Tablet War

After all the hassle for about 2 months looking up information about Tablets, I have drawn a (biased) 2x2 matrix to portray how I grade each product according to their user experience and price.

The price is based on a 16gb wifi version. If the product has only Wifi + 3G version available (eg. HTC Flyer), therefore that version will be representing itself. Next, the Average User Grade means how the past/current users rate the products according to its features, specifications, and so on. Mark that the User experience is a subjective evaluation which I deducted from the comments and reviews available in the Internet, as well as hearsays from peers and friends.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 1, Ipad 2 and Acer Iconia are among the cheapest priced tablets available in town. Acer Iconia, famous for offering big piles of accessories (USB port, Micro SD slot, etc) and competitive specification, are notorious for their QC. I heard that normally an Acer Laptop can last for around a year before part(s) starting to show sign of malfunctioning. However, in this competitive (and immature) tablet market, 1 year is considered sufficient for revolution to happen. Things changed too fast (specifications, price) in this tablet market, and thus if the Acer Iconia CAN actually last for 1 year before cracking down piece by piece, then it is a good bet.

(Pause for tips: It was told that in the year 2012, the price for tablets are projected to be around USD$300 due to steep competition and currently the profit margin for tablets are very high.)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 1 is among the older tablets to continue striving in the market (because its upgrade version, Galaxy Tab P7100, hasn't been released worldwide yet). There's nothing much to be said about this, except for its price, and the feel of using it is like a wider screen Galaxy S 1.

Ipad 2, running on iOS, is widely received not just because of its unique user experience (compared to Android or Win7), but also the price. However, bear in mind that when buying Ipad (or any Apple products), the hardware inside is always slightly lower compared to the other competitors (eg. 0.7MP rear camera and 512MB RAM on Ipad 2). But that doesn't belittle its spectacular OS enabling the machine to run smoothly on lower spec.

Blackberry Playbook, running on its own Blackberry OS, offers high specs but it was heard that the user experience is poor. Motorola Xoom (not in chart), has also offer similar specs and is the first tablet to use Honeycomb 3.0 OS. Then we have the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (P7100), which is priced at Rm1950 for 16gb wifi version. Personally, I am not ready to sacrifice an addition of RM450 for an android machine compared to Ipad 2 even though Samsung offers a highly tweaked specs compared to Ipad 2 (1280X800, 10.1" screen for Samsung, 1024X768, 9.7" screen for Ipad 2). It is too much a money to spend on those minor improvements.

(Fact: Since Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 hasn't officially launched, the price is based on individual importers. However, if the price is fixed worldwide like what Apple did, then it can be assumed that both P7100 and Ipad 2 cost the same.)

And lastly, HTC Flyer is a heartbreaking love-at-first-sight for me. The HTC Sense UI is so much attractive but the price is too much to drunk me into buying it. Single Core 1.5Ghz processor, 7" running on Gingerbread 2.3? That is too little to convince me for the price.

That's all for now. So which tablet you want?