This article first appeared on Vulcan Post Malaysia.
I can say confidently that tablets will be replacing our once portable and amazing laptops. It’s only a matter of time. They’re fast with their powerful processors, beautiful with their high definition screens, and best of all, they come at a variety of prices that may be either friendly or devastating for your pockets. With so many tablets to choose from (such as the Apple iPad and the many brands running on Android), however, it’s not easy to determine each tablet’s pros and cons. To help you out, we’ve broken down a list of all the tablets available today:
Apple iPad series
Image Credit: 9to5mac
The iPad was one of the first tablets that entered the market. They are essentially bigger iPhones, but without the usual phone functions. They come in all shapes and sizes, from the ultra portable iPad Minis to the bigger, thinner, and extremely powerful iPad Airs. They are also available in a range of capacities from 16GB up to a massive 128GB — which you can choose from depending on your needs and budget. Either way, you can’t go wrong picking any of them.
What Works For Them
The Apple iPad has made its presence known in the market, and there are good reasons why. Almost everything is awesome about the iPad. It’s got a long battery life, it’s powerful enough to run any kind of games and apps without lagging, and it comes with a screen that’s one of the clearest on the market. The fact that it has Apple’s brilliant AppStore for all your app needs is just the icing on the cake.
Its great software, coupled with a great operating system running on powerful hardware, is what makes it so popular amongst users. Want the perfect Skype alternative? FaceTime. Want to do your office work? There’s Apple’s own Pages, Numbers and Keynote, or Microsoft Office and Google Docs, Sheets, Drive and Slideshow on the Appstore. Fancy a little break? Try listening to a podcast, play the latest clone of Candy Crush, or simply rant on social media. Did I mention that it also has one of the most popular casing and accessory markets in the world?
Image Credit: icadecore
What Doesn’t Work For Them
The iPad does indeed fall short on certain aspects, such as not allowing users to expand memory space with external memory cards. Even though there is iCloud for that, we still have to pay a monthly fee just to have extra memory. And the reason behind this is a limitation of the iOS, which needs to run on the same memory drive as all your media in order to work.
Another aspect is definitely the lack of customisation options. This does not only apply to the Apple iPad; it affects other products such as the iPhone and iPod Touch too. You cannot customise your icons and status bar, or stray from the minimlistic look and feel of the iOS. This is what drives us crazy sometimes, since it makes it feel as though our devices don’t really belong to us.
Android Tablets
Image Credit: cataloguesuk.com
If I ever had to write about ALL the existing Android tablets in existence, I can already say that my lifetime on Earth will not be enough to cover it all. Just like the iPad, Android tablets come in a large variety of shapes and sizes — perhaps even more so, as various brands manufacture their own tablets and get their operating system from Google. From there, brands then reskin and tweak the OS to their preference and optimise it for their tablets. Expect to see big names like Lenovo, Sony, Samsung and even Google itself, if you’ve been scouting around for an Android tablet.
What Works For Them
Android tablets are generally like Swiss army knives. They can probably do everything you want them to do. A major plus point is their OTG (on the go) support. It’s a function that allows you to use peripherals on your tablet, such as a USB mouse, keyboard and even a game controller. OTG also supports thumbdrives and hard drives. This makes it a near-perfect laptop replacement. In fact, I am writing this article on my Lenovo Yoga 10 tablet.
Another awesome feature would be the endless number of ways to customise your device. Love the hardware but not the software? Flash another rom. Hate the home menu? Download one that you fancy on the Google PlayStore. Ugly icons? Google PlayStore.
Google has even come up with their own office software suite. It also allows users to play great games, running apps seamlessly like the iPad depending on how “high end” your tablet is. Either way, an Android working environment is one of the best I’ve ever worked on.
Image Credit: aliexpress
What Doesn’t Work For Them
This is where it falls short. Android tablets come in so many shapes, sizes and hardware specs that it’s nearly impossible to know what kind of performance you’ll be getting. Imagine a scenario where a RM1500 tablet is being outperformed by a RM800 tablet: It can come down to a lot of factors, one of which is the generation gap. The gap between hardware specs and release times are not very large, meaning that your current tablet can become obsolete very quickly.
This has resulted in many people thinking that “If I pay for the most expensive one it’s the best”, or “I should wait for the next model to be released before I make my purchase”. This can cause unecessary stress on developers of operating systems, forcing them to work faster and be less accurate, which sparks bugs and issues with the device after its release. So be careful when picking an Android tablet; the most expensive one isn’t always the best.
With each side having their pros and cons, it’s sometimes hard to make choices for these things. Sometimes it’s a lifestyle, and sometimes it’s a demand of work. I myself find that I’m using an iPhone with an Android tablet one day, and an Android phone with an iPad on others. Ultimately, it can’t be said which one is better; it really depends on your preferences and budget.
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