablets in the past, I’d say these oddities have more to do with the software build than they have to do with the hardware – but in the end it’s always a combination of the two.

Have a peek at the basic benchmarks we’ve run on this device above and check the battery time below as well. This device benefits from the “ninja” 5th core in the processor (the Tegra 3 actually has 5 cores, the 5th only running when the device doesn’t need to be running high-demand tasks) – here the A2109 Lenovo tablet uses this architecture well, with battery life that does great on a regular basis.

Wrap-up

This device is a good effort from Lenovo, but put up in a competition against the rest of the Tegra 3 tablets we’ve seen, it’s just a bit lacking. If you’re looking for a 9-inch tablet with NVIDIA processing power inside it, this is your best bet, that’s for certain – especially if you just want it to be your radio all on its own: the speakers are really worth a listen. The A2109 really does have the power to run next-generation apps too, and you’ll have full access to the NVIDIA TegraZone app collection as well.

This device will run you $299, and for that price you’ll not be finding another tablet like the A2109. You can of course pick up a Nexus 7 for $199 – but that’s smaller than this. You could get an iPad mini (if it does indeed exist in a few weeks), but that won’t have Android, of course, and it certainly wont have a 9-inch display. Basically the final verdict is this: with a unique build, you won’t find Lenovo’s offering here lacking if you want it for a media-delivery system – unless the display will trip you up: check it out in the store, you simply must.

Earlier this month along with the Kindle Fire HD tablets Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos took to the stage and announced this new and improved 6-inch Kindle reader. Being the first of its kind (from Amazon at least) we’re giving it a thorough look. With an improved experience, better hardware, and of course a front-lit screen this is worth a second glance.

Hardware

The Paperwhite display aside, not much has changed from the previous Kindle Touch in terms of overall hardware. The design is for the most part unchanged and it still is an impressively light device being just 7.5 oz and only 9mm thin. The hardware has improved with a slightly smaller bezel, a nice matte black casing, and of course the dedicated buttons have all been removed. This can be a good thing, or bad thing depending on the user, but the on-screen controls with the improved capacitive touch display certainly is easy to use.

Under the hood we still have 2GB of internal storage (1GB usable) and sadly we don’t get an micro-SD slot for expanded storage, but you’ll be storing everything in the cloud with Amazon anyways. Then of course we have a dedicated power button, LED notification light, and micro-USB for the odd occasion you need to charge the eReader. Last but certainly not least is the 3G and WiFi connectivity. WiFi models start at $119, while the 3G model that works worldwide thanks to AT&T will run you $179. Oh and lets not forget those “Special Offers” and sponsored screensavers.

Personally, we are big fans of the changes to the hardware. The home button wasn’t exactly needed with such a simple user interface, and the improved soft-touch black matte backing certainly is nice. Although the concave back on the NOOK is still something we favor. Overall impressions on the hardware are excellent. Build quality feels top notch, and screen durability seems improved over its predecessor too. Take a peek at our hands-on and software overview video below.

Paperwhite

Now the big thing here is obviously the “Paperwhite” display. The best way to explain this would be from Amazon themselves in this post. Essentially what we have here is a front — or side-lit display — instead of a backlit screen that will strain your eyes after an extended period of time. What makes the new Paperwhite that much better than the Touch is not just the built-in light on the screen, but the 6-inch display has 62% more pixels (221PPI) with a 1024 x 768 resolution too. The screen looks better, text is crisp, vivid, and easy to read, and of course the light makes the reading experience top notch.

The Paperwhite uses Amazon’s new patented light guide technology that actually guides the light across the screen and down, away from the eyes. Using only 4 LED’s you’ll get awesome options with lighting without suffering in the battery life department — but more on that later. The display isn’t all about the light either. The Paperwhite screen is 25% better in terms of contrast for sharper and dark text. Add the better contrast to a crisp screen, then toss in the Paperwhite lighting technology this reader is excellent during daily use as always, but also great in low-light conditions as you can clearly see below.

In use, it’s certainly better that using an actual tablet for extended reading periods, and since this is still e-ink you won’t be lighting up the entire room if you’re reading in bed. This is the best for both worlds if you ask us. As you saw in our video above, adjusting the “Paperwhite” lighting is as simply as sliding your finger. Tap the top of the screen for the toolbar drop-down, then just tap the light-bulb to adjust as needed. For those worried about this new light and capacitive touch technology to hinder the reading experience, it’s safe to say that isn’t the case. Reading is simply awesome and we’ve loved our limited time with the new Paperwhite — and you will too.

Software

There really isn’t much to talk about regarding software, since the user interface is so basic. Everything you’ve grown to love about the Kindle line is in-tact — and they’ve even added a few awesome additions to make things even better. We have time to read, x-ray, and tools for readers all available with ease. X-Ray lets you instantly find any and all details of any character, place, or moment in a book. Amazon explains this as letting you explore the “bones of the book” with a detailed breakdown, and so far we love it. Seeing and jumping to exact points in a 400 page read with ease is an awesome new feature for those diehards.

Time to read is another great new improvement. It’s nothing special but just adds that extra level of polish to the experience. This tool helps readers know the amount of time it will take them to finish the chapter, or the entire book. It personalizes the time based on each person’s speed, and constantly updates as their reading habits change. While interruptions change the output, this has generally been quite accurate for us. Last but certainly not least is the built-in dictionary. Just long press any word while reading for a detailed definition. We also have instant translations by simply highlighting a section for easy translation.

Being E-Ink the software is still only as fast as the hardware and the refresh times, which while improved — still take time out of usage. Nothing worth docking points for, as Amazon’s always had some of the better refresh rates on their Kindle readers. The seamless sync of books across multiple devices, and all the new features added makes this the best Kindle reading experience yet.

Battery

Battery, which we stated above we’d talk more about — can’t really be talked about too much. Amazon estimates 8 weeks of battery life. Yes, that was 8 weeks. Even with the new light and built-in 3G you’ll still rarely need to charge the Whitepaper. Amazon states the 8 week claim is with limited 1 hour of daily reading and wireless being turned off — but either way that is still extremely impressive. Offering nearly the same battery life as before while delivering a lit display and tons of new features makes us plenty happy.

Leave WiFi or 3G enabled and this battery life drops down to about 5 weeks — which is still impressive and beats the Nook Glowlight across the board. So far I’ve read a little daily for the past week and a half and haven’t seen the battery meter drop one bit — so take it as you will.

Wrap-Up

Overall what’s not to like here? You get an improved experience across the board with a better, crisper, clearer display, the option to read in any lighting situation, and all of this for only $119. While they’ve dropped the original Touch down to $79, we feel the $40 premium for the Paperwhite is crucial and an excellent choice. Sadly those “special offers” or ads as we call them will be noticeable every time you open this book. You can opt out by spending $139 instead of $119 for the WiFi model, and the same increase is present for the 3G $179 model.

There’s no doubt that the Paperwhite feature works, and works great. For those that want the best possible reading experience across the board the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is certainly worth your dollar, and it’s available now at Amazon — shipping tomorrow. However the Kindle Fire HD is a great alternative for those seeking to do a little more with their tablet for a slight increase in price. Obviously if reading will be nearly the only function the Paperwhite is the clear (and bright) choice in our book.

Meet the Kindle Fire HD. This time around everything’s been completely improved. It’s faster, more powerful, lighter, thinner, and even looks a bit better too. The styling has seen a massive change from the original, and the curved edges and aluminum band around back gives it some character. No longer is this just a black squared rectangle that wishes it ran Android.

Hardware

As we mentioned above everything has been improved with the Fire HD. That old and dare I say ugly design of the original has been replaced with a unique, custom, and elegant design that surely will have a few happy. While it could still use some improvements (like a smaller bezel) it certainly is prettier than its older brother.

The Kindle Fire HD measures in at 193 x 137 x 10.3mm in size. Which is about 1.1mm thinner than the original but a little wider and taller. So while it doesn’t offer a huge change in size, the curved edges and smooth corners makes it feel and look much thinner. The designs starting to grow on me although I’ll never get used to those buttons. It’s also slightly lighter than the original while getting a bump in all specs under the hood, but only by a hair. Take a peek at our unboxing and first impressions below.

As you can see from the video everything is quite elegant this time around. The flooding of matte black is nicely changed with the aluminum band around back, and the stereo speaker grills — while odd in design — give it even more character and a unique look we’ve not seen yet from most tablet manufactures. Overall the design is quite calm and looks to by flying under the radar with nothing loud about it. Sleek, dark, and powerful.

As far as internal specs Amazon has stepped it up considerably but still isn’t up to par with recent devices like the Nexus 7. We get a brilliant and vivid 7-inch display (more on that below) with a 1280 x 800 HD resolution. The Fire HD is powered by a Texas Instruments 4470 dual-core processor, it has been stepped up to 1GB of RAM, and of course has 16GB of storage all for $199. A few notable features is the Kindle Fire HD is the first tablet with dual-band MIMO WiFi support (for better, faster connectivity) and it also features Dolby Digital stereo speakers.

If we didn’t make it clear enough in our video above, while we love the design and slim edges, the fact that the power and volume buttons are so hard to find/push was a cause for concern. We were constantly searching for the power button and it will surely take some getting use to. There’s nothing on the left side, around to the top you’ll have a single microphone for video chatting, then the right side houses the buttons just mentioned. You’ll also get micro-USB and micro-HDMI down on the bottom for charging, syncing, and streaming all that Amazon HD content to a bigger screen.

Display and Speakers

As we mentioned above the display has been rather impressive. Amazon made a big deal about their technology and coating to prevent glare for those movie watching or outdoor readers but we’ve hardly noticed a difference. Screen glare remains a problem, but might be less of a problem with the Kindle Fire HD.

As far as actual screen quality however, it is stunningly gorgeous, bright, and crisp. The 1280 x 800 resolution HD display is an IPS panel. This means we have accurate and not overly saturated colors, vivid and crisp text, and excellent viewing angles. Now that we have a higher resolution all that HD content from Amazon can finally be put to use — at a premium. Movies will cost a little extra, plus their size will take up extra space, and the same goes for games and apps. However that is worth the tradeoff because it’s rather fun to look at.

The Stereo speakers are also pretty stellar. The Fire HD is the first tablet with Dolby Digital Plus technology integrated into the tablet. While sound quality wasn’t of the highest we’ve heard, it certainly was loud and crisp and certainly can be heard from a distance. Most tablets don’t have this type of audio quality so we’ll give both of them a thumbs up for that.

Software

Android… Fire… Ice… What do we have here? The Amazon Kindle Fire is running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but you’d never know from looking at it. Aside from the pulldown notification bar Google’s old Andy is no where to be seen. They’ve got their own Amazon App Store, their own Maps (powered by Nokia) and their own slew of video players and reader solutions. This is nothing new and exactly like the previous Kindle — just a little faster. Their Fire UI has completely put out the blazes of Android.

The user interface in general will either appeal to most, or be bothersome. The content-rich in your face design never fades, and Amazon’s constant nag (recommendation) of other movies, apps, books, videos, or other purchases is as present as ever. Instead of explaining the Fire UI to everyone, since you’ve probably seen it before, enjoy our extended hands-on video review for a better idea of software looks and performance.

As you can see, the interface is largely the same and basically unchanged. However, it’s extremely smooth. Not quite buttery smooth, but a huge increase and certainly smoother than before. While we did experience the occasional hiccup or browser lag, in general performance has remained swift even after hours of usage.

The “customers also bought,” “More products” and “similarly viewed” content is all in your face. We’ve talked a lot about the ads or commercial space, and well, because it’s everywhere. Amazon has stated there will be an opt-out, but we’ll talk more on that another time.

Everything from reading, enjoying a movie, or checking out the latest set of apps has all remained unchanged. Why tweak the reading experience when it’s so excellent. What Amazon has done however is improved it with small additions. We now have X-Ray as shown in the video above. X-Ray gives users an in-depth look at the book their engulfed in, details on every character, and where in the book (or movie) they are mentioned. With videos you’ll be treated with the same awesome X-Ray feature and it’s also integrated with IMDB. From there you can pause the movie you’ve just rented and look up everything you’d ever like to know about that cute girl in the scene. See other movies she’s been in — and of course they’ll obviously recommend more films for you to purchase.

Overall we’ve been rather satisfied with the largely unchanged yet faster software and user experience. Productivity is certainly not on the forefront here as this tablet is all about content consumption and purchases. The awesome and easy-to-use multitasking features of Android, especially 4.0 ICS have been completely removed. There’s a few small multitasking options like music in the dropbown bar but for the most part any sort of multitasking is slow, cumbersome, and a chore.

At the end of the day the software is pretty solid. For those that want a streamlined user interface with everything you need (and might need) directly provided front and center with suggestions and large HD content this is surely for you. For the Android enthusiast this is a long ways from anything Android. Oh and if you don’t like all those ads and suggestions you can opt out for about $15.

Battery Life

As far as battery life is concerned you shouldn’t have much of an issue here. For the occasional users that gets up and reads the occasional webpage, checks a few movie times and sports scores and more this tablet can clearly last a solid 3-4 days of medium usage. When it comes to more intensive things the Fire HD was on par with most recent tablets.

With the Fire HD running a continuous video loop we managed just over 9 hours of usage. Amazon quotes it for 11 but you probably won’t quite be getting that unless you have the brightness pretty low and do light tasks. The Nexus 7 lasted a tiny bit longer with rundown tests, but sadly we weren’t able to fire up the usual Android apps to test most of those things we like to test.

It’s safe to say you can read for hours, enjoy videos for an entire road trip, or casually use this device on the couch all without worrying about a charger too much.

Competition

As far as the competition is concerned, no one can hit this price point except for Google. Most tablets in this size range, even with lower specs, aren’t able to come near the $199 price point Amazon introduced — and now reintroduced while beating out the Nexus 7. With the iPad Mini looming but still not announced we can’t compare that — yet. As far as the Android ecosystem goes the Nexus 7 gives this a pretty good run for its money.

When we reviewed the Google Nexus 7 we said it was the best 7-inch tablet money could buy, if not the best Android tablet in general. Now just 3 months later we have this nipping at its heels. Overall however the Nexus 7 performs better in all tests. The Android 4.1 Jelly Bean speed with the Chrome Browser always won by at least a few seconds. Intensive games seem to handle things better, and the Nexus 7 has the full Google Play Store. In the end though it isn’t about which is better for your $200 crisp dollar bills. It’s about what you need. For those looking for that all around tablet experience the Nexus 7 reigns supremacy simply for the fact that it’s pure unaltered Android. For those looking for an awesome consumption device that doesn’t need the bells and whistles that Google provides — the Kindle Fire HD is a finely tuned content consumption machine.

Wrap-Up

Just like we mentioned above, the Kindle Fire HD is a mighty fine device. Amazon’s increased the speed and performance throughout, improved the display (obviously) and added even more awesome features. If you don’t mind the slightly subsidized feeling, or pay for the opt-out, you’ll surely be in for an enjoyable experience. In the end we can’t help but feel like this tablet is just as much for shopping and browsing Amazon.com than it is for searching the web and enjoying movies.

In terms of Amazon’s complete ecosystem of games, apps, videos, movies, books, music and more this is the perfect tablet. Deep down however for those looking to do more with their tablet like what we see with the iPad and the Nexus 7 — the Kindle Fire still has a little ways to go. If Amazon will ever take it there is a different story.

Screen and pre-installed apps

The Sony Reader PRS-T2 sports a 6-inch pearl E Ink touchscreen, and like nearly every other eReader out there, one of the big draws of the screen is that you can read it in direct sunlight. The screen actually looks great when it’s in direct sunlight, and it looks just as good when you take it indoors. The goal behind E Ink displays is to make it feel like you’re reading the page of an actual book, and the Reader PRS-T2 definitely succeeds in that respect. Reading on this is a pleasure – the text on the screen is always nice and sharp, and as an added bonus, Sony has cut back on screen flashes with this latest in the Reader line. Instead of flashing every time you turn the page, the screen flashes once every 15 page turns. Ghosting can sometimes be an issue as a result, but really it isn’t something that’s noticeable all the time. Most likely, you’ll be too absorbed in the book you’re reading to notice, as it isn’t enough to actually make reading any more difficult.

Having touch capabilities is a nice feature, letting you turn the page by swiping the screen instead of using the physical buttons that have taken up residence along the bottom edge of the screen. Touch will undoubtedly be appreciated by most, but to tell you the truth, I like the fact that the Reader PRS-T2 sports actual buttons. To complement the touch screen, Sony has included a stylus. There isn’t any dock for the stylus like we see on the Samsung Galaxy Note or the Nintendo DS, for example, so you’ll have to keep it in a pocket, which inevitably means that it’s only a matter of time before that sneaky stylus turns up missing (for some of us anyway). The stylus makes navigating easier, especially for someone with big, clunky man hands like me, and there are quite a few instances when the stylus comes in handy, such as when you’re using the Notes app, browsing the web, or highlighting text in a book.

Let’s back track for a minute and focus a little more on those physical buttons toward the bottom of the device. There are five in total: page back, page forward, home, previous, and menu. They’re all pretty much self-explanatory – page back and page forward obviously move through the pages of your book, home takes you to the main menu screen (more on that later), previous takes you back to the last page you were viewing, and menu opens up a little menu packed with options while you’re reading a book. In this menu, you can do things like change the font and its size. There are six or seven different font options (though to be honest I liked the default font the best), and you have a pretty wide range of font sizes to choose from too, from “teeny tiny” all the way up to “you must be legally blind if you need the text to be this big.”

Also in this menu is a navigate page button, which allows you to quickly speed through the pages in your book so you aren’t stuck hitting the page buttons or swiping the screen over and over again. From here, you can also jump back to the book’s table of contents. There are also some shortcuts to the Notes and Handwriting apps, as well as an option that lets you customize your page view, giving you control over the page layout and how the text is displayed. As if those options weren’t enough, there are additional options that allow you to search your book for a specific term, switch between portrait and landscape modes easily, and share what you’re reading to Facebook.

While you’re reading a book, you can highlight a word or a phrase and do a couple of things. In the case of a word, you can look it up in the New Oxford American Dictionary, which comes installed on the PRS-T2. Alternatively, you can also do a Google search for the word, or look it up on Wikipedia, a feature that is nice to have around if you want to know more about a character or place in the book you’re reading. With quotes, you might want to share them to Facebook, or save them in Evernote.

The Reader PRS-T2 boots up relatively quickly, taking a few seconds depending on how big the book you’re currently reading is, and it isn’t long before you find yourself on the main menu screen. From here, you can continue your book right where you left off – it even tells you how many pages you’ve read and when you last read it – or take a look at your four most recently added books or some Reader Store selections. At the bottom of the main menu screen, there are three touch buttons – Bookshelf, Reader Store, and Apps. Bookshelf takes you to a page that displays all the books you have installed in a neat little fashion, whereas Reader Store obviously takes you to the Sony Reader storefront, and Apps takes you to – right again – a page where your installed Apps are displayed.

The PRS-T2 comes with a number of Apps pre-installed ranging from the Public Library app and pictures app, to the aforementioned dictionary, notes, and browser apps. Included are shortcuts to periodicals you’ve downloaded, as well as a handwriting app that allows you to jot down handwritten notes (or drawing maps, as in one of the examples that comes pre-loaded on the PRS-T2). From the Apps screen, you also have the opportunity to set up the PRS-T2’s Facebook integration, or link your Evernote account. Having Evernote integrated is going to be a big draw for a lot of people, considering how popular the service has become. With Evernote, you can add quotes from your favorite books to your collection of notes, or save something you’ve written up with the handwriting app. For many, it’s going to be nice to have Evernote along for the ride, and Sony definitely earns big points for including it in the Reader PRS-T2.

