Holiday season war of tablets

Written By Unknown on Senin, 04 November 2013 | 18.39

The iPad Air is the best 10-inch tablet ever, but it faces stiff competition as we enter the first-ever holiday season of the tablet. The war is being waged on three fronts: battery life, value and productivity.

It seems like nearly everyone — from HTC to Nokia to Sony — is making serious forays into the tablet arena, not the least of which is Lenovo's new Yoga tablet. This Android beast boasts 18 hours of battery life, eight more than the iPad Air's advertised 10 hours. The 8-inch, 16GB Yoga will cost just $249, and the 10-inch, 16GB version is $299.

So not only does it beat the iPad Air on battery life, it's 40 percent of the price.

That's right — though the size and weight of iPad Air are slimmed down, the same can't be said of the cost, which ranges from $499 to a whopping $929 for the 128GB WiFi + Cellular version.

Though you'll sacrifice screen quality if you go with the Yoga, Google's Nexus 10 also operates with Android and has a higher pixel count than the iPad Air. Rumor has it that a new version is coming out this holiday season with a starting price of $399.

At $100 less than that, the Dell Venue 8 Pro, a Windows-based tablet, delivers the same listed battery life as the iPad Air and is seemingly a match for those who rely on the Microsoft Office productivity suite, as is the Surface 2, which starts at $449.

And then there's the competition that the iPad Air faces at home. The iPad mini, due out later this month, has the same so-called Retina display as well as identical specs as the iPad Air in an 8-inch frame for $100 less.

So while there are reasons for some to look elsewhere, the iPad still retains its first-place standing for those of us who do light productivity work and enjoy apps on a portable touchscreen device. I was reminded of the iPad's primary appeal this weekend as I watched my toddler play around with the Air. If you ever want to have your mind blown, give an iPad to a 2-year-old. As my son navigated to the virtual drums featured in the GarageBand app and found a numbers game to play with Elmo, I realized: No tablet is easier to use, prettier to look at and simpler to carry around than the iPad Air.

That said, the battery life on the 16GB WiFi model I tested did not live up to its advertised 10 hours. In fact, the device barely made it to eight hours after heavy use of various apps for 60 minutes and then being left to drain with the screen on for the remaining seven hours.

The new iPad contains the same super-fast A7 processing chip as the iPhone 5S. With any luck, developers will take advantage of the new speed and power with updated and improved mobile apps. If they do, the iPad Air should remain a favorite until Apple releases another generation iPad and it becomes instantly antiquated. I'm hoping we make it to a year.


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