Tablet Battle+Comparision chart

[MaxTcee]

Tablet Battle: HP Slate vs. iPad vs. Galaxy Tab vs. Playbook

By Daniel Ionescu, PCWorld
Oct 22, 2010 9:53 am

Remember that disappointing HP tablet with Windows 7 from January everyone thought it was scrapped? Well, it's called the HP Slate and it's out now for a whopping $799. Before you get click-happy on HP's website, though, you might want to have a look at this: put alongside other tablets, the HP Slate could disappoint you, again.
See how the HP Slate compares to the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the iPad and the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook in our smackdown chart (click to enlarge).
The HP Slate 500 is smaller than the iPad, sporting an 8.9-inch screen versus the iPad's 9.7-inch display, while resolutions are almost identical. Although it's smaller, the Slate is just as heavy as Apple's tablet, and packs only half of the battery life of the iPad. Actually, besides PlayBook's unspecified battery life, the Slate has the shortest battery lifespan on a single charge. So what justifies the $799 price tag?
Tablet Smackdown Chart (click to enlarge)The Slate comes with a 1.86GHz Intel Atom processor, and a whopping 2GB of RAM, which is probably the minimal amount of memory to run Windows 7, the OS powering the Slate, at a decent speed. The other tablets in the comparison run on a 1GHz processor, while the PlayBook would have a 1GHz dual-core chip. In terms of RAM, the Slate has eight times the memory of the iPad, four times that of the Galaxy Tab, and twice of the PlayBook.
As with all the tablets, the HP Slate comes with Bluetooth and WiFi, but there's no 3G chip or GPS. It does come, however, with 64GB or on-board storage, but at $799, it's still $100 more than the 64Gb WiFi iPad. What the Slate has over the iPad is an USB port, and two cameras (one 3-Megapixel at the back, plus a VGA camera for video calling). The Slate can also take SD cards for storage expansion, something that the iPad or the PlayBook can't.
Besides a high retail price, the Slate will have to pass the speed test once reviewers get their hands on it. Even with eight times the amount of RAM on the iPad, we have yet to see whether simple tasks such as browsing the Web or checking your e-mail are faster than on Apple and Android tablets, which also have the advantage of "instant on" capabilities.
But, hey, at least the HP Slate has a Ctrl+Alt+Del button, something that I have yet to see on other tablets.

Tablet Smackdown Chart (click to enlarge)

 

[JRowe]

I think it's rather silly to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Windows 7 is designed with touch applications in mind. There are all sorts of GUI widgets and easy to use API calls for touch apps. And an x86 Windows 7 tablet immediately comes with compatibility for doing all sorts of things - running Linux, and running almost every other program known to mankind. Most consumer software out there is meant for Windows PC users.

I frankly don't give a rats ass whether an Android tablet renders a webpage 10 ms faster than Firefox in windows 7. Anything less than 50 ms won't be noticed by a human observer. As a point of contention, it goes beyond silly into the realm of absurdity. Using this as an argument just makes you look stupid.

Be honest. What do you really want from a device? Why do you *really* want an Android device?

It's asinine to declaim that websites render faster, or that you can browse email more quickly. Puerile, even.

In the real world, here are the points of competition:

Affordability. An Android device running from $250-$399 is at least half the price of the Windows tablets.

Fast power on - Anyone with experience with windows knows you can get pretty quick poweron times - my Acer Aspire One gets 12 second power on times, because of the tweaks I've used. I have no doubt that these tablets can be configured the same way. These are comparable, even thought the windows tabs will make you work to get it right.

Ease of development - Android is getting it right. It's not at MSDN levels yet, and might never be - but it might not have to be. Android is nowhere near as enormous and burdened with features as Windows.

Usability - right now, Android is dependent on the particulars of hardware. I've used it on phones, and it kicks ass. I'll be using it on a tablet, and I think it can safely be said that it will kick ass there too. The thing is, I've used Windows 7 on touchscreens, and it kicks ass handily as well. Both are sweet and usable.