Browsing the Reader Store for new books is simple as well. There are actually a surprising number of books on the Reader Store, meaning that you’re only ever a few taps away from having a brand new book to dive into. Navigating is made easy by the categories the Reader Store is split up in, but if browsing isn’t quite your thing, there is naturally a search function, allowing you to find books based on title, keyword author. While it may not have as many books available as the Amazon Store, the Reader Store still definitely boasts enough to keep any reader satisfied for a long time.

One little bonus that I particularly liked was the fact that the Reader displays the cover of the book you’re currently reading when it’s in sleep mode. This gives you a chance to see how sharp the eReader display actually is, and also has the added benefit of looking really cool. Though we don’t expect ads to be shown on anything that isn’t a Kindle, it has to be said here – Sony doesn’t display any ads on the Reader PRS-T2, meaning that when the Reader is off, the only thing you see is a blank screen. That isn’t much of a surprise, but it’s worth noting, especially considering that Amazon’s Kindle ads have a tendency get people riled up.

As with most eReaders, the battery on this thing lasts a really long time. That is, after all, one of the major benefits of an E Ink screen. Sony says that the Reader PRS-T2’s battery can last for up to 8 weeks, and to be frank about it, I’m going to have to trust them with this one. The battery came about three quarters of the way charged, and despite using it every night for more than a week – I’ve been reading George R.R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords on it, and anyone who has read that book knows it doesn’t let go easily – I still haven’t been able to kill it. Naturally, the battery will go a bit faster if you have Wi-Fi on all the time, but even then, you probably won’t be reaching for the charger all that often.

Wrap-Up

So, by now you know that the Sony Reader PRS-T2 comes packed with a lot of nifty features. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t matter much if you have a device that isn’t comfortable in use. Thankfully, the Reader PRS-T2 succeeds there as well, and it’s lightweight design (the Reader PRS-T2 comes in at just under 6 ounces) makes it very easy to hold. That’s true even for someone like me, who has hands that may as well belong to Hagrid or Andre the Giant. The only problem is that the PRS-T2’s lightweight design also makes it feel a bit fragile. It’s definitely sleek and minimalistic (no ugly full keyboards here), but it also demands that you treat it gently. Naturally, I’m not going to start hurling it across the room to test its durability, but it’s safe to say that exercising a little extra caution when transporting it isn’t a bad idea, especially with that 6-inch screen taking up most of the front.

It’s easy to fall for the Reader PRS-T2 – that much is definitely true. However, with that being said, we’ve already seen most of these features on other eReaders. There’s no question that the Sony Reader PRS-T2 is a solid eReader, but that unfortunately doesn’t help with the feeling that it’s a little late to the party. Sony is to be commended for releasing a feature-rich eReader like the one I’ve been enjoying recently, but I wish it had done so sooner. It comes with something of a steep price tag too – $130. Of course, it’s important to remember that the price of this Reader isn’t subsidized with ads, but I still feel like the price is a little too high for what you’re ultimately getting. If Sony would bring the price down a little bit, it would do a lot to make the Reader PRS-T2 a hit with the eReader fanatics of the world.

Still, aside from the price, there’s a lot to like about the device. I certainly have no major qualms with it, and in fact I really enjoyed the time I spent with it. If you can get over the price and don’t mind the fact that you won’t have a backlight at your disposal, then I’m sure you’ll be satisfied with the Reader PRS-T2. It comes packed with a lot of extra features and is easy to use – making it a good idea for those who are new to the eReader scene – and it’s a good looking device to boot, so if you’re in the market for a new eReader, definitely give the PRS-T2 a look before you make your decision.

Hardware

This device rolls out with a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 pixel resolution 10.1-inch display surrounded by a rather unique looking bit of chassis. You’ll be working with this device in white with slightly darker gray nearer the display, and the device brings on Archos’ own “Coverboard.” This Coverboard is both a protector for the display and a keyboard dock.

The Coverboard’s keyboard is made up of a collection of chiclet-style keys that are easy to type with when compared to the touchscreen interface. It’ll be difficult for you to get used to this keyboard if you’re used to a MacBook or if you’re using a keyboard on a desktop computer with massive keys – they are indeed physical keys here, so you’ll be able to do real typing, but beware their connection to Android.

While Android does accept the connection to Bluetooth keyboards and has for some time, there’s always a bit of lag that you’ll be dealing with. It’s certainly not the fault of Archos hardware, as we’ve had this situation occur many times with devices using Android, it’s simply the place that Google’s mobile software build is at right this minute. That said, this device is the closest to a real everyday typing machine using Android that we’ve seen thus far.

The Coverboard connects to the tablet using a magnetic interface and a kickstand that rises up from the board itself. This kickstand works well, but you should be careful with it – make sure you’re not letting your kids work with this device as there is a chance that said stand will snap off – watch out!

Archos lets us know that this tablet is 21 ounces light and 0.31″ thin, quite small by any tablet’s standards. The Coverboard adds 0.2″ of thickness and holds tight with magnets to the tablet when you’re ready to put it in your backpack. The Coverboard also has a strange combination of power abilities: when the tablet is docked and the dock is plugged in to the wall, the dock will charge the tablet. When the dock is not plugged in, however, the tablet will charge the dock. Strange stuff!

This device will also be working with accessories in the future with the same docking technology including an ARCHOS Speaker Dock, an ARCHOS Docking Station, and ARCHOS Pouches. We’ll have a peek at those when they’re ready for the market. This device also comes with 16GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot that’s able to take up to SDXC 64GB cards. You’ve also got a miniHDMI port, charging and PC access via a micro USB port, and both Wi-fi and Bluetooth 4.0 for wireless connectivity.

Software

This tablet comes with a nearly vanilla version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s got all your Google favorites like Google Play for digital media purchases, Gmail, Google+, and access to Google Drive right out of the box. Of course all of these apps (minus the Google Play store) are available to download by any Android device just so long as you’ve got the Google Play store and support for said store on your hardware.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is in full effect with multi-tasking via your recent apps button on the screen in the dock and we’ve been told that Archos will be updating this device to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean by the end of the year. Archos has also added a collection of Media Center apps so you can see codec and format information on your movies and photos. Seeing your codec and format information also allows you to search items like title, series, actor, subtitle, and other information at will – just so long as your media has that information in the first place.

This device also comes with OfficeSuite Pro 6 for your Microsoft Office documents. This app allows you to read and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents as well as read PDF documents at will. Also have a peek at a benchmark or two below to see how this device performs with the OMAP 4470 CPU with PowerVR SGX544 GPU. Note that we’re working with an Engineering Sample here, so these might not be perfect final numbers:

Battery Life

This device works well to bring on an abundance of battery life, that’s for certain. We’ve not yet seen a tablet in the Android universe that didn’t last a full day even with heavy usage, and this Archos slate doesn’t disappoint. With the Coverboard you’ve also got an extension of your battery life- with both, you’ve got at least 10 hours of action even if you’re playing games.

Of course you’ve also got to note that we’re still using an Engineering Sample, so final results on the battery may differ in the end. Standby time, though, will likely remain largely the same. If you’re not using the device at all and leave it to sit on its own, with the display off, you’ll have days of battery time – we’re currently at more than four days without needing to charge – what a whopper!

Wrap-Up

This device presents a rather interesting – and certainly unique – offering to the Android tablet universe. Compared to the ASUS Transformer Prime with keyboard dock, this device doesn’t quite seem as high quality a final product – but it’s a lot less expensive at the same time at $399, dock included. We’re also thinking about how this device is currently set for a November release: this doesn’t bode well for a tablet that’s already slightly behind the times for specifications when compared to devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, for example.

If the Archos 101 XS is released in November sporting Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and essentially the same build we’re seeing here, it might be worth $399. It’s still a slightly surprising combination though now that the 7-inch wave is upon us.

If you’d like to know anything we’ve not covered above about this device, please feel free to let us know in the comments area below!

What we have here is a tablet that Lenovo has designed to be well built, well priced, and budget friendly. Coming in at just $349 with 16GB of internal storage it’s an ideal offering, although the Nexus 7 severely undercuts it — while being more powerful. First you’ll need to see our hands-on and unboxing, then lets dive into the tablet and see what we think. Shall we?

Hardware

In the very recent past Lenovo’s hardware and build quality has always been one of the low points of their tablets, but with the S2109 they’ve surprisingly done a much better job in that department. Offering it at a low price at the same time doesn’t hurt either. The build quality and hardware is improved, but it still isn’t up to Samsung or Apple standards.

Lenovo’s equipped this S2109 tablet with some pretty poor specs to meet that low price point though. You get an old, aging, and quite grainy 9.7-inch display rocking the same 4:3 aspect ratio and terrible 1024 x 768 resolution that the original (yes as in a few years old) iPad had. Almost all Android tablets come with at least a 1280 x 800 resolution so this is instantly looking worse once you glance into the screen. After using the Acer A700 with a 1920 x 1200 resolution, or our new iPad with Retina display this thing almost hurts my eyes.

Other than that you’ll get a mid-range 1.0 Ghz dual-core TI OMAP 4 processor, 1GB of RAM, and this model comes with 16GB of internal storage — they do offer a 32GB version for those in need too. We would rather of seen the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core here, but we’ll take what we get. Overall however the S2109 both looks and feels smaller than a 9.7-inch tablet because of the curved rounded edges and the sleek unibody design. Sadly the back is a hard plastic and not aluminum and it picked up scratches extremely quick. Lenovo has shipped the tablet with a silicone case right inside the box however, so that is an added bonus.

As for ports and options you’ll quickly notice the micro-HDMI and micro-USB ports on the right side, followed by a reset pinhole, the proprietary jack for charging, and a micro-SD slot for extra storage options. The top is outfitted with a single volume up/down rocker, then the left side is the lone 3.5mm headphone jack and power/wake button. The design is pretty basic, but works great for those who might be just beginning.

Sadly the hardware isn’t anything special. The best part is probably the unibody design (although it’s plastic) and the quad-stereo SRS surround sound speakers. The only camera is the 1.3 MP shooter up front, and they scraped the rear camera in favor of a low price. The speakers offer quite great sound for a little and budget tablet. While they won’t fill an entire room — most tablets don’t — they do have clear and crisp sound. We have mixed feelings on the hardware and build quality, but I guess for $349 it’s ok but we’d rather just buy an iPad 2.

Software

The Lenovo S2109 runs a completely stock version of Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich which is a nice change since their previous attempts had a lot of changes — for the worse. Everything is completely vanilla and they’ve not touched the launcher, settings or notification bar or anything. For some reason however it seems to stutter and lag more than it should.

Lenovo’s pre-loaded AccuWeather, Lenovo App Shop, Documents To Go, Evernote, Adobe Flash Player, Go Keyboard, Movie Studio, Norton Security, Lenovo PrinterShare, Skype, SugarSync, News Republic, and Zinio. More than I’d like to deal with, but a few are quite nice. First thing you’ll want to do however is disable that terrible Go Keyboard and stick with ICS stock option.

Performance and Benchmarks

Unlike many recent tablets the Lenovo doesn’t run an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor. Instead it runs a pretty basic and aging Cortex A9 Texas Instruments chip that lags behind most of the tablet competition, even compared to old Tegra 2 dual-core options. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich had a little lag here and there that wasn’t expected, but that could be due to the old and aging processor under the hood. For the most part performance was fluid and swift, but we had to mention those odd stutters. Operation throughout the OS wasn’t too bad, it was browsing the web, reading RSS feeds, or checking through the market that seemed to struggle more than most.

Benchmarks, as expected, fall far behind most of the competition. Tablets like the Transformer Prime, or even cheaper options like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10 (2) all are a little better in this category. We see where Lenovo was aiming, but they just haven’t quite hit the mark. Scoring lower benchmark tests than all 3 mentioned above. Here’s a quick look at Quadrant and AnTuTu — which speak for themselves.

The boot time is rather long, and has a loud and slightly obnoxious animation and sound that is louder than anything else the tablet puts out, which we found a little odd. Playing your average games was decent although the slow processor and low resolution display gives you a less than stellar experience compared to the competition.

Camera and Battery Life

Now first we’ll start with the camera, since it only has one. Most tablets these days offer both a front and rear camera but here we only have a 1.3 megapixel front camera. It’s capable of 720p video but you’d hardly tell. While I don’t consider it a con that there’s no rear camera, many tablets currently offer one in this same price point — so we’ll take another notch off for that.

Battery life is one area that the Lenovo IdeaTab S2109 does do well though. It comes with a 6,720 mAh battery under the hood that lasted for around 7-8 hours of solid use. They claim 10 hours of video playback but we doubt you’ll make it that far. Stand-by battery was quite excellent too. Using the tablet here and there briefly during the evenings and leaving it at a table nearby we managed great battery life as you can see here. Some tablets no matter what will run out of life after a few days, but not the S2109.

Wrap-Up

When using this tablet over the past few weeks we decided that for $349 you could probably do worse, but at the same time you could easily do better. Overall Lenovo has designed a decent mid-range tablet with ok specs, and a low price. With the iPad 2 being just $399 these days, and powerful quad-core Android tablets being similarly priced we had a hard time giving this a thumbs up of any kind.

If you’d like to stay under the $400 mark we’d easily have to recommend the ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T. It rocks a quad-core, higher resolution, and an optional keyboard for only $379, as well as the brand new Google Nexus 7 16GB for just $249. For those looking for a 9.7+ tablet the iPad 2 or even the new Acer Iconia Tab A510 would be a great option.

In the end the Lenovo IdeaTab S2109 is a well built tablet, it functions well and operates smoothly. The mid-range at best specs, low resolution, lack of a rear camera, and occasional stutters makes it hard to justify. For the price you could do better, but if Lenovo drops her down to $299 this might be a slightly different story.

Hardware

This tablet certainly isn’t the thinnest 7-inch tablet in the world at 0.41″, but it’s extremely light, and the relatively soft plastic back is super comfortable to handle. This device is sized at 7.8″ x 4.72″ x 0.41″ so you can fit it in your back pocket if you wish, and the display, at a whopping 7-inches with 1280 x 800 pixel LED-backlit IPS (216 ppi), is more than fabulous enough for your HD-loving eyeballs. For comparison’s sake: the Galaxy Tab 7.7 is 196ppi and the iPad 3 is 264ppi, so you’ve got a device that’s right up there in the big leagues.

It’s brighter than you could possibly need it to be in any average day’s activities indoors, comes in a couple different color combinations: black and black (though our Google I/O edition with a black/white combination may be a sign of things to come), and feels really nice to work with. The front-facing camera is certainly OK, but isn’t a vast improvement over anything we’ve seen before, with quality just high enough that we’ll not be taking many photos with it at all – a good thing, too, since this device does not come with a camera app installed because of its push for Google+ hangouts – and eventual Project Glass interaction.

You’ve got a bit of a hidden bonus in the fact that this is one of the only tablets on the market today that uses a standard microUSB for charging. You’ll want to use the included power converter from the package, of course, but running through that little standard port is good for everybody. The speakers are generous on their own, with a single slit running down the back for blasting, but as you’ll come to realize through this review, this device was made more for sharing to other devices – like the brand new Google Nexus Q, introduced at Google I/O 2012 right alongside the Nexus 7. Have a peek at the Q in action here:

Software

Inside of this device you’ll find Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, an updated version of the Google mobile operating system that takes what Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich did for both the smartphone and the tablet and pumps it up with a few applications and features that make it all just a bit more tasty. This device is focused heavily on the Google Play store, as it will be immediately apparent once you’ve had a peek at this hands-on video:

This device is also ready to rock with the TegraZone for games. NVIDIA’s gaming portal TegraZone is a place we’ve visited quite a few times in the past few months here on SlashGear – have a peek at games such as Max Payne Mobile and Renaissance Blood to see what beasts await your game-loving fingers.

Then other than the Jelly Bean upgrades you’ve seen above, there’s not one whole heck of a lot here that wont be available to the rest of the Android universe immediately if not soon. If you loved Ice Cream Sandwich on your tablet – or even if you loved Honeycomb on your tablet, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how this device’s software takes advantage of everything great from those previous versions of the OS and adds a bunch more in all the right places.

Have a peek at a few benchmarks from this device as well to see how the software and the hardware add up with one another:

Connectivity

Though we’ve seen this device connect with the Nexus Q, and quite impressively so, we’ll need a bit more convincing before it’s time we call this a device better at sharing than the HTC One series or the Galaxy S III. Sharing is indeed at the center of this device’s launch, on the other hand, moving forth with mostly its hands on music and videos at parties and in the home. We saw this device demonstrated once and then demonstrated again with its ability to connect via Wi-fi to the Nexus Q. With the Nexus Q in tow, this tablet appears quite apt to control your whole home media experience quite easily – and it’s fun, too!

Battery

This device’s battery works fabulously well, this more than likely due to the fifth core in NVIDIA’s architecture under the hood. The fifth core is designed to be sort of like a “ninja” core, waking up and taking on the low-power processing necessary when the device has its display off. This has the rest of the cores turned off at that point as well, this making low battery drain a reality.

Because of this we’ve seen several days of life when the device is asleep. When the device is being used heavily, we’ve got something like a 6-8 hour lifespan. That’s when you’re doing nothing but playing heavy requirement games and streaming video from your wi-fi connection. Light use you’ll get a day’s worth of uptime, no problem.

Wrap-Up

What you’ve got here is a fun machine. Google worked with ASUS and NVIDIA here to bring on a media beast like no other, offered at a price that, sold exclusively through the Google Play store online (for now), is almost undeniable. Even those who want a tablet just to fiddle with should and probably will be considering this device first in the near future – unless they want an iPad.

With the iPad and the Amazon Kindle Fire being this device’s biggest competitors, you’ll want to know: which one is worth buying? There’s no perfect answer, but if I had a choice between the three and would get the chosen product for free, I’d of course pick the iPad – it costs more than 2 times this device’s base price for a reason. If I had to choose between the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire, I’d not think twice about picking the Google product. Every single feature on this tablet, unless you’re an Amazon junkie, is better than the Fire.

Consider this tablet the next time you’re getting prepped for a new tablet experience, and one that’s inexpensive enough to toss down a couple of bills without hesitation. Hackers – this is your key to the future, there’s no other choice.

Also remember that, as it is with all of our reviews: this isn’t the end. If you’ve got questions you still need answered, want us to do additional tests, please feel free to ask or request – we’ll do our best! Meanwhile don’t forget to hit up our Android portal for more Google mobile OS action through the future!

Hardware

While the display’s high definition resolution is obviously the real hero here, you’ll be glad to know that we’re now officially in an age where making a tablet that’s as thin and nice looking as the iPad isn’t so much of a hassle as it used to be. This version of the Iconia Tab is right around the same weight and shape as the A500, but here it’s got a bit more style.

The speckled back panel and the lovely detail in the glass panel up front as well as it’s surrounding plastic are all very well tuned. This tablet feels really nice to hold, as it were.

This tablet has several ports, each of them just about as far away from the others as they possibly could be. There’s a microHDMI, a microUSB, headphone jack, and a microSD card slot as well as a volume up/down button and a screen lock. The screen lock is a switch that holds your tablet in either landscape or portrait mode, and should you feel like heading down the road of the hacker, we’re sure you could find more than a few useful things to do with it in addition to its basic intent.

