To tablet buyers, size matters: The top two best-selling tablets behind Apple's iPad have 7-inch screens, making them roughly half the size of the iPad. This form factor makes them easier to hold in one hand, when reading or watching videos for extended periods of time ... and in fact, both tablets are marketed as e-readers.
Not all of the 7-inch tablets out there are strong iPad competitors. One has been in the news lately for its abysmal sales performance, while another is a mostly generic Android tablet that's seen several iterations now. It's getting a new Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) version soon, though. It's ...
The Samsung Galaxy Tab
The original 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab was, for awhile, basically the only "Android tablet" out there. It was released before Google made the Honeycomb version of Android especially for tablets, and basically worked like a giant smartphone ... it could even make phone calls.
In March, Samsung will release an upgraded version, "starting from UK" and presumably coming to the United States afterwards. It will feature basic smartphone-esque specs, but will run the latest Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, letting it run apps designed just for tablets.
The Nook Color and Nook Tablet
Barnes and Noble's first color e-reader tablet, the Nook Color, came out in 2010, around the time of the first Samsung Galaxy Tab. It took awhile for an app market to be added, and it still has only a couple thousand titles or so. It had full multitouch web browsing from the start, though, and a recent software update added Netflix support.
The new Nook Tablet was introduced late last year, with basically the same design but a Hulu Plus app and more powerful innards. When it was released, the Nook Color's price was dropped to $199, the same as ...
The Kindle Fire
The Kindle Fire was Amazon.com's bestselling item for months in a row. And according to Flurry Analytics, it's now besting all other Android tablets for market share. Its slow software has been panned by reviewers, but it's extremely cheap -- according to iSuppli it's sold for less than it costs to make. It also has tens of thousands of apps in the "Amazon Appstore."
The BlackBerry PlayBook
Marketed as a more professional alternative to Apple's iPad, the BlackBerry PlayBook has gathered a reputation among app developers as being extremely hard to write for, thanks in part to Jamie Murai's open letter "You Win, RIM!" It's also been in the news on account of RIM having $485 million worth of unsold PlayBooks.
The upcoming PlayBook OS 2.0 update, however, will be available this month. It will add new features like a native email client that doesn't require you to connect it to a BlackBerry smartphone, according to Jacob Schulman of The Verge. It will also feature select Android apps in its BlackBerry App World.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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