Battery life - Windows and other x86 chip OS's are power hungry beasts. 5 hours is the expected lifetime, and if you include 3D gaming or lots of media player usage, you're looking at 3-4 hours of usable lifetime. Android tablets and devices are designed for power efficiency, and it shows, in the 9+ hour usable capacity on similar batteries.

Available software - Windows wins, hand down. There can be no sane argument on this point. The Android app market, however, is revisiting old software ideas, and introducing new software at an incredible rate. There is no dearth of usable software, and over the next 2 years, the gap between Windows and these devices will dwindle to unimportance.

The big question, then, is what you want from your device... right now.

In 6 months, the situation will have changed. A power efficient x86 system on a chip may be released that blows the ARM architecture away. Or the next generation will be even more power efficient, and the hardware even faster, maintaining the competitive momentum between the two chipsets. Nobody knows where all this will land, so the best bet for the consumer is to go for affordability, duration, and usability.

Since in tablets, usability for most users hinges on responsiveness of their touchscreens, capacitive screens are the way to go.

From everything that I've been able to learn, durable Android tablets with the best price to (support + hardware) ratio are the best buys for the next 6 months.

I know there are a lot of other points to discuss in the Windows versus Android versus iOS discussions, such as openness, interoperability, granularity of device control, and so on. Those don't really warrant deeper consideration by a consumer, except to note that iOS and Windows are closed, Android is open, all have high interop, but Android wins out, iOS and Android have the best finegrained access to devices.

So...

The ExoPC Slate and the HP Slate are the two biggest, baddest pieces of hardware in the tablet world right now. Both cost around $750 USD. The ExoPC is available now, I'm not sure about the HP Slate.

Android slates are about to hit the market, and I've reviewed the features of those in my other thread.

Apple is going to own a hefty chunk of the market, since they jumped the market and have a huge cough*cult*cough, err, fanbase.

The savvy consumer, looking for an affordable tablet, with an enjoyable user experience, will go for an Android tab. The poweruser or windows whore (like myself) will want a windows tablet. However, the devices are power hungry, and without significant hardware breakthroughs, they're likely to remain that way. My desktop is good enough for now, and Android with remote desktop gives me everything else I want from a tablet.

At the end of the day, I want a device that isn't tethered to a power cable, that I can take anywhere, and weighs little. Android wins on every front except available software - and I can live without having Microsoft office.

 

[OffWorld]

A few months ago I almost bought an HP TouchSmart laptop (it converts into a tablet). It runs Windows 7 (and I could dual boot Linux if I wanted to), has near-desktop level specs - at least good enough to actually use industry standard productivity and design software - and *BAM!* it's also a touch tablet! It was a refurb for $800 (I think MSRP was for around $900?).

So when I look these tablets and am seeing $500, $700, $800 price tags and I'm NOT seeing the capabilities to warrant it, I'm not impressed. Tablets (as reimagined by Apple, Samsung, HP, et al) are media CONSUMPTION devices. You watch videos, download or stream music, visit web sites, check your e-mail, facebook, twitter. They aren't for PRODUCTION in the way a laptop or desktop computer are used. I'd argue most "netbooks" are consumption devices as well, as the screen is too small to really do much of anything but look at stuff.

Which is why I bought an Android tablet to take to school with me. We have computer labs with all the latest, greatest stuff for me to get my work done. But while waiting in between classes I can pull out my Android tablet and check my e-mail, facebook, and read my favorite news sites or another chapter of my eBook. Because that's what it's for. I'd never try - or expect - to do my homework on it! The advantages it has over my laptop are it's easier to carry around (smaller form factor and my laptop is 650x heavier!), and the battery lasts almost 2x as long as my laptop.

To me, Tablets are only worth about $200 max. If I were going to spend $600 - $800 on a mobile device, that's a good price for a laptop not a tablet. I think a lot of the pricing has to do with Apple being the first one to successfully sell a tablet device and they established that people are totally willing to pay that much for a tablet, so now all the competitors know that's a price range the market will bear (keeping in mind Apple consideres themselves a "luxury brand" and prices accordingly). The profit margins on these tablets must be insane!