The power button sits at the top of the left of the device in the same place it did on the A500, and if one were to compare this tablet only to that older generation, one would applaud the efforts of Acer in pushing themselves to the next level. Compared to the iPad, you’ve got a surprisingly similar feeling machine, with just about the same weight and, at a distance at least, a really similar look.

Of course the power of any tablet doesn’t rest on its single specifications alone, and Apple’s iPad certainly relies on its software to beat the crowd. So how does Acer do with their new look at Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich?

Software

Inside this machine is Acer’s selection of applications including several pre-installed games, cloud-access apps, and music apps. Google’s collection of apps are here as well, this including Google Music (not often included right out of the box) as well as the common ICS additions like Google+.

The real heroes here are the additions made to Android 4.0 ICS by Acer. There’s a brand new lovely customizable lock-screen as well as a “Ring” that will allow you several new abilities including the screenshot, the ability to flip through web browser favorites in cards, and changing the volume on-screen. This Ring could very well be the reason you purchase this device – Acer has done a great job of pushing the limits of such a collection of functionalities for the discerning Android user.

You’ve also got the built-in ability to work with a printer to print whatever you’ve got on-screen to hard copy. We suggest to take a look at which devices will function with this connectivity, but from what we’ve seen, most modern wireless printers will indeed work. Acer has connected this device to the rest of its device suite with a simple registration app – this being a good example of why you’ll certainly want to be thinking about picking one Acer machine up if you’ve picked up the other as their device family continues to become more interconnected.

The NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor inside this beast will allow you connectivity with the NVIDIA TegraZone, a place where exclusive Tegra-only applications live, and you’ll find that they look quite fabulous. Have a peek at some benchmarks taken by this device to see how well you’ll be rolling:

Camera

This device’s camera is not all that different from the camera on the original A500, that also being a 5-megapixel shooter. You’ve got a 2-megapixel camera on the front as well, this as good as it was on the A500 as well for video chat. The back-facing camera does not have a flash and is able to auto-focus, but only after you’ve tapped the shutter button. Have a peek at a few pieces of media resulting from this setup:

Battery

This device is part of a new wave of battery-conscious devices that, with the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 4-PLUS-1 technology, is able to sleep so deeply that you’ve rarely got a situation where the device runs out of battery after having been left alone for an extended period. Instead where you’ll find battery drain is in the other normal places like mapping and streaming video. Even then you’ll have a fabulously long amount of play-time on your hands.

The Acer Iconia Tab A700′s battery will last you though several days at least if you use it intermittently, or it can last you as few as 8 hours if you’re rocking streaming video non-stop. Either way, it’s impressive.

Portfolio Case

We were also sent the new Acer Iconia Tab Series Portfolio Case – one of the strangest cases we’ve seen on the market thus far. It’s strange in that it relies on a high-powered adhesive to stick to the tablet rather than clamping on with plastic claws as any of a million other cases would. You put your tablet down on one side, pull back the adhesive covering on the other, and push that second side closed onto the back of your tablet.

The adhesive sticks as hard as you could possibly want it to, but is also somehow removable when you want as well. It’s certainly not something you’re going to be able to use multiple times, as the adhesive will certainly get weak after a couple of stickings, but this solution certainly is unique, that’s for sure. The case then also is made of some high-quality rubbery plastics with magnets inside to hold it closed and in stand mode. Interesting stuff!

Wrap-Up

This tablet will cost you $449.99 at any of a variety of outlets, this ringing in just at or below the rest of the market offering similar solutions. You’ve got the most advanced options in an Android tablet included here, and Acer’s unique vision for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will not leave you wanting for multi-tasking and for standing out in the software crowd. We recommend picking up the Iconia Tab A700 especially if you’ve already got Acer notebooks or towers in your home – their software connects quite fluidly and makes your whole personal cloud experience all the richer.

You’ve got a smartphone and you’ve got an iPad or an Android tablet and your kid wants to use it – all the time. You don’t want your child messing around with your digital business, and you more than likely just want to play your own game of Angry Birds. So what do you do? You look to the nabi 2. This strange little beast is ready and raring to go starting with a lovely kid-oriented user interface that makes it near-impossible for them to get lost or have trouble working with their favorite app. Have a look first at a hands-on video showing the hardware with a brief look at the software here:

The tablet itself is relatively light, the bumper around the edges makes it quite safe to use (unless your child is the kind that loves to pull things apart), and it comes packed with one whole heck of a lot of software right out of the box. This is all punctuated by a grid of plastic bits at the back made for future hook-ups to accessories once the tablet takes off. What you’re buying here is not a device which in the future can become what you’re looking for in a total experience, it’s a total experience immediately. Just like a kid’s toy should be, you don’t have to do any setup in order for them to start playing with it.

Take a peek next at our hands-on video with the Kidz Mode part of this equation (below) and see what your child will see when the device is turned on for the first time – and each time after that as well. This interface can only be changed upon entering a secret password only an adult may possess.

The way you get out of Kidz Mode is through the questionably titled “Daddy Mode” which, as you may have guessed, leads you to a basic version of Android. Lucky for you though, Android lovers, this is Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, and is fully ready to work as you would expect right out of the box. The downside here is that you do not have access to the Google Play app store as this device is not Google certified. Instead you’ll have to rely on the Nabi app store for all your download needs.

This device isn’t technically made to be a grownup-oriented tablet, so you probably won’t be satisfied with it if that’s what you’re aiming at. The viewing angles on this display are far from perfect, it’s not made to be easy to modify, and you’ll look like a goon carrying this around with you at the office. Your child, on the other hand, will be totally pumped up about owning their very own super awesome tablet, especially with the red bumper action it comes equipped with!

The software this device comes with is, for the most part, pretty awesome. The folks at Fuhu – the people that make this device – have clearly taken the time to partner up with a vast array of developers to make this a rich and diverse experience for a child. NVIDIA even lends a hand with a TegraZone home screen full of kid-friendly (but still fabulous) games such as Riptide GP.

The only questionable apps on this device are two “Moron Test” apps which we’re going to go ahead and guess some parents won’t want active simply due to the fact that they don’t want their kid calling anyone a moron. After that you’ll find a rather clean set of games, learning apps, and art pallets. There’s also an app inside Daddy Mode which easily allows you to reveal or hide and and all of the applications you’ve got on the device – simple stuff!

There is a Veggie Tales application on one of the screens right out of the box as well. This is a strange choice since the Veggie Tales brand is clear that they’re pushing “moral themes based on Christianity” – so beware of that if you’re not a Christian (or just don’t like Veggie Tales. This and the rest of the video applications can be output via the mini-HDMI port at the side of the device to your HDTV – go big!

This tablet has a 7-inch 1024 x 600 pixel resolution display, 1GB of RAM, 8GB flash storage, 2 megapixel front-facing camera with 720p video capability, and a host of ports on its side. There’s a single microUSB port, mini HDMI, microSD card port, 3.5mm standard audio jack, and a DC power connector. You’ll be connecting to the web with Wi-fi 802.11 b/g/n and have the ability to work with Bluetooth 3.0 as well.

This device will be available in July (soon!) for just $199.99 from a variety of online and offline retailers. Sound like a great deal to you? Head on over to NabiTablet.com to see a set of online outlets for the device immediately if not soon!

This device works with a wide variety of Samsung applications made perfect for the Galaxy Tab 2 and Galaxy Player lineup including AllShare, Samsung Media Hub, and Peel smart remote. These applications allow you to control your media on a variety of players and alternate screens as well as share between devices with great ease. You’ll find apps like ChatON popping up on the Galaxy S III as well, it made for Samsung devices to communicate between one another in a powerful way not unlike what BlackBerry did with their BB Messenger.

Here you’ve got a device with a 10.1-inch display, front-facing speakers, and essentially the same setup as you had with the previous Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the difference being in the selling points – the apps, the way the tablet is marketed, and the processor inside. Instead of the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, you’ve got an OMAP4 dual-core processor from Texas Instruments. This means you no longer have access to the Tegra Zone as the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 had, but as this device does present a lower price point than the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 when it was first released, perhaps you wont mind.

Have a peek here at a couple of photo examples and compare to the to our review of the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, as they’re essentially working with the same gear. A 3.2 megapixel camera isn’t necessarily what you’re going to want when you’re going for award-winning photos, but it’ll be good enough for Facebook and Twitter if that’s your thing.

Next have a peek at a couple of benchmarks, and remember that this device is made primarily for watching and transmitting media, not necessarily working to process the video and make hard-hitting games look their best. This device can be compared to the orignal Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 review for power, but remember again that you’ve no longer got the NVIDIA processor which would be giving you access to the Tegra Zone for games. Here instead you’ve got the lower cost tablet and the IR-blaster to change channels on your television.

The last component you’re going to want to look at here is the battery life of this device. It’s tested essentially as well as the rest of the Galaxy Tab line for battery life, that being extremely well considering this device does not work with mobile data. Instead you’ve got wifi-only and the whole machine will stay up with battery for several days if you don’t use it too heavily. Play several full-length videos and you’re looking at more like 8 hours max.

Wrap-up

This tablet is made for those ladies and gentlemen who want the $100 discount off the lowest price on the newest iPad. Though this tablet is not made specifically to compete with the iPad, and it really wont, you’ll find it to be amongst the best values in the Android world for those of you not looking for the best processor on earth. If you just want to watch movies and browse the web, this may well be your best bet on the market today.

Hardware

This device is a tablet computer but is able to turn into what’s essentially considered a notebook computer – or Wi-fi connected netbook, if you prefer. The keyboard dock here is reminiscent of the Transformer Prime and the original Eee Pad Transformer before that, and continues to be a pleasure to use like they were. The touchpad still needs tweaking if its going to have anywhere near as much quality as OS X does with the MacBook or the MacBook Air, but this has as much to do with the software – which really isn’t quite fully prepared for a desktop mode as such – as it is about the pad hardware itself.

If you plan on gaming on this machine with games that require you to have a mouse, I suggest finding a compatible USB mouse – which will plug in nicely as this units dock does indeed have a full-sized USB port. The dock itself also has a full-size SD card port and a port where you’ll be able to plug power into the wall or into your PC for desktop connectivity. The tablet then has a microHDMI port, a port for a microSD card, volume, power, and a headphone jack. ASUS doesn’t quote any special augmentation or especially fine quality parts for its headphone port, but it does sound perfectly fine for the basic media and gaming you’ll be experiencing with it.

There are two models per color, again we’ve got Royal Blue here in its 16GB configuration. There’s also a 16 and 32 GB configuration for each model, the Torch Red and Iceberg White models coming in June – pricing on all of these models is always $379 for the 16GB tablet, $399 for the 32GB model, and $149 for the keyboard dock. The Royal Blue version is expected to be delivered on the 30th of April with online retail availability starting the week of April 23rd.

With prices like these, expect this Transformer to sell as well as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 given that ASUS and NVIDIA decide to advertise it at least as well as the Transformer Prime. This is key as there is of course still significant confusion in the Android tablet market as to the difference between tablets and the simple understanding that yes, it’s possible that you could be doing things on one tablet that you wouldn’t be able to on another. That said, this Transformer is going to be the top performing tablet in your house if you’ve only ever had Android tablets before and haven’t yet picked up the Transformer Prime.

According to ASUS, several hardware upgrades have happened since the Transformer TF101 including the camera and video capabilities of the unit. You’ve got an F2.2 aperture on this 8 megapixel camera and a slightly different camera interface out of the box to bring the quality up to a level that’s ready to take on the rest of the tablet industry easily. Head down to the Camera portion of this review to see the quality of this machine’s shooter. Also note that there’s no flash this time – so watch out for the dark!

Inside you’ll find Bluetooth 3.0, RAM at 1GB using new DDR3, and the tablet alone weighs in at 1.30 lbs. The dock weighs about half that, so expect about 2 pounds in your backpack with the full package. The tablet and keyboard together are just a bit thicker than the original Transformer Prime but are essentially the same dimensions otherwise – the tablet alone is 7.11 x 10.35 x 0.38-inches.

Aside from the slightly awkward nature of having the display half of your notebook being the heavier of its two halves, this product is extremely similar to the Transformer Prime. With the prime you’ve got metal, here you’ve got plastic. This unit isn’t completely made of plastic, of course, but big portions of its casing are – this for some will be a low point compared to the Prime as the Prime’s metal looks and feels high quality. For others though, the decrease in weight means an easier to handle unit.

The display is also very similar in that it’s also an IPS technology-based panel, but here you’ve just got IPS and not IPS+, so you can’t burn your eyes out quite as easily here with this new model. This is another place where a feature has been cut to make way for a slightly lower price for the unit. Each of these small changes makes for a product that is still certainly high-end but just ever-so-slightly less impressive than the Prime. Have a peek at the hands-on video above to see both units side-by-side.

Software / Benchmarks

The software experience you’ll have here is strikingly similar to what we see on the current most updated version of the Transformer Prime. Both units work with Android 4.0 or higher and both use a version of ASUS user interface additions to that base software experience that makes them advanced beyond all non-ICS tablets in the market and unique in and of themselves for their hardware-specific features. ASUS leaves Android’s basic Android 4.03 Ice Cream Sandwich experience alone for the most part, adding only a few changes that make the experience, again, ASUS’ own.

Have a peek back at our hands-on with Ice Cream Sandwich on the Transformer Prime as well as the gaming video below to see what you’re working with on the tablet version of Ice Cream Sandwich as well as NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 processor. This chipset is quad-core with 4-PLUS-1 technology meaning it has a fifth low-power CPU core that turns on only when the other four cores are not needed. With this ability, Tegra 3 devices are able to conserve energy and preserve battery live in a very efficient way. See the battery section below for details on power.

The games you’ll be playing here come from the Tegra Zone, an app and ecosystem which NVIDIA provides all Tegra-toting devices made with Android. This isn’t the only place you can find games, of course, the Google Play app store being packed full of them, but NVIDIA has created this portal for you to find games developed with their crew to be optimized for the Tegra 3 multi-core environment. Have a peek at a few examples in the hands-on video with the TF300 here:

NVIDIA pushes Gaming as one of the best ways to experience the full power of their quad-core processor here in the TF300. You’ll be seeing Glowball, Guerilla Bob, Soulcraft THD (beta) and Temple Run. Compare these two the same and similar games on the Transformer Prime Gaming Hands-on and you’ll find a very similar experience.

You’ve also got to consider high-powered tasks from all corners of the software world, on the other hand – the Tegra 3 able to handle each of these as well, each of them quite well. Have a peek at a set of benchmarks here that are not to be missed, and remember to compare them to the Transformer Prime review as well!

Camera

The camera on this device is, as stated above, an 8 megapixel shooter with the ability to record 1080p video as well. There’s an F2.2 aperture for sweet snapping and the camera interface has changed ever so slightly from the original build on the Transformer Prime. Have a peek at the camera interface here:

Next have a look at some 1080p video as well as several snapshots taken in various conditions with the back-facing camera on this device. Again compare and contrast them with the quality of the Transformer Prime which has essentially the same setup but with no flash for taking photos in the dark.

Battery

The TF300 is no exception to the rule that Tegra 3 devices are able to conserve energy very effectively. Because of the fifth low-power core here, the TF300′s battery is able to last it a fantastic amount of hours both with and without the bonus battery housed in the keyboard dock. ASUS quotes eight and a half hours for the tablet alone and a bit more than 13 hours with the dock doing normal “Real World Testing”. We’ve found similar results, getting more like 7 hours of streaming video and/or playing games and 10 to 12 with the dock attached. The real “wow” factor is in, again, the power-saving mode and the ability of the 5th low-power core:

Also note that the times this battery chart shows the tablet as “charging” are when it’s plugged into its keyboard dock only – not into the wall. Having two slates of hardware to hold big batteries in makes this device as one big whole an intensely battery-sensitive machine.

Wrap-Up

Here we have the slightly less expensive version of the most well-rounded and powerful Android tablet on the planet. The qualities that allow this model to cost significantly less than its bigger brother are not bothersome to me, and I see no reason, save for one, why a person wouldn’t just go with this TF300 model over the Transformer Prime. That reason is, of course, the flash for the camera – I think it’s safe to say that most people don’t use their tablet as their primary photo and video machine, but if they do, that little LED can make or break a purchase.

After that though, everything on this device is high quality and ready for action. Even the plastic casing which replaces the fabulous ring-spun aluminum on the Prime is of a quality high enough to run with the top tier of the Android tablet world. It even has a ring-spun texture so you know it means business. ASUS hasn’t just created a lower-cost model of the Prime here, they’ve re-done the Prime with the essentials it needed to be the top-quality Android tablet in the field and offered it here with the name ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 with a much more pleasing price tag. Pick one up right now!

Hardware

This device takes what the original Galaxy Tab had (the oldest Galaxy Tab, the one that’s closest to this one in size and shape) and tosses it out the window. You’ll not find a device that’s closer to that one in shape than this, but the hardware inside and out are completely revamped. This device runs a dual-core TI OMAP processor clocked at 1GHz and runs a 1024 x 600 TFT LCD display with a 3-megapixel camera on the back.

You’ve got an IR blaster on the side of this device to connect to your Samsung Smart TV, and a microSD card slot to expand your memory by 32GB. The device runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich which means you’re up on the newest version of Google’s mobile operating system and it all runs rather slick. Have a peek at Quadrant Standard benchmark here to get an idea of what you’re working with on this 7-inch dual-core Android device:

This device is wi-fi only at the moment and we’ve got no word quite yet on whether or not there will be a mobile data connected version in the near future. Wi-fi connectivity thus far has been great, no complaints whatsoever on our home network.

Software

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is running surprisingly smoothly with TouchWiz in this case, this compared to the original version of TouchWiz UX for tablets that came on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 which has since come to be a slightly more impressive amalgamation. Have a peek at this hands-on video to get a better idea of what you’ll be working with as far as software:

This version of Ice Cream Sandwich is one modified by Samsung. That means that you’re going to get a few extra bells and whistles which Samsung says will increase your abilities on the tablet and make it a wholly better experience in the end. As it stands: they’re right. We’ve not yet seen a purely “vanilla” look at Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, having come only relatively close with the first ICS-certified device in the Transformer Prime with ASUS modifications.

Samsung’s widgets are arranged in the newest versions of TouchWiz in a way that makes them magazine-like. They’re set up to make your screens utilized to their maximum ability.

TouchWiz exclusive apps sitting on top are able to be accessed with that lovely little arrow at the bottom of the display – they’re working quite smooth this time around!

This device runs truly smoothly and we’ve had no troubles running high-powered apps and games even though Samsung has made it clear that this tablet isn’t truly made for that sort of business. Connecting to your Samsung Smart TV is where this device will shine for Samsung-loving gadget addicts, the same being true for those that love Smart Remote action with the Peel app and Netflix on the go. Have a peek at some of the other Galaxy Tabs we’ve checked out thus far in the timeline below:

Camera

The camera setup here clearly isn’t made for the everyday photo and video enthusiast, instead held back to cut costs for the entire tablet as it stays within the realm of camera-toting tablets (an elite bunch, as I’m sure you’re aware.) Have a peek at some examples here and let us know what you think. The photos are taken with the 3 megapixel capabilities of the back-facing camera, while the video can be viewed at up to full quality 720p.

Look like good enough quality media for your everyday life?

