Tablets of 2011: what to look for

Last year he promised to be the year of the Tablet, and at least for Apple, was in fact. IPad nearly ubiquitous has managed not only to all other tablet on the market by a large margin of outsell, has also surpassed Mac sales in the last quarter with a record moved 7.33 million units. But even if Apple doesn't lose his throne any time soon, competition is finally being present. If increases in Android smartphone on the market are any indication should be an interesting year for collapsed as well.

Rivals such as Motorola and LG are coming on strong with the first Android "honeycomb" tablets, while the PlayBook by using an operating system completely reworked based on QNX Neutrino is the launch of Research In Motion. HP will begin to see the fruits of his Palm acquisition when it launches the TouchPad, the first webOS-based tablet, this summer.

We have compiled a comparative table with what we consider to be the hottest tablets are currently available or announced so far. Note that we have included only those models that are expected to be released in the coming months and the reason is twofold: are their official specs or at least somewhat reliable, and because we saw a lot of products that do not end up the teaser make market--a lot that happened last year.

We will update this guide announced new tablets that catch our attention and is approaching the issue, but if you're in the market for a tablet now this definitely should serve as a point of departure to narrow down your purchase.

Apple iPad remains one of the best options out there, largely thanks to the ecosystem relatively mature and polished overall operating system. However, with a successor should arrive anytime soon it would be wise to hold off on your purchase for a couple of weeks--or to get a new one, or perhaps a discount on the original.

Then there is the army of Android tablets which Motorola Xoom LG G-slate, and the notion ink Adam particularly stand out. The Xoom will mark the arrival of honeycomb, variant of Tablet PC-specific Google Android, will be packed with powerful hardware and an array of optional accessories to expand your skills.

Beautifully designed G-slate LG primarily specifications similar, albeit with a smaller screen, but also offers recording and viewing stereoscopic 3D content. Meanwhile, the long awaited notion ink Adam takes a different approach, incorporating innovative PixelQi display, which provides E-Ink-like outdoor readability and improved battery life. Adam does not ship with honeycomb, but uses a highly optimized software interface called Eden UI.

In our opinion, Windows tablets simply cannot provide the same level of experience as their iOS and counterparties Android, but we decided to include a reference model in our list to represent the platform. The Asus Eee slate EP121 offers perhaps the most powerful hardware on deck and some interesting features to boot--including a Wacom digitizer for ink and a Bluetooth keyboard. You are going to be an alternative heavy and probably will suffer from poor battery life.

Finally, it will be interesting to see the PlayBook BlackBerry and webOS TouchPad-based HP compete in the market for Tablet PC. From what we've seen so far, both fresh and beautiful UIs will bring to the game and webOS, in particular, is considered to have a powerful multi-tasking implementation, but neither company had much luck with third-party developers.

There are quite a few other press Tablet PC on the road. If you decide to wait and see how the market can expect devices from HTC, Lenovo, MSI, Samsung, Toshiba, Vizio, and many other lesser-known producers. The flyer of HTC, Samsung Galaxy 2 tab and Toshiba Tablet PC without name probably garner significant attention, not to mention the added potential of a number of prototypes CES as the Iconia Acer, Lenovo and Asus Eee LePad Slider.