 

[mandroid]

@JRowe nice post. I think the exact same way. From another "Windows Whore"

 

[gadgetrants]

@JRowe nice post. I think the exact same way. From another "Windows Whore"

Let me second that. Awesome rundown.

FWIW, I have the Asus T91MT hybrid tablet-PC (onsale at Woot 2 weeks ago). It runs the Atom Z520 (I think the Slate has the Z540), 2GB of RAM, and Win7, and I'd say it's a pretty good experience. Not snappy...resistive screen, but responsive and for what I use it for (browsing, reading, email, videos) it IS in many ways a netbook that folds up and works like a tablet.

Oh, the woot sale price was $280, which isn't full retail (it's being closed out), but competes very well with tablet prices. And like JRowe notes, the 800lb gorilla IS Windows. If you can get Win7 running well on a tablet-like device with a decent 8"-10" touch screen, and a tablet-like price (sorry Windows Whores, the Slate ain' it), it would be serious competition for an Android device. Of course a critical question is how it handles multitouch, and yep, Win7 has all the touch bells and whistles (zoom, rotate, pan, back, forward, etc.). Plus handwriting recognition...

-Matt

 

[MaxTcee]

Apple is going to own a hefty chunk of the market, since they jumped the market and have a huge cough*cult*cough, err, fanbase.

my favorite quote you are so right
ever go into an apple store its like steve jobbs is charles manson and the customers are in a trance just shaking there yes to ever word of sales pitch
they have no idea what and iphone/ipad does but they just have to have it

just watch this video and youll se what i mean

 

[Ketsuban]

I'm going to go ahead and pretend the idiotic fanboyism isn't happening. Especially the assertion that pads can't be production machines - we're only beginning to explore what can be done with a touch medium right now, give it time.

The argument I use to explain why I'm significantly more amenable towards tablets running Android or iOS or what have you over tablets running Windows is a theoretical one. Over the past thirty to forty years processor speeds, transistor counts, memory capacities have all been steadily increasing, and in general the operating systems used for those devices have capitalised on that by adding more functionality and more processing costs as time went on. The new crop of OSes (Android, iOS etc.) are designed for a very small system because phones are akin to the computers we had a few years ago.

Now, when you make a tablet for one of the old guard of operating systems you're trying to scale a "big" OS down onto smaller hardware, whereas a "small" OS is being put on hardware which provides it extra room to run around. It stands to reason trying to run a "big" OS on minimal hardware will result in a sluggish product with poor battery life as the CPU and other gubbins work overtime to try and give an acceptable experience, while a "small" OS given extra room will move faster.

 

[gadgetrants]

I'm going to go ahead and pretend the idiotic fanboyism isn't happening. Especially the assertion that pads can't be production machines - we're only beginning to explore what can be done with a touch medium right now, give it time.

Not sure which side of bed you got out of, but I see this as a pretty mild discussion so far. I'm on other threads that are much more polarized.

You raise all good points. But in particular, the idea that an OS like Win7 was built for a heavier machine is kind of a red herring: there's no argument about that here. It was even kind of baked into my earlier comment, "If you can get Win7 running well on a tablet-like device..."

Here's my guess: Why prefer (and I'm ASKING, not ADVOCATING) Win7 over Android on an equivalent tablet device? I see three answers. (1) Win7 is the more familiar, mature OS, (2) Win7 has a huge array of apps, and (3) the productivity apps available for Win7 (Linux too) far outstrip what you can get for Android.

But you said "give it time" and you're right. I think the discussion here is focused on what's available now...in 5-6 years the playing field will surely look a lot different (I hope Android continues to grow!). Heck, I bet even Gingerbread will shift the discussion significantly.

-Matt

 

[JRowe]

I think he was referring to the jabs at Apple, regarding the "idiotic fanboyism." It's meant in good fun. It's not meant as a qualitative judgment. I just think Apple sucks.

Windows isn't much better, but it's got the whole economy of scale thing going for it, on top of some very good products. Also, 90% of all the desktop software ever written is designed to run on it, so it's hard to avoid. As a programmer, you can't beat the Visual Studio environment. Should Windows be more open? Absolutely. Will they ever be? Probably not, and that's why Android and Linux will eventually win.