Battery Life

Like every Samsung tablet we’ve used in the past year, this one has been optimized to keep up with your daily activities the whole day through. Packing enough power to keep a smartphone active a whole day works doubly well when you’re on a tablet that’s wi-fi-only, and since you’ve only got two cores running at 1GHz each, you’ll be golden for a couple days of medium use at least. Good luck!

Wrap-Up

This device is one of Samsung’s undeniably vast number of tablets they’ve got on the market right this second. Compared to the Galaxy Tab 7.7, it’s not nearly as impressive, but also not nearly as costly. This tablet is made to be inexpensive enough for anyone to afford while it keeps many of the features and elements that make a Samsung tablet experience one to look forward to. And best of all, the price on this beast is one to look forward to: $249.99 with no contracts for data to speak of! All that on the 22nd of April – that’s coming up quick, get your wallets out!

This, like all of our reviews, is not the end of our review process – it’s only the beginning! If there’s anything else you’d like to know about the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments section below. We’ll either answer straight up or, if the question is big enough for a feature, we’ll write a whole extra post! Seeya there!

When I wrote my first skeptic’s review, my Android tablet experience had been with the original Samsung Galaxy Tab, the 7-inch model running a smartphone version of the Google OS with some UI tweaks from Samsung itself. Since then, we’ve seen a rush of Honeycomb tablets and, within the past couple of months, some models running Ice Cream Sandwich too. The size range has exploded too, with everything from 7-inchers (if we discount the Galaxy Note as a large phone rather than a tiny tablet) through to 10.1.

Of them all, it’s the Galaxy Tab 10.1 I’ve spent most time with, running Android Honeycomb on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chipset. I’ve also lived with HP’s quickly-killed TouchPad after picking one up in the post-cull sales. With no iPad 2 on-hand, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 quickly became my go-to slate, its lighter build than the original iPad – albeit with less reassuring quality – and Flash support, not to mention its far better notifications system than the pre-iOS 5.0 pop-ups, saw the Apple tablet relegated to a shelf.

While it’s not fashionable to want Flash, there are still times when sites require it, and having to reach for a different device – whether laptop, Android phone or something else – to interrupt iPad browsing remains a frustration. HTML5 continues to gain traction, but Flash isn’t dead yet, especially on the desktop sites that are so very consumable on a tablet-scale display. Apple still aren’t showing any inclination to add Flash support to iOS, and Adobe has all but washed its hands of it for mobile devices, so the transition to HTML5 can’t come soon enough.

Along the way, Apple has addressed some of the more long-standing criticisms of the iPad, and inevitably gained a few new ones. iOS 5.x’s new notifications system, with its pull-down list of the latest alerts, fixes one of my lingering complaints around the previous two tablets. I miss being able to swipe them individually off the list – you can only dismiss an entire app’s category – as you can in Ice Cream Sandwich, but it’s a vast improvement on earlier iterations of iOS. If anything, though, I’d like to see Apple go further: right now it feels like the Notification slider only makes use of a small portion of the display and the lockscreen, whereas a full pane of alerts or two columns would certainly fit in with the Retina Display resolution.

Ah, the Retina Display. It’s hard to describe quite how slick the new iPad’s LCD screen is, though you grow used to the extra smoothness all too quickly. It’s only really when you shift back to a less pixel-dense display that recognizing the difference becomes conscious: going, say, from new to old iPad. Text looks jagged, icons and app graphics crunching and unappealing. Colors look more muted too, though brightness seems roughly the same. It’s easy to get caught up in whether Apple’s “Retina” branding is ocularly legitimate or not, but the takeaway is that I wouldn’t recommend anyone but the most casual of would-be iPad buyers to opt for the iPad 2, despite it being $100 cheaper. More apps are being upgraded to the higher resolution every day, and I think people will quickly come to rue that initial saving.

The other big change is 4G, though that’s little use outside of North America. LTE is still in the test phases in the UK, and even when the first networks go live the bands in use won’t be those supported by the new iPad’s modem. The best I can expect is DC-HSDPA, with its theoretical 42Mbps downloads, when select UK carriers begin to launch service over the summer. Today, with carrier Three, I’m seeing around 4.7Mbps downloads and 2.3Mbps uploads.

Still, avoiding LTE means I’ve also been spared what’s apparently the cataclysmic shock of 4G speed, and how fast an LTE-equipped device can chew through data. It’s hard to blame Apple or the new iPad for quite how readily a little prolonged 4G use can consume a data bundle, but the overpriced and comparatively small tariffs on offer to US customers are a different matter. When “rip-off Britain” can get 10GB of data a month for the equivalent of under $16, Verizon and AT&T have some explaining to do about their own limits.

My original iPad is WiFi-only, and that’s reduced its opportunities for travel. Faced with a journey, it’s my Kindle that gets space in the bag; that, and a sizable-screened smartphone – currently the Galaxy Nexus – that does for internet browsing, email and messaging. Still, the bigger screen and the inclusion of 3G means the new iPad has escaped the confines of the coffee table more frequently, and its upgraded specifications – most particularly the extra memory – means the frustrating browser crashes of the first-gen model haven’t been an issue.

Heat, too, hasn’t been an issue, despite some finding the new iPad runs significantly warmer than previous models. It’s actually a complaint that was leveled at the iPad 2 you might recall: at the time, it was criticized by some as a sign that this wasn’t some glassy slice of Apple magic, but had mundane electronics inside just like everything else on the market. Those electronics now include a significantly higher-capacity battery, and while I found my 3G use didn’t quite match Vincent’s two day experience, the new iPad certainly manages to get through 1.5 days of heavy use on a mixture of WiFi and 3G.

There’s no denying that, in comparison with previous models, the new iPad is warmer to the touch, particularly if you’ve been stressing the cellular connection or the GPU. Nonetheless, it’s never been unpleasantly hot, and if your iPad is toasting your fingertips then I’d recommend a trip to the Genius Bar to get the hardware checked out.

Apple has tried to make it clear that the new iPad is very much a content creation tool as well as a content consumption one. My hope to use the tablet as a mobile blogging platform is almost satisfied: the more stable browser means the full WordPress interface can be accessed (rather than messing with the still underwhelming app for the publishing platform) and though touchscreen text-entry remains a frustration for long-form writing, the iOS error-correction and autocomplete is some of the best around.

Multimedia has made significant advances too: I described the twin cameras on the iPad 2 as pitiful and dreary sops to spec-box bingo, but the 5-megapixel example on the new iPad is good enough for usable snaps and watchable video. Unfortunately the front-facing camera remains lower-res than the 720p-capable iSight webcams in Apple’s MacBook Air/Pro line-up, which is limiting during video calls.

Still, armed with iPhoto and iMovie it’s possible – once you get past the embarrassment of holding up a tablet as a camera – to do things that would previously have demanded a separate camera and laptop. Being able to film an HD video clip, edit it, process it and upload it, all while on the move (and, as Vincent’s benchmarking suggested, with no real penalty in terms of exporting speed) is more than impressive, and when the new iPad’s own camera falls short, the Camera Connection Kit (which I bought for the original iPad but then never saw need to plug in) means pulling in even high-res photos from standalone shooters is a possibility.

Then there’s less businesslike content creation. I took the new iPad on a trip to see my family shortly after it arrived, snapped an album full of photos, and then – in less time than it took to take the train home – created an online journal of pictures and notes that delighted my parents. It’s perhaps easy to underestimate the value of that sort of tool, when we’re used to Flickr galleries and Google+ sharing, but for many it’s a whole new avenue of creativity and, essentially, a camera that lives up to the software’s potential.

iOS is still not my favorite mobile platform. I miss the thumbnail previews of Ice Cream Sandwich, and webOS’ multitasking system still bests both Apple’s and Google’s. Android’s key tablet drawback remains apps, however: the selection of titles that actually make good use of 7- to 10-inch screens is pathetic in comparison to iPad-specific software. Although brand, style and specs all play into picking a new tablet, over time it’s the strength of the ecosystem that keeps you engaged. While the hardware and OS of new Android slates continues to interest me from a geek’s perspective, the paucity of apps beyond the out-of-the-box selection is a significant hurdle Google and its developers are yet to overcome.

That ecosystem is the new iPad’s biggest draw. The hardware feels, for the most part, like it’s settled; I’d expect Apple to tweak it in future iterations, yes, but the company has a tendency to polish its designs and then avoid change for its own sake. That’s certainly been the case in Apple’s computing lines, and the iPad looks to be following the same route. I’d like to see Google – and others, for that matter; Windows 8 certainly has its points of interest, particularly with ARM support for more frugal, multimedia-centric models – mount a more compelling offense, if only because I like Android and I think the competition is good for the end consumer, but there’s no doubting that, for a great proportion, the new iPad ticks most of the boxes. Upgrading from my first-gen iPad is a no-brainer; the problem for Google and others is that opting for an iPad is likely to remain a no-brainer for many new tableteers, yet to be convinced with what the rest of the market can deliver.

Looking for another opinion? Check out our launch-week new iPad review!

In the inevitable hubbub following the third-generation iPad’s reveal last week, some complained that the tablet lacked in revolutionary changes. In many ways – aesthetically, in build-quality, usability and more – it’s the same as its iPad 2 predecessor, which will indeed stay on sale as a budget option alongside it. Many of the observations in our iPad 2 review hold true about the new iPad, but there are some key differences.

Retina Display

The new iPad’s Retina Display does to the tablet segment what the iPhone 4′s Retina Display did to smartphones: in short, shakes it up entirely. Where the iPad 2 runs at 1024 x 768 resolution, the new iPad comes in at 2048 x 1536, meaning four times more pixels in the same 9.7-inch space. In fact, at 3.1m pixels, that’s 1m more than a Full HD television.

At the typical arm’s length, graphics on the new iPad are effectively so smooth you can’t make out the individual dots. All of Apple’s own apps have been updated to suit the higher resolution, with more detailed iconography and text. However, third-party apps also look good, even if they’ve not been polished to suit the new hardware, though they aren’t quite as refined as Apple’s own handiwork.

Interestingly, it’s not just native third-party iPad apps that are improved with the Retina Display technology. iPhone titles used in the “2x doubling” mode look considerably better than on either of the previous iPad versions, with the new smoothing technology being brought to bear to make them feel less obviously magnified.

1080p video playback is supported at full resolution, though the 4:3 aspect ratio means there are black bars top and bottom. Nonetheless, the level of detail is incredibly impressive; even those with self-professed tech apathy were drawn in by the new iPad’s graphical prowess. Showing a gallery of images in iPhoto, the slate sometimes looks like a mock-up with a printed, high-res image rather than an actual display, it really is that good. Viewing angles are as broad as we’ve come to expect from IPS panels, no matter which direction you’re looking from, and colors are as rich and saturated as AMOLED.

4G LTE Connectivity

The new iPad is Apple’s first LTE-capable device, after the company conspicuously opted out of joining the initial wave of 4G hardware. Then, Apple said it was a case of early LTE chipsets demanding too many compromises in terms of power and bulk, something that has obviously been addressed to its satisfaction for the new tablet.

It’s also the first iPad to support personal hotspot functionality, sharing the 3G/4G connection out over WiFi with up to five devices. As before, setting up a new cellular connection can be done entirely from the iPad itself on AT&T and Verizon models, along with select networks internationally, and the data plans themselves are contract-free and can be activated and deactivated on a month to month basis. In comparison to the often complex subsidies and two-year agreements of rival tablets, it’s a welcome blast of simplicity.

Data plans for Verizon (4 plans)

1 GB for $20
2 GB for $30
5 GB for $50
10 GB for $80

Plans are prepaid in that you sign up from the device and put charges on a credit card. Verizon alert customers at 4% of data left, 2% of data left and 0MB left so customers can sign up for the month. The best part is, Mobile hotspot is included in the data plan.

250 MB for $14.99, overage $14.99 / 250MB
3 GB for $30, overage $10 / 1GB

5 GB for $50, overage $10 / 1GB

Unfortunately, hotspot capability on the new iPad might be a Verizon exclusive in the US for now since AT&T doesn’t offer or has announced a tethering policy specifically for the new iPad.

As for speeds, we tested the new iPad LTE on Verizon with remarkable results averaging 14Mbps+ down and 2.5Mbps up while 3G speeds averaging 1.8Mbps down and 0.5Mbps up. We didn’t have an AT&T LTE-enabled iPad so using the Galaxy Note, we got speeds averaging 2.8Mbps down and 1.3Mbps up.

User Experience and Performance

User experience is where the new iPad really shines. Apple’s holistic ecosystem has not only its own native apps but a legion of devoted third-party developers pushing out software that must pass stringent usability testing. It’s a recipe for polish and consistency when you first pick the iPad up, as well as longevity as you explore the 200,000+ iPad apps, periodicals, books and multimedia content on offer.

Under the hood isn’t the quadcore A6 chipset many were expecting, but another custom Apple chip, the A5X. Building on the dual CPU cores of the A5 in the iPad 2, the A5X’s key change is a quadcore GPU for boosted graphics. Of course, for most users that’s unnecessary knowledge: the important part is that the new iPad Just Works.

Unfortunately, there are still a couple of omissions, the biggest being Siri. Apple’s personal digital assistant was introduced – in beta – on the iPhone 4S, but is still exclusive to the smartphone. The new iPad instead gets voice dictation, with a new microphone button on the keyboard that does speech-to-text in apps. English (US, UK and Australia), French, German and Japanese are all supported, and the accuracy in our testing of US recognition has been reasonably high. You’ll need a data connection in order to make use of it, mind, as the conversion is done remotely on Apple’s servers.

Camera and Multimedia

The new iPad takes a more serious approach to producing content than its predecessors, and the rethought iSight camera on the back marks a significant step up in abilities.

Apple says it has borrowed the camera technology and optics from the iPhone 4S for the new iPad, though still the 5-megapixel images the tablet is capable of do lag behind the 8-megapixel examples from the smartphone. There’s more visible noise and chromatic aberrations at full zoom, though the quality is far, far better than any stills the iPad 2 can achieve. You also get face recognition for up to ten people per frame, automatically adjusting focus and exposure, but the camera app UI itself is no more complex than before.

Here and in the gallery below you’ll see sample photos taken with the new iPad’s 5-megapixel back-facing camera.

The new tablet feels more targeted at video, however, and the Full HD clips it’s capable of producing hold up well to what we’ve seen on the best smartphones. Digital video stabilization is included, and it manages to find that tricky middle ground between shake and over-processing. There are also rudimentary editing tools included, for trimming clips down before sending or uploading them.

However, throw the $4.99 iMovie – which we have reviewed here – into the mixture, and the new iPad becomes a comprehensive mobile video studio. The app has been reworked since its first release for iPad last year, gaining storyboarding tools, more professional transitions and effects, and of course graphics suited to the Retina Display. With the exception of video watermarking, it would be easily possible for us to shoot, edit, process and upload footage from a press event, all on the new iPad, and cutting together home movies or promotional clips for work are easily within the tablet’s abilities.

We shot a selection of videos using the new iPad and the iPad 2, and processed them in iMovie to see how the old and new graphics chips compared. With a one minute clip, a 720p HD clip recorded on the iPad 2 took 1 minute 2 seconds to export, while a 720p HD clip recorded on the new iPad took 52 seconds to export. A one minute 1080p clip recorded on the new iPad took 52.6 seconds to export.

For a five minute 720p HD clip, the iPad 2 took 5 minutes 11 seconds, whereas the new iPad took 3 minutes 39 seconds. A five minute 1080p HD clip on the new iPad took 4 minutes 20 seconds to export, still comfortably under the iPad 2 despite the higher resolution.

Finally, for an eight minute 720p HD clip, the iPad 2 took 8 minutes 10 seconds to export, while the new iPad took 5 minutes 45 seconds. Exporting an eight minute 1080p HD video took just a minute longer. It’s worth noting that, while processing the longest clip on the new iPad, we noticed it got slightly warmer toward the bottom left of the tablet, whereas the iPad 2 did not. Nothing anywhere near uncomfortable to hold, however.

The end result can be uploaded directly from the iPad, or played back via a wired connection using the optional Digital AV Adapter or Apple VGA Adapter at up to 1080p resolution, or 576i/480i using the Composite AV Cable. Alternatively there’s AirPlay support, either Mirroring to an Apple TV at 720p resolution or streaming to a third-gen Apple TV at 1080p (a second-gen Apple TV can only manage 720p streaming).

Although it’s a big advance on the iPad 2, there’s still room for improvement. The iSight camera lacks a flash for low-light photography and video clips, and we wish the lockscreen camera shortcut had been carried over from the iPhone 4S for quicker access. Perhaps more significantly, the front-facing camera is still VGA quality, rather than the 720p HD of the cameras on Apple’s notebooks. Its 30fps shooting is smooth, but we’d have liked to have seen higher resolution for more detailed FaceTime calls.

Battery

Apple surprised everybody with the battery life of the original iPad, and managed to maintain that in the second generation despite slimming the casing and improving the processor. The new iPad devotes even more internal space to batteries, and does what, until now, has proved impossible: taming LTE’s voracious thirst for power.

Ten hours of active WiFi use is quoted, or up to nine hours over 3G/4G, and the new iPad actually managed to exceed our expectations. From a full-charge at 8am on day one, the iPad lasted heavy use through to the evening of the following day, with LTE powered on 95-percent of the time. In fact, we only turned off LTE to connect via WiFi for a FaceTime video call, which is still limited to WiFi connections.

A four hour loop of HD video continuously playing – with email, Twitter and other updates being pulled in over LTE in the background – saw the new iPad’s battery drop from 70-percent to 51-percent. Extrapolating from that rate, the tablet could last more than 20 hours.

Pricing

Apple has held fast with its new iPad pricing, sticking to the same tiers as its previous models. The WiFi-only version begins at $499 for the 16GB, rising to $599 and $699 for the 32GB and 64GB models. The 4G versions, meanwhile – which also get A-GPS – begin at $629 for the 16GB, then come in at $729 and $829 for the 32GB and 64GB. Each is available with a black or white screen bezel, and – in the US – there are separate 4G versions to suit either AT&T or Verizon.

128GB of flash storage is something many iPad owners would like to see as an option, but Apple has pushed ahead with its iCloud streaming system instead of boosting local capacity. That now supports movies in iTunes in the Cloud, as of the latest iOS 5.1 update, alongside photos and music. It’s a good compromise, as long as you’re an iTunes user rather than someone who sideloads content bought separately.

For the first time, Apple is offering a “budget” iPad to crank up the challenge on rival tablets. The 16GB iPad 2 stays on to bring the cost of entry to $399, with a $529 3G model supporting either AT&T or Verizon data connections (though not at LTE speeds). It’s a sensible move, following Apple’s range-broadening strategy in smartphones, but we’d argue just about all new buyers would be better off spending the $100 extra for the Retina Display of the new iPad.

Wrap-up

At the start, we mentioned those voices calling out for revolutionary change to the iPad. It’s hard to see where it would actually be necessary. A good metaphor is, perhaps oddly, buying new tires: you don’t want them to reinvent the wheel, but you do look at the materials to see how they hold up to the competition. Apple has perfected its tablet form, and with the A5X it has tacitly acknowledged that throwing faster processors or extra cores at a device doesn’t necessarily improve it.

Specs are done. The question now is, if I have my iPad, can I go for two days with ample use and without recharging? The answer, with the new iPad, is yes. Rivals running Android have chased Apple on specifications, but the overall user experience lacks the refinement and polish of the iPad. That will take more to address than a beefier processor or a higher resolution screen.

