Review - Tablet Computers

revue tech Regional Managing Editor, James McCarthy, tests the firepower of the top new tablets in town with a good ‘ol fashioned shoot-out.

A Fistful Of

TABLETS

>>> Tablet fever hit this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, with a wagon train of companies hoping to emulate the gold rush of Apple’s first iPad effort. Smartphone giant, RIM, was the first to swagger into town with the Blackberry Playbook, while old-timer, Motorola had the hammer cocked and ready to fire with the Xoom. Standing in their path is the tablet equivalent of The Man With No Name, the iPad 2. With these three gunslingers all keen to assert their dominance, and very little science involved, what follows is purely the way I see the odds in this stand-off. Shutter the windows and lock the doors, ‘cause it’s high noon at Sur la Terre towers, and first to fire is the current Sheriff of Tablet Town...

APPLE IPAD 2 SLT Rating: 5 Pearls The iPad 2 works intuitively and straight out of the box. Compared to the original iPad, there is hardly a world of difference. It’s a little lighter, a little faster and a little slimmer. It really trumps its predecessor with the built-in front and back cameras, finally allowing users to Facetime and, eventually (hopefully) use full-on Skype video calling. This is the true selling point, and one that will see the millions of iPad users rushing to upgrade. The stunning Retina display is lucid, vivid and gorgeous to look at, another definite one-up on its near perfect predecessor, as well as the entire segment.

There has been a lot of talk about the faster and more powerful A5 processor. I tested this by importing a full HD, feature length movie into the free VLC Player app, which on my original iPad results in a prompt, suggesting that it might not be fast enough to process the

film correctly. It lived up to its promise, as I could not get the film to play further than three minutes before it crashed the app. The iPad 2 displays the same message, but apart from a little bit of colour separation on the darker scenes, it runs perfectly in all of its amazing high-def glory. Score one for the A5 chip.

The real winner though, and this is true for most Apple products and what really sets them apart, is that it is easy to get started. It is just a case of plug and play, and then unplug and play.

With the iPad you have the luxury of thousands of apps; there is a world of games, music making and productivity. The choice is nearly endless. For business-oriented users, there are myriad pdf readers, presentation tools and document creation apps It is an incredible device, slightly improved on the original iPad, but - and here is the negative bit - still lacking Flash support and Bluetooth capability for data transfer. Maybe the latter will appear on the iPad 3, but don’t hold your breath for Flash.

MY VERDICT:

It’s fast, though you won’t see any Flash. Apple drew first blood in the market and it’s going to be hard to shoot down. It is still the top dog by a long shot.

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BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK SLT Rating: 3 Pearls When you open the box of the Playbook, the presentation is great. While not as slick as Apple’s all-white uber cool minimalism, the presentation of the device is incredibly appealling. Sitting in its moulded plastic bed, already enclosed in its neoprene case, the Playbook is considerably smaller than the iPad; more in the style of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which is perhaps its true competitor.

As a business tool, it is a slightly less functional version of the BB. You cannot make calls on it, while this is a standard feature of the Galaxy TAB. This, however, is also a limitation of the Apple and the Xoom, which puts these three on a level footing. However, in terms of app functionality, it is equipped with the latest Documents to Go Microsoft-compatible office suite, but keys on the touch keyboard are small, and with the slight lag on the touchscreen, does not make for particularly easy typing. Given its smaller size, you can’t rest it as easily on your lap to type either, meaning that you have to uses the “two-thumb” technique perfected by BB users on their

smaller phone keypads, this doesn’t transpose as well immediately to the Playbook though. With time, you could probably get used to this and in the worst case we could all end up evolving as a race with six inch thumbs.

One area where the Playbook wins hands down is connectivity, if you have a Blackberry, that is. The company has introduced something called Blackberry Bridge, which allows you to continuously sync the Playbook with your BB, and this is the best bit, to enjoy access to the internet through your mobile, meaning no extra telco accounts required.

As a leisure device for apps like games, youtube, movies and music, it can be a useful time waster. The camera is good, but the built-in video conferencing software is proprietary and only works between Playbooks.

At least Facetime can communicate with iPhones, iMacs and other iPads, giving it a broader scope, while the Android-based tablets also offer more standardised video chat options.

MY VERDICT:

Definitely the runt of the litter in terms of size, but despite that, it’s just too clumsy to be effective. It will probably give the Samsung Galaxy TAB a run for its money, but it’s by no means an iPad killer.

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THE MOTOROLA XOOM SLT Rating: 4 Pearls This could be Motorola’s return to mobile greatness. After losing the cell phone war to Nokia in the late nineties, the big M had seemingly been left out to pasture. However, much like Rambo, all that time in peace and solitude has just made it madder.

Enter the Xoom. Based on the Android 3.0 operating system, this is the most likely competition to the iPad. With a very Minority Report interface, it gets all the boys-toys juices flowing. To unlock the screen, you don’t just swipe a finger, you have to trace a circle with your finger which is followed by Tron-esque glowing blue lines.

It has a similar form factor, though just a little thicker. It also has a longer, thinner screen than its rival, but overall there is very little different between the two. Like Apple, Motorola has gone for minimalism, with a single power button on the back and volume control on the side. The front of the device is clean and all navigation is done through touch. When I received the Xoom, the automatic orientation was locked to horizontal, and given the placement of the volume control, it would suggest that Motorola intended it to be used that way most of the time, unlike the Apple, which is the opposite.

Functionality-wise, it took a little getting used to, as I am a BB and iPad guy by day and don’t have much experience with Android. However, after a few minutes you get a feel for the system and, while not as intuitive as the iPad, it is pretty slick once you get comfortable.

Much like the iPad, it works straight out of the box, and has the bare minimum apps installed. However, that can be easily rectified by following the little robot to the Android Market, the Xoom’s equivalent of the iTunes App Store. There are plenty of free apps to choose from, including the ubiquitous Angry Birds, but not all are of the same quality.

Apps like Documents to Go can be downloaded free as a “lite” version that allows the Xoom to read documents imported from your computer, but to create and work on documents, you have to buy the full version.

This leads me to the keyboard. I really don’t like the onscreen keyboard of the Xoom. Motorola has tried to stop it from taking up most of

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the screen, but the keys do not seem to be comfortable proportions for quick input. The number of misspellings and accidentally-added characters became quite infuriating after a while.

One of the selling points on Motorola’s website, is the Xoom’s ability to play, record and edit HD video, and here it doesn’t disappoint.

Through the Mac interface, it was simple to add content, and playback through Mobo Player, which was downloaded from the Android Market, as the Xoom doesn’t come with a built-in movie app equal to anything the iPad 2 offers.

1 The Apple iPad 2 2 The Blackberry Playbook (with included neoprene case) 3 The Motorola Xoom

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