As to the whole creation versus consumption thing? You can thank Steve Jobs and the Apple crowd for that pile of garbage. The biggest limitation in creating content on tablets has been iOS running on the iPad - not the touchscreen environment itself. Since 99% of the Appleites would commit seppuku before criticizing their favorite operating system, you have all sorts of idiots out there complaining that it's the device, and not the underlying software. In the usual trickle up fashion, what Apple fans say must be true, and Steve Jobs duly reports to the world that tablets and other flat devices are best for consumption. The Apple universe then arbitrarily segments itself, and a whole lot of people will be shocked at the content creation apps coming out of the Android universe.

However, Android developers, watching "tablet" news, fall for the flood of anti-creation arguments, without ever realizing that multi-touch offers a unique new environment. People are not born knowing how to use keyboards, mice, joysticks, or touch screens.

There is potential for all sorts of new things, like circular keyboards, 3D interfaces, and much more, that augment the traditional GUI concepts. There is no reason that an onscreen keyboard has to mimic a real keyboard. Familiarity is not a good enough reason to stick to an arbitrary design, imo. Imagine, perhaps two sets of keyboards, custom sized to the users hand, existing on either side of the tablet, for easy thumb typing? We have an entirely new medium in which to invent interfaces. The successful ones have yet to appear.

Anyway, the consumption vs production meme is a myth, albeit slightly justified by Apple's failure to recognize the touch universe for what it is. This is a brand new world, with lots of unexplored territory, and all of these arbitrary judgment calls on the part of the big players is just going to make them look stupid.

 

[marinjim]

MaxTcee, Nice post and chart. Wish someone would do this for the low cost Android tablet market. I've been following posts on the Maylong M-150 $99.99 selling through Walgreens online. Since I've found this site now realize there are quite a few other options out there. I'd rather spend $50-100 more and get something that won't be a brick in a day or a year.

 

[MaxTcee]

MaxTcee, Nice post and chart. Wish someone would do this for the low cost Android tablet market. I've been following posts on the Maylong M-150 $99.99 selling through Walgreens online. Since I've found this site now realize there are quite a few other options out there. I'd rather spend $50-100 more and get something that won't be a brick in a day or a year.

found this hope it helps

​

 

[xaueious]

Windows 7 is not good for fingers. I own two Windows 7 tablet PCs.
x86 support for Android is very limited.

Android tablets depend on what you want to do with it. At $100, the Walgreens tablet isn't bad if you don't mind how slow that thing is. You need to spend at least $150 for a usable tablet, with specs equivalent to the Augen Gentouch (ARM11, video playback support). The $200 bracket is just opening up, but I don't have anything to recommend there. The Archos 70 is probably your best bet if you don't mind spending the money for a proper device.

Shanzhai tablets are difficult to recommend right now, because by the time they ship, the Archos 70 will launch. The difference in performance, functionality and support is significant enough to warrant the difference in price.

 

[gadgetrants]

Windows 7 is not good for fingers.

My index finger would like to politely disagree. I just finished a 30-page PDF and enjoyed every page of it.

-Matt

 

[xaueious]

My index finger would like to politely disagree. I just finished a 30-page PDF and enjoyed every page of it.

-Matt

Fingers are good in limited situations for Windows 7 devices, but the interface is not optimized for finger input - at all.

Currently I have the HP 2710p and the X200 w/o finger touch, but I used to have a TX2500. It came stock with Vista, and I installed Windows 7 on it as soon as Windows 7 went RTM. The first thing I did when I installed my wacom drivers was disable finger touch. Now this wasn't a capacitive screen, but even if it was, the user interface is a pain to deal with.

I do have Fennec, FBReader, and OneNote installed on my X200, and it's more than alright. But the point is that for many applications, I at least need an alternate method for mouse input.

 

[gadgetrants]

Agreed. I'm still hoping to get my hands on Blue Dolphin. Ha, I made a pun.

-Matt