Steve Jobs would have approved of the new iPad. With its focus on the holistic experience rather than individual boasts around its constituent parts, it’s the epitome of the Post-PC world the Apple founder envisaged. No lag or delay; no frustrating cloud settings or arcane minimum software requirements. Simply pick up, swipe, and you’re immersed in a joined-up ecosystem. Apple doesn’t need another revolution, it has already started one, and the new iPad brings a fresh degree of refinement to a segment in which it is undoubtedly the king.

To jump right in I’ll start by saying the Sony Tablet P is available today, right now from AT&T for $399 and a 2-year contract, or for $549 contract free. With dual screens, cores, and cameras it makes for one interesting device to say the least. Is the Tablet P practical though? That is the question. Check out our hands-on first, then enjoy the rest of the review.

Hardware

The hardware is extremely unique to say the least. With two 5.5″ 1024 x 480 screens, the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor at 1 GHz, 1GB of RAM, 2GB of storage (SD card) and dual cameras it has some specs that most tablets can’t even compare to. We also get dual cameras with a 5 megapixel rear and VGA front for video chat. Has Sony reinvented the wheel here, or will this be soon forgotten?

This is an 11″ tablet with the footprint slightly larger than a smartphone. Out of the box it’s slightly fatter than most phones but around the same width being 3.1″ wide and a little over 7.1″ tall. Easily pocket-able makes this one of the most portable tablets we’ve used to date. The design looks and feels nice but in reality is just cheap plastic. I couldn’t help but wish they used a better material for construction as the entire device just seems a little cheaply built if you ask me — almost like a toy. Then again this is a crossbreed between a tablet an a gaming device.

The matching 5.5-inch screens are nice and pretty but the large, almost 1-inch wide bezel around the entire thing could have been cut down and made smaller. The front has a nice cut out to help open the clamshell design and a slit is also included with a green LED for notifications.

As far as buttons and ports they are all on the side, bottom portion of the device. We have the volume rocker, micro-USB for sync (not charging) the proprietary charging port, and the power button with a red/green LED for charging. On bottom are some small feet to sit it on a table and the 3.5mm headphone jack. Then on the left is a lone grill for the speaker and that is all. The design is actually nice, elegant, and simple but the cheap feeling just leaves me wanting more.

The dual-screens are 5.5″ and use Sony’s Bravia engine and Tru-Black technology and look great — so long as you look straight on. At much of an angle colors go bad and whites turn yellow. For a dual screen device that you won’t always be looking at straight on this was a major bummer.

One of the best parts of the design, and the durability is the extremely strong hinge. You can lay it on any surface and open the top screen to any angle you’d like and the strong hinge will hold it in place, and the tablet wont fall over backwards. Watching the video below you’ll get another great example of the hardware and my last complaint is the sharp corners on the inside. The outer shell is nice, smooth and round. The inside isn’t so lucky and the sharp corners cause extreme discomfort after about 5-10 minutes of use.

Software

The software is Android 3.2 Honeycomb and while it works well, could be better. Android 4.0 ICS should bring along plenty of improvements to this device and is said to be coming soon, but for now we get Honeycomb. Obviously with two screens the operating system will need to be thrown together, and that is how it seems. Some aspects work great while others are terrible. Some games are enjoyable on both screens and take full advantage of the real estate while others don’t. Even the pro-loaded Crash Bandicoot doesn’t work that great although we do have complete PS2 controls.

As you see above many of the icons have been replaced with generic blue ones from Sony. Things like the camera, browser, calender and other stock apps. Why these aren’t the same as Honeycomb icons beats me. The software is basically untouched in regards to Android 3.2 Honeycomb and is everything we know and expect with the Android OS. but does have moments of lag from sliding icons and such onto a different screen.

The bezel is something that for now we can’t get away from, and it kills the experience. You don’t actually miss content but it does ruin the experience and makes things harder to read and do. Now most apps don’t work with both screens although Sony has worked with developers and we have around 40 available in the market that take full advantage. Not a lot but it’s a start. Most apps will use the bottom, or the top and occasionally we can use the “fit to screen” option in Honeycomb and that sometimes works, and often causes problems. YouTube fails to work completely and in fact was not pre-installed. So that could be a huge con for many.

I wont talk too much about the dual-screen experience because my extended hands-on video below will show you the performance, and usage situations with both screens. Not to mention a few games, apps, and the fact that YouTube is missing in action.

Benchmarks

As usual we’ve ran a few benchmarks and things are not looking good for Sony. Obviously we have two screens and far more pixels than most phones and tablets so the results will be lower, but they seem extra low. This isn’t too big of a concern as gaming was fluid and I didn’t experience any issues from the multiple games I’ve tried.

Quadrant was lower than expected for a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 but at the same time we are pushing nearly 1/3 more pixels of even 1280×800 tablets with two 1024 x 480 screens. AnTuTu however was very very low and the Sony Tablet P barely outscored single core phones from early last year.

Gaming

While this is still a full tablet experience with a browser, Android Market (Google Play Store) and many other things gaming is where this will shine. Well that and portability. Sadly the gaming aspects didn’t have me sold. It was fun to use, and playing split view with Battleship and Lazer Wars from the market was fun, it isn’t something I’d do often. The Sony Plastation certification and Sony apps are where it shines.

With Music and Video Unlimited, not to mention the Sony store with tons of optimized games that is mostly what this should and would be used for. At the same time many will just opt for the Sony PS Vita. The games you see in the screenshot below will become your best friend with this tablet, and many of them still don’t use both screens well but we do enjoy Playstation-like controls.

Camera

Sony has released some pretty impressive cameras in the past. With the new Xperia line having 8 megapixel cameras that work great we were surprised to see how terrible they were with the Tablet P. The 5 megapixel camera on the back takes decent photos as long as you have enough light. The shutter speed was extremely slow and required more attempts than we’d like. Video is capable of 720p but it wasn’t anything special. Playing video only used part of the top screen and the entire bottom had a terrible and over-sized UI to forward, pause, and play the video. Video playback is a key area this should excel — even with the bezel in the middle — but sadly it does not. Either way here is a sample from the mediocre camera with more in the gallery below.

Battery Life

The Tablet P comes with a 3,080 mAh battery under the hood. While that would be great for a smartphone, a tablet with two screens totaling 11″ I feel we need more. Many tablets like the recently reviewed Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 has a 5,100 mAh battery and lasts far longer than the Tablet P. We do have enough juice for about a single day of usage on 3G/4G from AT&T or on WiFi. Gaming takes the battery down faster but in general it lasted through a days use.

Wrap-Up

Sony has redesigned most of the core apps to work with the dual-screens. They have a few that launched in the market with full dual-screen support and work great too, but in general the experience is sub-par at best. They did a good job with what they could — like the browser but many apps just wont work right and give you a poorly put together and rough experience. Honeycomb needs to be tossed out and upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as soon as possible, and Sony needs more developers on board to not only support both screens, but at least one’s odd 1024 x 480 5.5-inch size.

I really wanted to love the Tablet P and I’ve enjoyed using it day to day and can really see it having potential for those needing portability. Sadly it has a little bit of a personality disorder and doesn’t know if it wants to be a 5.5″ phone, a tablet, or a gaming console and doesn’t do any of them well. The design is simple until you open it and start using it day to day, and the corners are sharp and hurt your hand after a mere matter of minutes.

If Sony could do this again with more developer support, the latest and greatest specs and OS, and cut down on the bezel this could be a real winner. For now it seems tossed together and a halfway finished experience. If you want an excellent and portable tablet with data access get the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, for gaming get the PS Vita, and for a true tablet experience try the Transformer Prime or the iPad.

Hardware

This device is small enough to fit in your purse or carry-along sack, but a bit too large to fit in your pocket. The mid-range is still dominated by the original Galaxy Note, and the “full-size tablet” is still sitting at 10.1-inches – this 7.7-inch tablet is perfect for someone who doesn’t need access to the device 24 hours a day but wants to keep a slightly lower profile than they would be if they’d be whipping out the 10-inch tablet all day long.

That said, this device brings a few fantastical specifications along with it that trump even the 10.1-inch tablet, including the first Super AMOLED Plus display at 7.7-inches, this bringing you a higher resolution display than this device’s larger sibling. Have a peek in the hands-on video here to see how this device measures up literally against the 10.1-inch Tab and see the resolution difference as well.

The device is essentially the same thinness of its Tab relatives, that being just 7.89mm at its thickest point – putting the overall feel of this device in the “hero” range for tablets without a doubt. This is not a member of the low-class tablet family that’s been expanding at an undeniable rate over the past few years, it’s one of the much more high powered and well constructed group instead.

Above what you’re seeing is the Galaxy Tab 7.7 on top and the 10.1 below, both of them ringing in at thinner than you could ever ask for in a tablet device. Then if the 1.4GHz dual-core processor in the 7.7 didn’t impress you when you saw it tossing around pages and games like paper, the full aluminum construction of the tablet will. This tablet looks and feels nice, and has certainly very quickly become my favorite Samsung tablet to use (and I’ve used them all).

Software

Inside you’ll find the rapidly aging Android 3.x Honeycomb, complete with Samsung’s own TouchWiz UX on top. This is the same TouchWiz we were first introduced to back at CTIA in the Spring of 2011, and it’s looking as good as it’s ever looked here in this slightly modified version over its 10.1-inch optimized cousin.

What you’ve got here is a software experience made specifically for the tablet, not quite Ice Cream Sandwich, but just about as close as you’re going to get without getting there. Samsung has been adamant about their want to update a whole swathe of their Galaxy devices inside the Summer months, so we’re hoping this device wins out in that battle as well. Meanwhile this setup is perfectly workable for your daily tablet needs. Also of note, even though it’s not unique to this device: the Android Marketplace is now optimized fully for devices with displays much larger than a smartphone – so you’re in business here from the top of the software experience down to the base.

That said, you’ve got an experience which is actually closer to what we’ve seen this week with the Galaxy Note 10.1 than it is to any of the other Galaxy Tab devices released thus far. Samsung is aiming for a much more “Note” experience for their whole line of devices here in the first months of 2012, finding heavy success it seems with this slightly unique approach started with the Galaxy Note.

Have another peek at the Superbowl push for the Note experience to see how excited Samsung is about this world of note-taking. Keep in mind that this device does not come with an S-Pen, but that you’ll be able to work any capacitive pen you’ve got on hand to rock the drawings on the screenshots you take with the device’s built-in software screenshot button in your dock.

Just like the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, this device also includes an infrared eye as well as the Peel app to make using this strange bit of hardware easy as pie. What you’ll be able to do with this combo is control your TV, cable box, and more. As Cory Gunther of Android Community noted back with the 7.0 Plus, “I was pleasantly surprised with how simple and easy this worked.” The same is true here – it all works right out of the box.

Have a peek at a couple of benchmark tests here if you’d like to compare them with the rest of our [Tablet Review Series], and note that comparing devices in this way should be taken mostly as a bonus entertainment exercise as it’s really the total experience you should be paying attention to when you decide on picking up a tablet such as this.

Camera / Battery life

Just like the rest of the Galaxy Tab line, the battery life on this device has been nothing short of extraordinary. Tablets made by Samsung with Android have never been disappointing in the battery world, and here with an undeniably massive 5100 mAh battery, this 7.7-inch beast is able to work with high brightness and ultra-dense resolution for a full 20+ hours easy. Just so long as you’re not streaming video that whole time.

The cameras on the front and the back are OK, but certainly don’t bring the fury like the tablet-based cameras on the ASUS Transformer Prime and the HTC Jetstream do – they’re still the winners of the tablet-based camera war, if that still is a thing. Have a peek at a couple of photos and a video here to see what’s up with this 3 megapixel camera on the back of the device.

Wrap-Up

This device is, again, what I’m gonna go ahead and say is the sweetest spot for tablets at the moment. If I had to choose between this device and the Galaxy Note (original), I’d choose the Note. I’m still of the opinion that tablets are mostly bonus devices made for fun rather than utility, and the Galaxy Note takes care of everything I could possibly want a smart device to do. That said, if you’ve got a want for a tablet, this one’s a magical size.

If you’ve tried a 10-inch tablet and you find it sort of absurd, but still want a display larger than your everyday average smartphone, take a peek at this tablet at your local Verizon outlet. It’s certainly an entertaining device to play with.

The build you’re seeing here is what you’ll get when you update your ASUS Transformer Prime to ICS, and the first thing you’ll see is that it’s not Vanilla. The way ASUS has worked with Android 4.0 is in a way that makes it NEARLY Vanilla, that is completely unmodified by the manufacturer, but they’ve done some cool changes themselves. They’ve not only done a good job in not taking too much out or adding too much back in in this build, and you’ll see right away that the system is slick as ever.

The icons for the basic built-in applications have been changed to Ice Cream Sandwich loveliness, and interfaces have been changed to several basic Google-built apps. None of the apps are all that different from what you’ve seen in our original Ice Cream Sandwich review save their size except for the camera app which has been modified to work with the tablet’s bigger form factor. Like Honeycomb you’ll see that both the lock when you wake the tablet up and the controls on the camera app are sitting on the far right, complete with circular controls for things like zooming in and out.

You wont find the same shutter speed you saw on the first ICS device out there, the Galaxy Nexus, simply because that’s a feature built into the device, not the software. Similarly you will not find the facial recognition screen unlock – we’re guessing this is because there’ve been so many problems surrounding the lock thus far that ASUS decided to hold off on it for now for their device here. The settings menu is updated to the full ICS experience, complete with “developer” controls – head to the Force GPU Rendering option for a lovely GPU treat.

Have a peek at the images above and below as well as the hands-on video to get a full look at this build, then feel free to ask any additional questions you’ve got about the system in the comments below. Additionally if there are any tests you’d like done on this tablet with this version of Android on it, ask and you shall receive!

This is the next step in the Motorola like of devices, and not just in the tablet lineup, in the dual-core and above lineup as well. Starting with the Motorola Atrix at the start of 2011, the dual-core processor-toting handset craze began, and with it Motorola started their lineup of dual-port-toting smart devices that continues to this day. The XYBOARD is the latest Motorola tablet to fit into this puzzle.

The Atrix and the Motorola XOOM were the first to have a microUSB and a microHDMI port at the bottom of them, and starting with this most recent wave of Motorola devices including the Photon, Atrix 2, Droid RAZR, Droid 3, and the XYBOARD tablets, the ports are equally spaced, allowing you to use basically any Motorola accessory with any Motorola Android device. Without getting too in-depth on that wavelength, this is a device that Motorola considers part of its own evolving family, one that does not necessarily need to compete with the rest of the Android world.

Hardware

This again is the smaller of two XYBOARD tablets, and in its international form is called the “XOOM 2 Media Edition” because it’s got an improved speaker setup and is supposedly better for listening to music and watching videos than the larger tablet. I’ve not personally found the experience to be all that different between the two in that regard – the difference, instead, in an everyday sense, is that these two tablets are different sizes physically. The DROID XYBOARD 8.2 at first seemed to me to be overpriced and under-improved when compared to the original XOOM, and I still do feel that way about the 10.1 version to a degree, but here in the 8.2 you’re going to find a rather nice package for a tablet, and one sized and shaped in a way that puts it up in the top 5 Android tablets on my list currently.

At this very moment, no tablet comes near the ASUS Transformer Prime for quality, price, or power in any way at all. What you’ve got here in the XYBOARD 8.2 is one of the three nicest tablets carried by Verizon right this moment, and the best 4G LTE tablet for what you’d find me needing one for in my line of work. I should remind you that I have no need for a tablet, and that’s the truth, but for the time that’d I like to have one around – like on an airplane ride to the next Motorola product release, for example, I’d bring this perfectly sized unit along.

For the full specifications on this tablet, head to our listing over at DEVICE.AC’s Motorola DROID XYBOARD 8.2, and note again the alternate XOOM 2 title. This tablet is extremely light, very well made, and amongst the thinnest tablets in the world.

Software

Inside you’ll find a very basic build of Android 3.2 Honeycomb, complete with Motorola-made app icons you’ll recognize from everything starting at the Droid 3 forward. The apps themselves aren’t as changed as you’ll find them on a recent Motorola smartphone – for instance the gallery for photos and video isn’t the slightly less than appealing media center you’ve got on the DROID RAZR, it’s the lovely stock Honeycomb (or something close) gallery we know and appreciate. Use this tablet on its own or connect it to your HDTV to watch some high definition movies without a skip – or even play some Sonic CD on that gigantic television with pixels large as life.

Have a peek at the HD Dock being released with this and the other XYBOARD here in a hands-on video to see how well the software works as a team with its holder. All it really does is stand the device upright and keep it plugged in to power and your HDMI port if you like, but because it’s adjustable and lets you use the tablet essentially like a control panel, it’s worth it. And it’s adjustable for use with the rest of the recent Motorola Android devices as well.

Battery and Camera

While the 4G LTE does have a bit of an effect on the battery, you’ll find that you’ve got at least a full day’s use on this tablet of basic functions like email, web browsing, and the like. If you’re doing nothing but playing high-demand games and streaming video, you’ve got closer to 6-8 hours on your hands. Very comparable to handsets not being drained by the strain of the connection speed.

The camera is so-so. No worse than the original Motorola XOOM, but certainly no better than the rest of the 2011 lineup of Android tablets what with their similar 5-megapixel cameras, the lot of them. Have a peek at some examples in both photos and video here and in the gallery below:

Wrap-Up

This tablet is nice, and if you rule out the facts that it’ll cost you an arm and a leg to first purchase it then pay each month for 4G LTE connectivity, you’ve got a nice tablet on your hands. I find myself very skeptical that there’s a real need for data-connected tablets on today’s market outside those people who’ve got specific use-cases in mind, so if you’re just an average lady or man out there thinking of picking up a tablet for fun, I still suggest you look into a wifi-only tablet instead. That said, if you do have a need for mobile data on a tablet, this is certainly one of your better choices.

I’d rate this tablet slightly higher than the Samsung choice on LTE simply because I like to have HDMI connectivity right out of the box, but lower than the iPad 2 also available on Verizon simply because the iPad 2 STILL seems like a more complete package. For those of you looking for the best Android tablet overall, go for the ASUS Transformer Prime. For those of you looking for an Android tablet specifically on the Verizon LTE network, don’t rule the XYBOARD 8.2 out.

Hardware

Before we begin, note that we’re having a look at this 10.1-inch model XYBOARD first here in this post, then the 8.2-inch version later this week! Now here in the DROID XYBOARD you’ve got Motorola’s second and most third most confortable to use tablet on the market, the 10.1-inch version only trumped by the surprisingly lightweight 8.2-inch version we’ll be reviewing later on also here on SlashGear. The 10.1-inch tablet here has a relatively bright LCD display at a standard 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. It’s covered up by a layer of reinforced Gorilla Glass, while the innards of this device share the same splash-resistant coating that the DROID RAZR does. You’ve got a microSIM card slot here, but no microSD slot like the XOOM does, the rest of your ports consisting of the standard headphones jack on top and a standardized Motorola setup of microUSB aside microHDMI ports next to one another on the bottom. This means you’ll be able to use the full rundown of Motorola devices in this current season, even though most of them are basically meant for handsets.

This tablet is only .02 inches than the thinnest tablet on the market right now, and at 599g it beats out the 730g of its predecessor, the original XOOM, by a healthy margin. In other words, you can tell the difference even without having both in your hands. You’ll have a much easier time gripping this tablet than most other tablets on the market today (if you have any trouble with any of them, that is), and the sharp-curve of the corners makes for a nice differentiation point from the rest of the world’s slates.

Software

You’ll be running Android 3.2 Honeycomb out of the box with some very BASIC additions by Motorola to make it their own. You’ll have the same Honeycomb Vanilla gallery, same camera, same interface on the whole, it’s just the icons a handful of applications that are coming from the manufacturer and Verizon. Most prominent is the MotoCast app sitting right there on your main home screen just begging you to get into Motorola’s extended world of devices via their rather nicely crafted software ecosystem – check out the DROID RAZR and the Motorola MOTOACTV reviews we’ve got to get a better idea of what it means to be part of this bigger family Motorola is promoting here.

Then it’s all about the built-in games like Madden 2012 which is, admittedly, the first sports game I’ve enjoyed on the mobile platform thus far, and that “Let’s Golf” game we’ve seen on essentially every Android device since early this year — someone did some GOOD promotion deals, I’ll tell you that much. You’ve also got Evernote which works just fine with your included sylus pen for hand-written digital notes, GoToMeeting for group chatting, and Quickoffice HD which you’ll find works more than good enough for editing your Office documents on the go. Slingbox, Skitch, VideoSurf, Dijit, and even Netflix begin to look like the devil word: “bloatware” when they’re all stacked up on two screens of unremovable apps that come with this talbet straight from the store, but they’re certainly not the worst quality apps when it comes down to it for someone looking to avoid the Android Market entirely.

You’ll find that the dual-core processor from Texas Instruments is the 1.2 GHz OMAP4 you’ve been seeing on a lot of devices with Android under the hood lately, it appearing in title to out-do the most common dual-core processor of 2011 the NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz, but having a look at our Quadarant Advanced benchmarks here you’ll see the increase isn’t the most fantastic in the world, but is certainly something to have a look at – pay attention to the individual numbers for a wild bit of difference:

You’ll notice one big difference: I/O has had the doors blown off between the two of these machines. You’ll not notice the difference in real life usage unless you’re REALLY attuned to the functions of the device – the ladies and gentlemen in the audience won’t be able to tell the difference. Have a peek at the device in action here in the hands-on video and know the truth:

Camera / Battery

Just like the original XOOM and the rest of the greater Android tablet family, the XYBOARD 10.1′s up time is several days strong if you’re not using it for heavy activities like streaming video. If you ARE streaming video non-stop, you’ll probably be plugged into the wall anyway, but just supposing your not: you’ve got something like 6-8 hours streaming via LTE. For those heavy users playing nothing but HD games and playing music via Google Music at the same time, you’ve got just about the same amount of uptime ahead of you.

The camera on this device is not especially good. It’s a 5-megapixel shooter, but don’t expect much better than what you got with the original XOOM. This tablet is certainly not made to be the master of the 5 megapixel shooters that the Galaxy Nexus is, nor is it ready to take on the big guns in tablet photography that the HTC Jetstream and the ASUS Transformer PRIME are, the both of them. Have a peek at some examples here and in the gallery below.

Wrap-Up

The question that’ll be popping up on most XOOM owners minds at one point or another now is this: should I upgrade? With a tablet that’s got such a similar processor and a display that’s not especially improved over the original XOOM, it’s essentially only the chassis and the fact that you can no longer use a microSD card that should sway you in one direction or the other – not to mention the money you’ll have to drop to move from one model to the next. If you’ve already got a tablet, I’ll say, this probably isn’t going to seem like much of an improvement over the model you’ve already got.

If on the other hand you’ve never used an Android tablet before, this is as good a place to start as any, as believe it or not, most Android tablets aren’t all the different from one another, regardless of their manufacturer. The biggest difference between Android tablets at the moment can be found in the ASUS Transformer Prime — therein lies the next generation of Android tablets, complete with keyboard dock that turns the thing into a laptop and a quad-core processor that beats down the whole rest of the Android world with ease. But if you’re not quite into that world yet and would like to remain in this fully connected LTE world (the Prime has no carrier affiliation as of yet), then by all means try out the XYBOARD 10.1 and Motorola your way to victory. Feel free to ask any additional questions below and I’ll do my best to answer, and another reminder: we’re reviewing the 8.2-inch version of this tablet here on SlashGear as well, soon!

Hardware

The magic in this device is not only in its keyboard dock, but once you get a taste of the ta on its own, its hard to resist the desire to own what basically amounts to the other half of it. Battery life essentially doubles when you’ve got both pieces and with this connection you’ve got the next generation of device in your hands today: a notebook with a touchscreen. Of course to make it all worth it, you’ve got to have an operating system that’ll back it all up – we’ll chat about that a bit more in the Software portion of this review. For now, have a peek at this very clean, modern looking bit of equipment:

Now you don’t HAVE to pick up the keyboard dock for this tablet, as all the processor power does lie inside the tablet bit itself. I’m simply not going to begin going into the supposed “limited app environment” that Android has in this review because I’m of the opinion (through practice) that if you want your device to do something, there’s a developer out there who wanted the same thing and made an app for it. Because of this, the tablet you’re looking at is easily one of the top 5 tablet computers on the market today. Because I’m a fan of Android and am more interested in the development of this operating system than any of the other mobile platforms, I would at this moment choose this tablet above all others, and not least of all because it’s gorgeous to behold.

Circles upon circles carved in a royal shade of metal around the entirety of the back of the tablet with the massive fact showing itself to be entirely Gorilla Glass, flat from the center all the way to the edges. The only marking you’ll find on either the back or the front is the lovely ASUS logo which is more than easy on the eyes, it’s downright well designed. The lightness of the tablet is balanced perfectly well with how weighty it must be to convince your humble narrator that it’s not going to bust if I drop it. In fact there’s no way I’ll be able to break this tablet with my bear hands unless I toss it off a building – though you won’t see me attempting this any time soon.

The keyboard dock has been sent to us to review in a box right alongside the tablet itself, and indeed it does belong with the tablet – let me reiterate: this isn’t a tablet, it’s a collapsible notebook. Though I cannot yet see this as a total replacement for the MacBook Air (or whatever else you folks are using to replace that luxury on the PC side), it is an excellent option for those of you wishing to work in a brand new environment where Android is still your system and your screen is touchable.

You’ll find that switching between the tablet and the keyboard-attached amalgamation is quick, simple, and judging by the latch on this monster, the whole thing is held quite securely in place for the long haul. Don’t expect to be getting the thing out of there with one hand, but plugging it in with one hand is certainly doable. And get this: in this (and the orignal Transformer) is the first place you’ve got a notebook that takes photographs from its back, and not just terrible photographs, nice ones.

As far as the other side goes, the inside – for the fellow who asked: there are two little rubber bumpers on the keyboard side that hold the display away from the surface, but the Gorilla glass wouldn’t have to worry about getting scratched either way because Gorilla Glass is more than tough enough to resist such smooth foe. Have a look here at a close-up view of the keyboard in all its glory in hands-on video Two:

The hinge is strong enough to be relatively tough to move when it doesn’t have the tablet plugged in, and the whole rig is difficult to open up when attached if you’re holding a baby in your other arm. I guarantee you I’ve tried it. This of course means that the connected keyboard/tablet combo wont come flying open accidentally by any means. Like the rest of the sections you’re about to read, know that anything you’d like to know about that I haven’t covered here is more than open to discussion below: ask any question you wish and I shall respond, your wish is my tap and click!

Display

In this tablet you’re going to find the lightest whites, the darkest blacks, and the brightest display with its Super IPS+ mode with over 600 nits (a nit is a unit of visible-light intensity, just so you know) — that compared to the iPad 2′s 350-400 nits makes for a big gap, but considering the rest of the tablet world is somewhere in the same area for brightness, this including the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the non-Super IPS+ mode of the Prime, these numbers aren’t going to make a BIG difference unless you’re holding them up side by side. The difference comes when you’re standing outside holding the tablet in direct sunlight – and here you’ll find the brightness to make a big difference.

The resolution on this device is 1280 x 800, the panel having a 16:10 ratio and 10.1-inches in size diagonally. Compared to the 9.7-inch iPad 2 display, the pixels per inch on the Transformer are a dominant 145 PPI over the Apple tablet’s 132 PPI. Compare this to the display on the next most popular Android tablet on the market with the Kindle Fire at 169 ppi and you might have a heart attack until you realize that this is because 1024 x 600 pixels are smashed into 7-inches of display instead of the Prime’s 10.1 – much easier to get dense down there at the smaller level.

Final assessment: this is the best display on a 10-inch tablet market today. It’s bright, dense, your games and text are sharp and readable, and you can use this beast outside in the summertime.

Benchmarks

While it’s interesting to mark up a bunch of benchmarks on this and the rest of the tablets in the market, the Transformer Prime is a perfect example of where even though you’ll see lesser tablets out-do it at first glance. What you’re not seeing is the real-world performance here in these tests, and that is always what matters most. Normally I don’t mention this stuff as it should be a given whenever you’re looking at benchmark tests performed on completely different pieces of hardware, but here the truth is quite relevant, as the results are quite deceptive.

As such, feel free to head back to our Hands-on and Unboxing post to see a whole collection of benchmark results on both the Transformer Prime and the original Transformer. Also head back to our ASUS Transformer Prime vs iPad 2 Benchmark Tests post for more of a fight between the two, but remember that the numbers do not perfectly reflect the power within in any case. Have a peek at our hands-on with both devices in the following video to see a bit more of a real-world test of performance, as it were. Games is what you’ll see here, games galore I tell you!

Above you’ll see the iPad 2 on the left and the Transformer Prime on the right, same for the video below – in the video above you’ll see the game Riptide GP, below you’ll see the game Shadowgun. You’ll find that both games have been enhanced in several ways, some big, some small, and though the gameplay is comparable on both machines, the Tegra versions on the Prime are clearly the cooler gaming experiences. Will the iPad versions be updated eventually? Maybe, you never know.

These games are but a taste of the handful of apps developed by gaming groups hand-in-hand with NVIDIA to optimize them for the Tegra 3 quad-core processor. Head down to the software portion of this review to see a few more in high action.

Camera

In this category I’m not even going to begin comparing the camera to any other tablet save one, only ONE tablet in the world at this very moment can hold any kind of candle to the Transformer Prime in any respect, and that is, believe it or not, the $800 HTC Jetstream. What you’ll find is that not only do both of these tablets have the only 8-megapixel cameras in the tablet market, the rest of the market’s cameras are absolutely terrible, especially when compared to these two. Of course the price difference between the Prime and the Jetstream provide you with a clear choice in this case, but their cameras taken aside from that are fairly similar.

Have a peek at a few more examples of what the Transformer Prime’s 8-megapixel camera can do here for photos and for video, the video being 1080p of course. The front-facing camera is the same basic 1.2-megapixel camera we’ve seen on many tablets and smartphones before, it being only of the quality you’d use for video chat – someday we’ll have high quality chat, someday!

Note also that the Transformer Prime boasts a lovely F2.4 aperture, the same rating the iPhone 4S has, so it’s not just the megapixels you’re enjoying here, it’s the guts.

Software

Before we go any further, you should have a look at our first in a series of hands-on videos (and yes, the second is posted above, but it just worked out that way!) Here you’ll find that your humble narrator starts exploring the Transformer Prime by showing off the original Transformer and the app selection it has. The reason for this is that it’s essentially the same set you’ll get with the Transformer Prime, and the reason for THAT is ASUS promotion of the Transformer and the Transformer Prime as a family of devices. Instead of tossing their “older” model under the bus, they’re offering it for the lower of two prices, the Prime then considered the “premium” choice for consumers for its advanced build and processor, not to mention is two lovely color options.

What we’ve gotten here with our review unit is a set of apps direct from NVIDIA and several of their partnered developer groups who made games with the developers at NVIDIA optimized for their newest builds. In this case, for example, there’s a fighting game created to show off the performance of each of the four CPU cores, here simply branded “Chidori.” What Chidori represents is an alliance of gaming groups joined together to provide tools and resources for developers to make their games cross-platform as easily as possible, and their aims with Tegra 3 are made clear in a quote from Katsunori Yamaji, CEO and Executive Producer at Premium Agency Inc for the announcement of the chip last month:

“Tegra 3 is equivalent to a console game machine, and we believe devices with it will play an important part in next-generation games. We’ve been working on optimizing our cross-platform engine Chidori to fully support Tegra 3. To support Tegra 3′s multi-core engine, we’ve optimized our 3D effect tool. And we’ve adapted our high-quality shader library, Aoi, to Tegra 3, allowing truly beautiful imagery.” – Yamaji

Have a peek at what Chidori has to offer in this very pre-production demo:

Next have a look at the game you’ve seen a couple times before if you’ve been following along with the NVIDIA crew and their quad-core processor since before it was called Tegra 3. This game is called Glowball and it’s been in development since the processor inside this tablet was called Project Kal-El, it still here showing off what it was intended for since the start: the pure loveliness of what this device and its system on chip are capable of in the graphics department.

Then behold another early build: Bladeslinger. Much in the same style as the Infinity Blade series and its ability to show off the wonders of the A5 chip in the iPad 2, here Bladeslinger (even in this Alpha or Beta build), looks and acts impressive in every way.

Battery

There are three pre-set modes you can be in on the Transformer Prime, the first being Power Saving Mode, the next being Balanced Mode, and the final being Normal Mode. NVIDIA and ASUS have assured us that Balanced Mode is more than enough of a powerhouse to run all the games we’ve been burning through here, but you know good and well that we want the most powerful mobile processor on the planet working as hard as it can the entire time we’re testing the battery. That said, if the Normal Mode battery life is any indication (and it certainly is), the Power Saving Mode will last you until the end of time with battery life.

What you’re seeing above is a look at the battery life AFTER the firmware update that came in early yesterday from ASUS. The battery life you’re seeing from the reviews run before yesterday are, as I’m sure you say, not the best, but what’s happened after this update came down today was a vast improvement in battery life (amongst other things) including what appears to be the 5th core doing its thing while we have the device with the display off. Have a look back at the post entitled Variable SMP: the brain of quad-core mobile computing and see not only how there’s actually five CPU cores in the Tegra 3 processor in this device, the fifth is activated when the others aren’t needed, this saving you energy in the form of battery power. It’s like a ninja in the night, a ninja fighting for good!

In other words: even on Normal mode, which is what you’re seeing above, we’ve got 10+ hours of battery time. When it comes to running the device with the dock attached, we’re talking about another 50-75% increase in battery time. If you’re using your tablet disconnected from the dock and you’re running HD streaming video to your HDTV, you’ve got much closer to 7 hours of uptime. The biggest killer of your battery is going to be the Super IPS+ mode, which I recommend only using if you’re hanging out on a parade route on the 4th of July in Texas, because even without this feature activated, you’ll be fine out on the town on a normal midwestern sunny day.

Wrap-Up

The ASUS Transformer Prime is without a doubt the finest Android tablet to date, and barring those with an addiction to having what they call the “widest” or “finest” app collection in the land, I’ve got no qualms with calling this the highest quality slate on the market today. Of course the app production ecosystem for the iPad 2 is stronger – people still see it as an easier place to make cash. With Android it’s still not so easy to make a winning application, especially one that’s supported by a market that has a real vetting process. But lo and behold, those of you who are developers of games specifically, you’ve got NVIDIA to work with, and not only do they give developers wanting to work with them the resources they need to make their game optimized for their processors, they promote the heck out of your games by giving them to us to test out.

With NVIDIA promoting this tablet as the first quad-core processor toting tablet on the market, ASUS has a brand tie-in that the rest of the chip producers simply haven’t offered as of yet. NVIDIA is pretty darn good at pumping themselves up as the group to trust for gamers, and with that power the rest of the applications the everyday user uses are more than supported as well – and NVIDIA knows this, and NVIDIA promotes this. Meanwhile you’ll find many (not all), but many of the other devices like this on the market simply promoting their device as having a “super powered dual-core processor” without a brand, or in Apple’s case, they simply re-brand the processor as their own – this is also smart.

So what more could you want? I know what you Android lovers want: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Lucky you, ASUS has already promised to deliver that system sooner than later, with an announcement of when coming sometime later this month from what we understand. The only limit this device has that I’m concerned about is its current system, Android 3.x Honeycomb, the entire line of which (3.0, 3.1, and now 3.2) have been fun to work with, but haven’t been as up to the task of everyday usage in every respect as Ice Cream Sandwich has been in the few short weeks it’s been in the wild.

Therefor I tell you this: if you’re deciding between an iPad 2 and this device, you’re doing it wrong. Buy the one that feels better to you, and go with it. There’s no perfect test to decide between the two, it always comes down to personal preference if you ask me. If you’re deciding on which Android tablet to get, look no further. The rest of the Android slate world has been completely blown away.

Have a peek at the photos below and the video above and know this: this isn’t the end of our review, this is just another bit of it. If you’ve got any questions on this (or any other device we’ve reviewed for that matter) feel free to ask in the comments below. We and I will do our best to answer!

Hardware

Like its predecessors the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Galaxy Tab 7.7, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 is monumentally thin, and just as it was when we first laid eyes and hands on the pre-production build back at CTIA spring 2011, this tablet is a winner when it comes to industrial design. It’s simply lovely in its form, feeling like Samsung wanted to knock the tablet game out of the park with a simple set of matte black plastic along the back and silver plastic around the edge, with the entirety of the front being a tough layer of glass and a 1/2-inch border of black under the glass around the 8.9-inch display. This display is a PLS TFT capacitive touchscreen at 800 x 1280 pixel resolution and the whole device sizes in at 230.9 x 157.8 x 8.6 mm.

The display is no AMOLED, to be sure, but it is relatively bright and will suffice for your everyday indoor activities. This tablet is in a class with the iPad and the top-tier Androids when it comes to overall quality, and you’ll know good and well where your $479.99 (with a free phone) went when you’ve purchased it. This tablet is the ideal size for those of you wishing for a tablet that’s both compact but not so small to fit in your pocket, and certainly light and thin enough to keep in a purse. You’ll want to think about purchasing a case for the tablet if you’re carrying it around in your daily satchel, especially since you don’t want the screen to get all nicked up by keys and coins.

Software

Again take a peek at our review of TouchWiz UX for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to see what this device is running more in-depth, otherwise feel free to see the hands-on video we’ve got here to check the size difference. This version of TouchWiz is running a bit more smooth than it was on the 10.1 when it was first launched, and it’s certainly nice to have the screenshot feature at the bottom of the screen, but that bar sitting around at all times can get rather annoying. Where Android’s tablet-specific operating system version Honeycomb and the soon to be prevalent tablet and handset-based Ice Cream Sandwich both have the feature where these buttons fade down to nearly invisible when you don’t need them, Samsung has found it necessary to remind you that they’re there at all times with a dedicated bar. This takes away a bit of your screen space for taps as well as for viewing space, mind you, so you may well want to consider this when looking for that perfect tablet.

That said, if you’ve never used Android on a tablet before, you’ll probably not notice the difference as compared to even the most massive smartphone, this display will seem like a monster. That’s of course also assuming you’ve never held a tablet of any other kind either – you’ll want to compare this tablet to a set of other Samsung devices to choose your true size (for 8.9-inch displays and smaller, of course): Galaxy Note vs Galaxy S II vs Galaxy Tab 7.7. For my own personal use, I’ll stick with the Galaxy S II unless I’m playing some games, in which case I won’t need an internet connection and will of course want the Wi-fi version of the 8.9 instead of this LTE-connected slate we’re looking at today.

Camera

The shooter on the back of this device is decent for the 3 megapixels it packs. You won’t be collecting the same masterpieces your Galaxy Note and your Galaxy S II are rolling with, but for Facebook images and sharing on Google+, you should be ok. Have a peek at a couple examples at 3 megapixels for photos and 720p for video below.

Battery and Speed Test

Like most tablets these days, the battery on this device appears to be doing quite well. You’re working with a 6100 mAh lithium ion non-removable unit here, and since that’s pretty massive and you’re not going to be using this device nearly as much as you do a smartphone, you’ll be good for AT LEAST a full day’s work and play. When you’re running streaming video, you’ll be slightly less successful with around 7-8 hours. Enough for a few movies on a long car ride. Playing high-demand games will yield similar results, but in the upper 9-10 hour area if you’ve started with a full battery.

Have a peek at the LTE speeds as recorded in a real live AT&T 4G LTE city, one of the few in the united states today. Note that this device can also access AT&T’s much larger HSPA+ network which also goes relatively quick.

Hands-on Demonstration

What you’ve gotta know right this second about the first hands-on your humble narrator did on this device is that I was a complete idiot and made the device look like a wanker because I didn’t realize it was downloading a ton of apps all at once. You can head back to that post and leave some incendiary comments, or have a look at a much more accurate hands-on demonstration here. No bugs found!

Wrap-Up

Samsung appears to be trying for every single size device here in the smart mobile world, with 10.1-inches, 8.9, 7.7, 7, 5.3, 5, 4.65, 4.52, 4.5, 4.3, and the list goes on and on. No matter what you want, Samsung has you covered in AT LEAST the display size department. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 is the nicest size I’ve seen for playing games – not too big, not too small, but I must admit I’ve not personally held the 7.7 in my hands yet, so we’ll see how that ads up when it does.

As far as connections go, Samsung doesn’t seem too concerned with allowing you to hook up to anything but your personal computer via the USB cord they include – and note, this isn’t a microUSB cord, it’s one unique to Samsung’s tablet line. You can purchase peripherals like the USB connector you can see in your humble narrator’s review of a wireless gamepad controller on Android Community, but they all come separate. You can also plug in a headphone cord at the top of this tablet, but other than that, you’ll be picking up extra converters to connect. Then it all comes down to size when deciding, otherwise it’s the same great Samsung tablet you saw with the original Galaxy Tab 10.1.

To get started we have a short and sweet hands-on unboxing video of the Springboard for everyone to experience so you have an understanding of this new tab. Then we’ll get into the hardware, software, and that pretty 7″ HD display all wrapped in aluminum.

T-Mobile Springboard hands-on video

Hardware

The actual hardware was a big surprise for me with the Springboard given the low priced nature of this tablet, that and Huawei has been a more budget friendly device company thus far. The Springboard is highly impressive with both the looks, and the overall feel. It’s almost as if they took some clues from the iPhone 4 and the HTC Flyer tablet and rolled them into one, but I really like it. One thing worth noting is the display is extremely sharp and clear. The 1280 x 800 HD resolution on the smaller tablet really looks great, although the colors weren’t as good as I’ve come to expect from what we’ve seen lately with Samsung and others.

Now lets break down the hardware. The Springboard is one of the first 7″ tablets to offer the full 1280 x 800 HD resolution of larger devices. All recent smaller tablets have been offered with a 1024 x 600 resolution. What that gives us is a small and portable tablet with an exceptional viewing experience. So, we have that 7″ HD display — powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor, 768MB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and a pair of cameras. 5 megapixels around back and 1.3 on the front — all pushed by T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ network.

One benefit is we have a removable back with micro-SD support for an option 32GB of expanded storage, the T-Mobile 4G SIM card, and a 4,100 mAh battery. The battery is not actually assessable or removable but the large size makes battery life quite great.

Now for that iPhone 4 comment I made above. The entire device is housed in a lightweight and extremely durable brushed aluminum and the top has a nice squared design but it looks a bit too similar to the iPhone if you ask me, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The top, or left side when holding in landscape mode features the 3.5mm headphone jack and two stereo speaker grills.

The Springboard feels excellent in the hands and during usage. It is small, thin, and lightweight coming in at .41″ thin and weighing only 14 oz. The entire design is very, very sturdy and like I said above I was really impressed. The Springboard tablet has a nice and premium feel in the hands, something not all lower priced tablets can offer.

Around to the side we have the power button and the volume up/down rocker. Then neatly on bottom is the micro-USB port for syncing, micro-HDMI for outputting video and pictures, and the power charging port.

Software

Powered by Android 3.2 Honeycomb the experience is very familiar and everyone should know plenty about Honeycomb already. Sadly we don’t have Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich but I expect that will come at some point in this tablets bright future. We do have a decent set of bundled applications and a few noteworthy ones are BlockBuster and Netflix, I think T-Mobile expects us to be streaming plenty of content over this bad boy, so enjoy it.

Shown in the gallery below are a few of the pre-installed applications, plus how Blockbuster looks on the awesome 7″ display. The Netflix experience still needs work, but that is their fault and not the Springboards. Out of the box we have Accuweather for tablets, Blio e-reader, Blockbuster, File Manager, Lets Golf 2, NOVA 2 HD, Netflix, Lookout Mobile Security, Qello and a few other media viewers and then the usual suite of T-Mobile apps like Qik and TmoTV. One missing feature and app was Google Movies. It’s not an option on the market and was no where to be found. Whether this was removed in favor of BlockBuster or Netflix remains to be seen but we’ve reached out to T-Mobile and will update when we hear anything. For now you wont be renting any movies from the Android Market.

Android 3.2 Honeycomb has all the recent improvements Google has made to the tablet OS and so far I’ve had a pretty smooth and fluid experience with the Springboard. Although adding widgets to homescreens had some lag I’ve not seen in other tablets, that is the only issue I’ve encountered — that and some apps don’t seem to work quite right with the 7″ display, including the pre-installed app Qello.

Benchmarks and Speedtest

What review would be complete without a few benchmarks and speedtests. The 4G HSPA+ from T-Mobile performs pretty decent in this budget tablet and I’m averaging around 4-6 Mbps download speeds and 1 Mbps uploads. Not LTE fast, but fast enough to blaze through app updates.

Benchmarks weren’t extremely impressive and with Quadrant we score a decent 1950. The 7″ Acer Iconia A100 with the slower clocked Tegra 2 scores well over 2000 compared to the faster 1.2 GHz chip in this Springboard, but the lower 768MB of RAM could also play a role here too.

Benchmarks are only a small part of the overall user experience and day to day usage I had zero slowdowns and felt everything was snappy, quick, and performed great. Gaming was also perfect on the HD display and the dual-core processor keeps things sharp. Football Kicks (seen in screenshots) is my new favorite game and works beautifully on the Springboard.

Camera

We have a 5 megapixel camera around back with no LED flash, and 1.3 front for video chat. The camera was average at best compared to similarly spec’d smartphones but overall the quality was about what you’d expect on a budget tablet. Enough for that quick photo if needed, but I’d rather use Android smartphone if I had the option. Here are a few camera samples.

Battery Life

I’ve been enjoying this tablet for a little while now and while testing the battery over both 4G and Wi-Fi I used the tablet off and on for almost 3 days on the 4,100 mAh battery. Obviously continuous usage will be much lower but the occasional game on the couch, web browsing and quick email it lasted almost 3 days and died overnight before I could capture a screenshot. I’ll be sure to update shortly with a screenshot so you’ll have a better idea what to expect.

Wrap-Up

I’ve had plenty of time to toy around with this tablet and so far I’m pretty confident that most users will appreciate what it has to offer. If a larger 10″ tablet isn’t ideal or portable enough for you, but you need the 4G data connectivity — consider the T-Mobile Springboard. With a small and portable 7″ form factor that also manages to pack plenty of punch with a dual-core processor you wont be disappointed. Compared to other 7″ tablets on the market this is by far one of the best choices. At least until the Kindle Fire or Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus arrives. We’ll be reviewing both of those in the next few weeks and will be sure to compare them so you can all get a better idea of what to expect. I’m not sure who came up with the name Springboard, and the fact that it is launching now it’s almost winter instead of in the spring seems a little funny if you ask me.

The T-Mobile Springboard Tablet will be available at T-Mobile.com starting November 16th for a $179 (after $50 mail in rebate) down payment, a 2-year service agreement, and apparently some monthly payments. Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section below and I’ll try my best to answer them. In the mean time enjoy this one last picture (a real springboard), then the full gallery below.

Update: Samsung Galaxy Note (LTE) Review for AT&T network

Hardware

The Samsung Galaxy S II looked vast when we first saw it; the Galaxy Note knocks its smaller cellular sibling into the proverbial cocked hat. At 146.85 x 82.95 x 9.65 mm and 178g it’s certainly a handful, though the sub-centimeter thickness does mean it’s still relatively straightforward to slip into the front pocket of your jeans, assuming they’re not hipster-tight. It’s also faintly ridiculous to hold to your head during voice calls, like you’re resting your face against a broad Swedish cracker-bread, only smoother.

Still, you can’t argue with why Samsung opted for such outré dimensions: the Galaxy Note offers a 5.3-inch Super AMOLED HD display running, as the name suggests, at an eye-searing 1280 x 800 resolution. Like all of Samsung’s Super AMOLED panels before it, viewing angles are so broad that, from the side, the display looks painted on. Colors are vibrant, blacks as dark as a distant nebula.

Samsung had arguably been resting on its AMOLED laurels with recent GSII-variants, making do with WVGA resolution and counting on image quality to offset a shortage of pixels, but the Note quickly brings things bang up to date. The only criticism we can level – on paper at least – is Samsung’s use of a PenTile display, which lacks sub-pixels and can leave screens with a color tinge. In practice, it’s not something we noticed in our time with the phone.

Samsung Galaxy Note: Overview

Other specs are familiar from the Galaxy S II line, along with the design. The plastic chassis is sturdy, though the battery cover – as always – feels flimsy and delicate when you prise it off. A physical home button below the display is flanked by touch-sensitive menu and back buttons, while a 2-megapixel front-facing camera sits above the display. On the back is an 8-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and support for 1080p 30fps video recording. A microUSB port on the bottom handles charging/syncing, while the power/lock button is on the upper right edge – slightly too high and tricky to locate on first stab, in our experience – while the volume rocker is on the left edge – also slightly too high and slightly too short for entirely comfortable use.

Inside, Samsung has opted for a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, paired with 1GB of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage. A microSD card – under the battery cover, next to the capacious 2,500 mAh Li-Ion battery pack – can extend that by up to 32GB. Wireless connectivity includes quadband WCDMA/UMTS with support for up to 21Mbps HSPA+, quadband GSM/EDGE, WiFI a/b/g/n on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and Bluetooth 3.0+HS. No dedicated HDMI port, but the microUSB 2.0 port supports MHL HDMI with the correct – and not included – adapter. There’s obviously GPS, a digital compass, accelerometer, gyroscope and the proximity/light sensors, together with an FM radio with RDS that uses your wired headphones as an antenna.

In short, it’s a device that’s at the top of its game when it comes to hardware, though Samsung hasn’t left its screen to wow on merely proportions and pixels. Instead, the Koreans turned to Wacom and a clever digital stylus, to prove that there’s still a place in mobile for the pen.

S-Pen Stylus

It didn’t take Steve Jobs’ comments on the stylus – “If you see a stylus they blew it” – to sour opinions on the mobile matchstick, but they certainly did pen-toting tablets and smartphones no favors. There’s more than one way to implement a digital pen, however, and Samsung’s system deserves more than a second glance.

Rather than relying on a resistive touchscreen, or an inaccurate capacitive stylus, the Galaxy Note uses a Wacom active digitizer system. Wacom is best known for its artists’ tablets, but the company also has a history of supplying Tablet PC manufacturers with digitizers for their pen-enabled Windows slates. Microsoft’s platform may not be so hot with a pen, but that’s not Wacom’s fault: the company offers a digital inking experience that’s silky-smooth, free flowing and accurate, not to mention pressure-sensitive.

Samsung Galaxy Note: S-Pen:

Samsung isn’t the first mainstream mobile company to offer a digital stylus this year – HTC already released the Flyer which can be used with a special pen – but its implementation is the best we’ve tried so far. Unlike HTC’s restrictive system, where the pen could only be used in certain places of the OS, Samsung allows you to pick either your finger, the stylus or both when you negotiate through Android. When you take into account how readable webpages are, even fully zoomed out, on the HD-capable screen, the fine nib of the pen is mighty handy to tap on a smaller link.

In addition to the pressure-sensitive nib, there’s a side-mounted button that triggers secondary functions. Hold it down and double-tap, for instance, and one of Samsung’s “Post-It” style notelets pops up. Hold it down and tap-hold, meanwhile, and you can take a screenshot. Press and swipe up opens the context menu, while pressing and swiping left goes back. The frustration is how small and tricky to press the button is – we often had to do some stylus-twiddling with our fingers before we could locate it with a fingertip, something which could’ve been addressed with some simply texturing – and on one occasion we tried to pull the pen from its silo on the bottom of the Galaxy Note and instead pulled off the top section. Some judicious twisting reattached both parts, but then seemed to block the side-button’s movement; a little more twisting fixed that too.

Of course, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, as runs on the Galaxy Note, isn’t set up for pen use, and Samsung has followed HTC in developing its own S-Pen APIs and custom apps to make the most of its extra input option. Those APIs will be opened up to developers with an S-Pen SDK in December, with Samsung already working with some art and enterprise developers to deliver pen-aware apps through its own app store on the Note.

What’s unclear at this stage is how Samsung’s SDK will sit with the native pen support added to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The Galaxy Note looks likely to get an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich early in 2012, but so far it’s not certain how much overlap there is between Samsung and Google’s approaches to the stylus, or indeed where HTC’s fits in. That could leave three different strands for developers to deal with – the official Google way and two ways where manufacturers have jumped the gun – and might leave them wary of producing apps specifically for the Galaxy Note.

Software

Samsung hasn’t been shy when it comes to throwing colorful widgets at the Android 2.3 Gingerbread homescreen, and out of the box there are lashings of eye-catching tickers, calendar reminders, news alerts, weather panes, note shortcuts and more. In fact there’s comparatively little room left on the first five of the seven homescreen panes for actual app shortcuts; TouchWiz offers five persistent icons running along the bottom of the display – the rightmost being a dedicated Applications key but the others user-customizable – but we had to ditch some of Samsung’s chunkier widgets to squeeze our most-used apps within reach.

Obviously there are the normal array of Android titles, like Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps and the Android Market, but Samsung has thrown some of its own in too. The three Hubs – Social, Music and Readers – are brought over from the Galaxy S II, offering Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn aggregation, MP3 downloads and ebooks/magazines/newspapers respectively, as has the AllShare DLNA media streaming app, for funneling across photos, music and video to a DLNA-compliant TV or other system.

Samsung Galaxy Note: Apps

Photo Editor and Video Maker have been upgraded to suit the Galaxy Note’s boosted multimedia appeal, each becoming capable little editing apps in their own right. Photo Editor supports advanced selection, morphing, warping, special effects and other enhancements, while Video Maker allows you to not only combine video clips, music and photos into a trimmed down timeline, but jot handwritten notes on top of the results. Rendering then takes a short while, after which point you can upload directly to YouTube for sharing.

Kies Air, as we’ve seen before, allows you to wirelessly connect to the Galaxy Note from the browser of a computer on the same WiFi network, and access multimedia, contacts, read/send SMS messages and more. It’s sluggish if you’re trying to transfer the Full HD video the Note is capable of capturing, but otherwise can be a useful tool. Alternatively, you can plug the Note in via USB and mount it as an external drive.

Polaris Office and Mini Diary round out the apps with which we’re familiar, offering respectively a way to open and work on Office files – something surprisingly useful on the Note’s big screen – and a rather gimmicky journalling tool that, unfortunately, hasn’t been updated to handle ink input. Instead you can use the huge onscreen keyboard (which has auto-correction/prediction turned off by default, but is a lot more usable with it switched on) or the handwriting recognition. The latter handles printed letters reasonably, but struggles with cursive, and we quickly gave up on it.

The other preloaded apps are more specific to the Galaxy Note, having some interaction with the pen. Crayon Physics is a 2D physics puzzle, with cutesy graphics hiding some increasingly tricky challenges, potentially too difficult to use as a way to occupy your kids; instead, head into the Samsung Apps store – there’s a S Choice app too, which at the moment redirects to the regular apps store – and you’ll find some more child-friendly drawing options like Hello Color Pencil and Hello Crayon (the majority of which are free).

That’s not to say that the Note only holds up as a kid’s art tool. We downloaded OmniSketch, announced as one of Samsung’s launch partners with the Galaxy Note last week, and it’s a surprisingly capable art app. Multiple brush types, color manipulation options, pressure sensitivity and some interesting custom brush-heads were enough to keep our entirely-unartistic fingers occupied, and we’ve seen impressive examples of what proper artists can actually do with nothing more than the Note and its stylus.

Those more interested in business than pleasure get S Planner and S Memo. S Planner turns the Galaxy Note into a Filofax alternative, thankfully without the faux-wood that Samsung added to its custom calendar app on the original Galaxy Tab. Year, Month, Week, 3 Days, Day, Agenda and Task views are supported, flicked between by auto-hiding tabs along the right edge of the display. The Galaxy Note’s huge screen comes in useful here again, making the Month view surprisingly usable – in portrait orientation you get the full month with enough space to make out individual appointment details on the agenda, together with a list of today’s meetings underneath – in comparison to most smartphone calendars. Unfortunately you can’t actually scribble a new meeting in using the pen, though you can attach (or create) a handwritten memo to each appointment.

That’s done with S Memo, probably the example of pen integration that general users will encounter the most. At its most basic it’s a Post-It replacement – you can either do the stylus double-tap shortcut to call up a small notelet, or open the app itself and get a full-screen note supporting different color inks, types of pen (including highlighters) and the ability to mix together hand-drawn diagrams, pasted photos and even attach audio recordings.

What makes it usable is the accuracy of the digital stylus. The HTC Flyer struggled as a note-taking tool because its pen simply couldn’t ink finely enough: that meant you could only fit a few words to a page. In contrast, the Galaxy Note is capable of very fine lines, and even though its display is smaller than the 7-inch Flyer, we were able to fit more text per line and per screen at any one time. Samsung has also integrated a two-finger panning system to move around larger notes. On the downside, HTC’s useful Evernote integration isn’t present, which means there’s no ability to search through handwritten notes, nor easily access them from other devices.

Camera and Multimedia

Samsung’s smartphone cameras have proved impressive recently, and the Galaxy Note is no different. Although its size means it’s bordering on the somewhat ridiculous feeling you get holding up a tablet to take photos and video, it just about escapes that fate; brave the occasional second glance, and you’re rewarded with colorful photos with plenty of detail to them. A rare sunny London day offered a chance for the Note to balance bright elements with more contrast-rich shade, though on a couple of occasions there was some odd focus hunting where the camera seemed reluctant to even try fixing on a subject.

Video, meanwhile, showed more of that jittery focus, struggling at times to handle the slow moving traffic in our sample clip below. Brighter parts of the scene suffer over-exposure, too, though when the frame is stable things are far more palatable. Audio is sensitive, perhaps too much so, but still within the bounds of acceptability. Once you’ve filmed clips, of course, you can slot them into your own mini-movies in the Galaxy Note’s video editing app.

Video playback benefits from Samsung’s usually broad range of supported codecs. The Note will handle 3GPP, H.263, H.264, MPEG4 and WMV (as well as 3GP, AAC, AAC+, AMR, AMR-NB, eAAC+, H.263, MP3 and MPEG4 audio) and then there’s the Android Market with its various third-party media player apps if that’s insufficient for you. 720p HD video in H.264, MPEG4 and WMV played back with no jerks or issues on the Note, and audio through the headphones jack was similarly strong. On resolution and scale, it’s hard to imagine a better way to consume video on your smartphone than the Note.

Phone and Battery

We’ve already mentioned that the Note’s outlandish dimensions left us feeling self-conscious using it for voice calls. We also struggled with earpiece positioning: the speaker is nudged right to the very top edge of the fascia, and we found ourselves shuffling the phone against our face during calls to find the sweetspot for audio. When we managed that, incoming and outgoing audio were both fair, while the speaker – on the back of the Note – is loud if subject to the usual distortion at higher volume levels. Of course you can also use a Bluetooth or wired handsfree kit, which leaves you free to stab at the Note’s display mid-call.

Given the processor, the size of the display and the active digitizer, we had low expectations of the Galaxy Note’s battery life. Daily charging has become de rigeur for modern smartphones, and we had visions of making it to mid-afternoon and then being forced to rejuice the Note with a sneaky top-up. Even Samsung’s predictions of up to 810 minutes of 3G talktime or 820 hours of 3G standby left us sceptical.

Imagine our surprise, then, to find that the Note bulldozered through our expectations. With a combination of web browsing on WiFi and 3G, some photography, push email turned on (and Twitter and Google+ updating in the background), use of the stylus and note/art apps, a little Google Maps navigation, a few text messages and a couple of short calls, the 2,500 mAh battery got us not just through a full day but well into the next.

We’re guessing that, as on the original Galaxy S II, Samsung is using some stringent processor throttling to achieve that, but while there were some occasional moments of lag common to all Android handsets, there was no real point where we felt we were waiting for the Note to catch up. Most importantly, apps where you need a reaction straight away – like calling up a new S Note to quickly jot something down – were on-screen without hesitation.

Wrap-Up

Bigger isn’t necessarily better. The Galaxy Note will automatically be out of contention for many, simply because of its size. For the mainstream, 5.3-inches – even with 1280 x 800 resolution – is simply too much to pocket. Sure, a tablet-resolution matching display is great for watching video, or browsing the web, or replacing your standalone PND with Google Maps Navigation, but it’s a little less appealing when you factor in portability.

There were times, in public with the Note, when we felt a little too self-conscious to be entirely happy pulling it out of our pocket. This isn’t a discrete smartphone you can cradle in your hand as you check directions or thumb out a quick text message: it’s big and obvious. All those extra pixels are nice, but the Galaxy Nexus – with its 1280 x 720 display measuring a comparatively compact 4.65-inches – will deliver much of the same in a form-factor that’s a lot more user-friendly.

Still, the Galaxy Nexus – even with Ice Cream Sandwich – doesn’t give you the clever S Pen, and that’s the Note’s real charm. Bundling a stylus isn’t sufficient in and of itself to make a mobile device special, but when it works well – accurate, precise, easy to use – then it undoubtedly adds something to the user experience. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to ditch your paper day-planner but don’t want to bundle a small tablet with your phone, then the Galaxy Note happily steps in to replace both.

Niche? Certainly, but Samsung hasn’t allowed fears of that to stop it from targeting pretty much every segment of the mobile audience. Niche needn’t mean unimpressive, either: what the Galaxy Note does, it does exceptionally well. Right now, if you want the precision an active digitizer gives you, plus more than all-day battery life, top-tier multimedia credentials and the range of apps the Android platform is blessed with, it’s your only choice. If you want a compact tablet that you can actually carry out of the house without needing a bag, it’s your best option. And if you want a smartphone that allows you to work and play and replace your paper notebook, it’s hugely compelling in many senses of the word “huge.”

Not for everyone, then, but that’s part of the Android charm: a huge array of devices catering to those for whom the “one size fits all” approach doesn’t fit. The Galaxy Note may not prove to be Samsung’s best-seller of the quarter, but those who succumb to its sizable charms will have a smartphone/hybrid that’s attention-grabbing in every sense.

Hardware

Accommodating a sliding mechanism means the Eee Pad Slider isn’t going to be as compact as some slate-only tablets we’ve seen. The ASUS measures in at 10.7 x 7.1 x 0.7 inches and 2.1 pounds (when closed), making it larger and heavier than most rivals. In contrast, the Eee Pad Transformer is thinner and lighter when slate-only, but bigger than the Eee Pad Slider when the battery-toting keyboard dock is attached. Of course, in doing so you also get a boost to runtime.

In comparison to a more traditional slate, however, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the ASUS is positively porky. Samsung’s 9.7 x 6.7 x 0.3 inch tablet is less than half as thick and almost half the weight, and far easier to hold single-handed. ASUS’ plastic chassis is sturdy and the matte finish does a good job of disguising fingerprints, though the same can’t be said for the gloss finish touchscreen and sizable black bezel. Still, the 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 IPS LCD panel is bright and color-rich, as with the Transformer, and has great viewing angles. We did prefer the Galaxy Tab 10.1 screen, however, for its saturation.

ASUS Eee Pad Slider demo:

Inside, things are par for the course for a Honeycomb tablet. NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core chipset takes center stage, paired with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage (with 32GB an option), WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and GPS. There’s no 3G in our review unit, though ASUS will offer it as an option. Up front is a 1.3-megapixel camera, while a 5-megapixel camera is on the back.

ASUS has used the extra heft to accommodate a fair array of ports, which are a welcome addition. There’s a full-sized USB port for external peripherals, such as a mouse or hard-drive, along with a microSD card slot, plus a mini-HDMI port and headphones socket. The standard volume rocker and power button are joined by a dedicated reset button, recessed so as not to be triggered accidentally. Finally, there’s a proprietary docking connector – on the top edge, not the bottom, since that would put it under your wrist when the keyboard is extended – for use with the bundled USB charger or when hooking the Eee Pad up to a computer.

Keyboard

Reach behind the Eee Pad’s webcam and tuck your finger into the dimple; pull up, and the whole screen section pivots back and up, slotting into place at a 45-degree angle. A chrome-finish slab of metal keeps the touchscreen elevated, and the whole thing feels sturdier than you might expect. Unfortunately, there’s no way to adjust the angle – if you want the keyboard, you’re stuck with 45-degrees.

In use, the four grippy rubber feet on the base keep things from sliding around, and the experience is wobble-free. Sadly the keys themselves underwhelm: the buttons are plasticky and cheap feeling, the key bed wobbles and the whole ‘board lacks travel and is spongy.

It’s a shame, because the keys on the Eee Pad Transformer’s keyboard proved surprisingly usable, certainly in line with a netbook. The Slider, in contrast, is definitely sub-netbook in quality, and the limited space for the ‘board – broad, but not particularly deep – means typing can’t reach the sort of speeds you’d expect for a physical layout.

Overall, then, it’s better than an on-screen keyboard, but falls short of ASUS’ own Transformer. The absence of a trackpad was also notable, plus there’s no palm-rest. ASUS has added dedicated Home and Search keys, and there are shortcuts for WiFi, Bluetooth and screen brightness, but no media control shortcuts. You can use cut/copy/paste shortcuts, but the shift+arrow combination to highlight doesn’t work in the preloaded Polaris Office suite (that supports documents, spreadsheets and presentations).

Software and Performance

Android 3.2 Honeycomb is, by now, a familiar face. Google’s tablet-centric OS has had a few tweaks at ASUS’ hands, as well as a fair selection of apps and tools thrown at it, though underneath it’s the same platform we’ve been using for most of the year now. We’re not entirely sure why ASUS bothered redesigning the back, home and app-switcher buttons, but the company’s active desktop widgets – showing the latest email count from the Mail app (but not Gmail) and weather for your current location – are neat.

Preloaded apps include the ASUS WebStore, Movie Studio, MyCloud, MyLibrary, MyNet, Polaris Office, Press Reader, TegraZone and the Zinio Reader. Usefulness varies depending on what you intend to do with your tablet: most of the apps focus on accessing cloud storage (ASUS bundles a year’s worth of unlimited cloud drive storage with the Eee Pad) or streaming media, plus you can remotely access your home computer – albeit only across the same network – using the MyDesktop app.

Of course, with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich freshly unveiled, the question is when – or if – it might appear as an upgrade on the Eee Pad Slider. ASUS has confirmed that the Transformer will get Android 4.0 “soon” and we’re assuming that means the Slider shouldn’t be far behind, but so far there’s no official announcement.

Performance was par for the course given the specifications, with no real surprises. For multitasking with Polaris Office, the browser and background audio playback, the Eee Pad Slider had no problems keeping up with our typing. HD playback was solid, and jitter free via the HDMI port (though you’ll need to supply your own cable, since ASUS doesn’t).

Camera

Just as the extra chassis bulk allowed ASUS to accommodate more ports than the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Eee Pad Slider also gets a higher resolution main camera: 5-megapixels instead of 3-megapixels. Unfortunately, even with those extra pixels, the Slider does a poor job with stills.

Colors are accurate but edges are soft, detail generally lost and low-light performance – not helped with the absence of an LED flash – is practically non-existent. Video can be recorded at up to 720p HD, and fares a little better, with more sharpness and detail. Still, we can’t imagine many people opting to use the Eee Pad Slider for photography, both for usability and quality reasons.

Battery

ASUS estimates up to 8hrs runtime from a full charge of the Eee Pad Slider SL101′s battery, depending on use. In practice, with a mixture of typing, emailing, browsing over WiFi, streaming music and video playback, we managed 6-6.5hrs. That’s with reasonably heavy use: in more typical circumstances we’d expect you to certainly last a day of occasional use.

Unfortunately, here again the Eee Pad Slider is shown up by its Transformer cousin. Slap on the other Eee Pad’s removable keyboard, and we found the integrated battery adds another 6-7hrs to the Transformer’s runtime. That puts it more in the region of 12-15hrs, something the Slider can only dream of.

Wrap-Up

On paper, the ASUS Eee Pad Slider makes sense. All the instant-on flexibility of a tablet, with the convenience of a keyboard. Problem is, the biggest competition comes from under ASUS’ own roof, in the shape of the Eee Pad Transformer. That has a better keyboard, the choice over whether or not to use it, and considerably more battery life.

Yes, the Slider is slightly more portable than the Transformer with its keyboard docked, but ASUS has already begun teasing its imminent Transformer 2, borrowing styling – and most importantly scale – from the UX ultrabook range. That probably means a thinner Transformer 2 than the Slider, despite offering extra battery life and more flexibility. Finally there’s price: in the US the Slider is $479, versus $505 for the Transformer and its keyboard, but in the UK the Slider is £429.99 while the Transformer has dipped to £429.89 with keyboard.

If ASUS had managed to get the Eee Pad Slider to market back in May, alongside the Transformer, we could see it having stolen some netbook sales. Now, with a new Transformer on the way, Ice Cream Sandwich in the pipeline and faster quadcore Tegra 3 processors promising both improvements in performance and power frugality, the Slider feels like it has missed its window.

Hardware

This device, as I mentioned in the unboxing post, is amongst the highest-quality in tablet architecture on the market today. You don’t get much in the way of ports, unfortunately, with only a microUSB* at the bottom and a headphone jack at the top, but you DO get a full-sized SIM card slot and a microSD card slot under the ribbed plastic cover surrounding the back-facing 8-megapixel camera and dual-LED flash.

*What’s not made entirely clear in the advertisements for this device is that the microUSB at the bottom of the device is MHL enabled, this meaning that if you’ve got an MHL converter cord, you can output video to HDMI. On the other hand, the video that’s output is surprisingly low quality, and compared to what we’ve seen with past straight-through HDMI ports (like on the Motorola XOOM, for example) and the MHL HDMI functionality on the Galaxy S II, the Jetstream really doesn’t add up. It’s nice to know that the port is there, on the other hand, just incase you’d like to use it.

The tablet is mostly made of metal and glass, and though that makes us want to compare it to the Acer Iconia Tab A501 [also on AT&T soon with LTE], the HTC form makes this feel like the most high-class tablet on the market. Unlike the iPad 2, the Jetstream dares to add some form to the back and front of the device instead of making it as minimalistic as possible. The same is true about the HTC-modified software inside, as well, Android Honeycomb still looking very similar to its original form as seen in our original Android 3.0 Honeycomb review on the XOOM.

This tablet certainly isn’t the lightest tablet in the pack, but just by holding the original XOOM carried by Verizon in one hand and the Jetstream in the other, I’ve got to say it doesn’t feel like the heaviest, either. The Jetstream also doesn’t seem to be going for the thinness award either, with its thickest point rivaled only by the massive Toshiba THRIVE tablet. That said, again, the grip is very nice, and this is as high-quality craftsmanship as you’ll see on and HTC device.

Before we go on, check out the hands-on video and exploration filmed by your humble narrator here, and get to know your tablet inside and out:

Hands-on Exploration

Software

With this tablet you’ll get your first glimpse of HTC Sense for tablets. The HTC Flyer got a new look at Sense (new at the time, that is), but this was only running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread and was not specifically tailored for tablets working with anything larger than that device’s 7-inch display. Here we get what HTC considers the ideal tablet environment on Android. You’ll find it engaging and that it feels like home to you HTC lovers out there, but right from the outset there does seem to be a few oddities that we hope will be rectified with an update.

The first oddity is the ring unlock screen. While it’s fun to use this ring from the bottom of the screen on a handset, it’s fun because you can work with it with a single thumb. Here instead, the ring right in the center of 10-inches of display, you’ve got to either stretch your hand out quite a bit OR simply hold the device with one hand while the other does the work. Google rectified this problem when they first released Honeycomb by placing the lock on the right-hand side of the display when held in landscape mode. HTC, it would be much easier and more convenient to unlock this device if the ring were set along the right-hand side of the display, regardless of if the tablet is sitting in portrait or landscape mode.

A set of apps sits inside this device, a full list of which you can get from viewing the hands-on video above, that you’ve seen in many AT&T or HTC devices before. One of those apps is Footprints, an app that encourages you to tap and record your location as you travel through the city, through the forest, or even cross-country. This app alone is indicative of what HTC intends you to use this device for: everything.

The change between having a tablet that was meant for pulling out only at a desk or tablet and tablet that was meant for anytime use happened when the original Samsung Galaxy Tab, the first large-release Android tablet, was released. It had a camera on the back of it, and we used it all the time! Oh we didn’t? That’s because since cameras were introduced on tablet-sized mobile devices, there’s never been a camera worth using until now. They’ve essentially been junk, or at least junk compared to that smartphones were capable of – but the Jetstream spits in the face of that legacy and jams a full 8-megapixel 1080p back-facing camera in your face, capable of wonderful things, plus a certainly decent 1.3-megapixel camera on the front that’s not half bad.

Camera

This camera combo, but especially the back-facing camera, makes this tablet uniquely able to act as a media collection device that’s decent. As I’ve mentioned before and I’ll mention again, tablets have gotten a terrible rep for their low-grade cameras, turning off the whole first generation of tablet users not only because they’re difficult and awkward to use, but because they result in second-rate photos and videos. What you’ve got here with both nearly the most updated HTC camera interface and a full HD 1080p video and 8-megapixel photo capable camera is a new vision.

Have a look at the photos and the video below and compare to every other tablet on the market today. Here the HTC Jetstream is the clear victor, hands down.

Benchmarks

What you’re working with here is the Qualcomm MSM8660 1.5 Ghz dual-core processor, one that’s certainly been waited on for a while, and it does not seem here to disappoint. Check the stats, see how this device doesn’t pin down the competition in every category, but notice how well it does against the current champion, the Galaxy S II, especially in CF-Bench. Can’t wait for the hacks and overclocks on this processor!

Also check out the speed tests – AT&T LTE, is that you? Not quite, not here in Minnesota, at least. But the icon is there!

Battery

The battery on this device is a non-removable 7300 mAh, this meaning that basically WHATEVER you’re doing this the device, you’ll have more than a day’s use. In fact, at this very moment we’re at over 24 hours use with the tablet and still have 48% left, and that’s using the AT&T data on the device — you’ll see in the image below that the tablet has been on for 3 days and only a TINY bit of charging, less than a couple of hours, and we’re good to go at least for another half-day with heavy usage.

Wrap-Up

It is, again, unfortunate that this tablet will cost you seven bills. If you take away the price, on the other hand, you’ve got one of the nicest Android tablets on the market, complete with the most comprehensive and well-done user interface placed over Android Honeycomb yet – HTC’s Sense is always welcome in devices in my house, as it were. If only this were an alternate universe and the work and materials that went into this project were inexpensively sourced, we’d have the $400 tablet of our dreams.

As it is, what you’ve got here is a tablet that might not survive the winter. I’ll continue to express my remorse over the pricing until the price is dropped because I certainly don’t want this piece of hardware to go the way of the TouchPad, even IF that would mean we could see then the greatest $100 Android device of all time. HTC Jetstream, you beautiful metal machine you, you were born at a strange time. Here’s rooting for you.

Hardware

To start with the hardware we have a quick video for you below, as well as our hands-on and unboxing post you can see here. What you get is an Android 3.1 Honeycomb tablet with a bright and vivid 10.1″ 1280 x 800 resolution IPS display. The IPS looks bright, vivid, clear, and has great contrast. Like most IPS displays the viewing angles are also quite excellent so that is another plus. Powered by the all to familiar NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor at 1.0 GHz, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage (16 and 64GB versions also available). Coming in around 14.5mm thin and weighs 1.65 lbs. It may be heavier than most but it also has a wide array of ports for any users needs. More hardware specs and pics can be found after the video.

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet hands-on

With all the ports you could ever need for full productivity and having stylus support this truly is a do-it-all tablet. Based on the buttons, ports, and labels on bottom we can assume Lenovo expects this to spend much of its time in portrait mode so I’ll go over the hardware as such. On bottom we have 4 dedicated buttons, something we don’t see often with Android Honeycomb tablets. While I’ve found them a bit useful at times, they get in the way more than they are helpful — just my honest opinion. They are a screen orientation toggle, a web browser launch button, then the standard Android back and home buttons. They also seem a bit hard to push needing the right angle since they click toward the display rather than going down so sometimes I feel i need to almost roll my finger to get it to recognize the input.

Along with the hardware buttons the bottom also features all those convenient ports we mentioned above. With a 3.5mm headphone jack, mini-HDMI, micro-USB, a 30 pin dock connector, then a door with a full sized SD card slot as well as SIM support for 3G connectivity.

Around to the left side (bottom for landscape) we have a full-sized USB port and a single speaker grill and that is about it. Very simple design and not a lot to it, but that doesn’t matter when you have tons of ports and are aimed at productivity right?

The on top and the right side we have the volume up/down rocker as well as the power button. The top (or bottom left in landscape view) has a dedicated cutout and hole for the included stylus. the stylus fits neatly away and is for the most part out of sight. If you happen to lose the stylus or forget it, the hole where it belongs gets very irritating and can actually bother you depending on how you hold the tablet so I’d recommend leaving it in place. It has a nice design and is easy to slide in and out so that shouldn’t be an issue.