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| Illustration by Kris Kinkade,, USA TODAY; photos by Gettyimages.com, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Apple From left, the Barnes & Noble Nook, Amazon's Kindle Fire and Apple's iPad 2. |
By Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY
Folks haven't made this much fuss about tablets since biblical times
Barnes & Noble's Nooks and other rival e-readers
are providing spirited competition.
PHOTOS: Choosing a tablet
While
two out of three future tablet buyers plan to purchase an iPad,
there is now for the first time a real contender for the No. 2 spot,
according to a survey by ChangeWave Research in Bethesda, Md. Some 22%
say they'll buy a Kindle Fire. That's a "devastating blow to a range of
second-tier tablet manufacturers, including Motorola, RIM, Dell, HTC,
(Hewlett-Packard) and Toshiba," ChangeWave says.
In
a recent PriceGrabber survey, 79% of consumers indicated they would
rather receive a tablet than a laptop computer. And 72% of shoppers said
they believed tablets would replace e-readers as gifts.
Which
is it for you? Dedicated reader or tablet? Or both? What are the key
considerations? If your passions spread beyond books — which can be read
on either type of device — to music, games, Web browsing and watching
movies, a full-fledged tablet along the lines of the iPad 2 or one of
its rivals makes sense, if your budget can handle it.
Still, a strong case can be made for single-purpose readers.
The case for e-readers
For starters, the E Ink devices represented by the Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader
and other devices keep improving. Page turns are faster. Text is crisp.
Reading electronically no longer strikes people as unnatural. The
displays are easy on the eyes and don't drain the battery as do the LCD
screens on tablets. Barnes & Noble claims you can read an hour a day
for two months on its fast-turn Nook Simple Touch device. By
contrast, battery life on the iPad and other tablets is measured in
hours and minutes.
E-reader hardware is light
and pocket-size. You can buy and download e-books in a minute or less if
you have Wi-Fi or (as is the case with a single Kindle model) cellular
connectivity. Nowadays, you can borrow e-books from the library and, in
the case of the Nook, lend books to a friend — albeit under tight
restrictions.
•Prices.
Boy, have prices
fallen since the Kindle made its debut four years ago at what now seems
like an exorbitant $399. Today, you can buy a Kindle that displays
"Special Offers" for just $79 or pay $109 for a version without the
"offers" screensaver and home screen ads. The model weighs less than 6
ounces, relies on physical controls and connects to the Kindle Store,
where you can download e-books in a minute or less via Wi-Fi. Meantime,
Amazon added touch-screen controls on the aptly named Wi-Fi-only $99
(with ads) or $139 (without ads) Kindle Touch. You have to pay $149
($189 without ads) for a touch model that adds no-fee 3G cellular for
those times when connecting to Wi-Fi is out of the question. Amazon also
sells models with a keyboard for $139.
For
its part, the Barnes & Noble Simple Touch Nook Reader fetches $99,
around the same price as an entry-level Kobo reader. Among the Kobo
features is the ability to earn awards tied to reading milestones.
Sony makes a big deal out of the fact that its $150 Sony Reader Wi-Fi device is ad-free.
•Sizing up the screen.
As mentioned, E Ink devices do a tremendous job of replicating real
paper. But with conventional 6-inch Kindles, Nooks and Sony Readers,
you're swapping a color experience for shades of gray. That won't cut it
if you want to admire illustrated children's books, picture books or
shiny magazines.
E Ink displays on Kindles, Nooks and Sonys aren't back-lit, meaning you can't read in the dark.
But there are large upsides to E Ink: superior battery life, no glare and no eye strain.
Stepping up to a tablet
Last
year, Barnes & Noble introduced Nook Color, kind of a hybrid
between a conventional e-reader and a tablet with apps. With the recent
launch of Nook Tablet, Barnes & Noble stepped up its game with a
tablet that streams movies and TV shows (via apps such as Netflix and
Hulu Plus). It goes head-to-head with Kindle Fire. As with Fire, Nook
Tablet has a 7-inch screen, bigger than a regular Nook or Kindle but
smaller than the iPad's nearly 10-inch screen. The result is you can
stuff a 7-inch tablet in your jacket pocket, something you can't do with
an iPad.
Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire are both
tablets built on Google's Android operating system. But you'd be
hard-pressed to tell that, because their interfaces are very different
from what's usually seen on an Android slate. Nor can you grab apps on
Fire or Nook Tablet via the Android Market store. Barnes & Noble and
Amazon have dedicated app stores, each with fewer choices.
Most
appealing is the price. At $249 for Nook Tablet and $199 for Fire, both
tablets dramatically undercut the iPad 2 ($499 on up) and most other
tablets that came before them. As always, there are trade-offs: Barnes
& Noble and Amazon have far fewer apps than Apple. Neither device
has a camera, which would be useful for video chat.
Weighing
Nook Tablet vs. Kindle Fire is a bit like Coke vs. Pepsi: Which
bookseller do you find tastier? Still, there are tangible differences.
Fire beats Nook Tablet on price, and offers handy built-in stores for
music and movies, which Barnes & Noble lacks. But the Nook Tablet
comes out on top with on-board storage that is also expandable. And a
neat Nook Tablet feature is that you can record your voice reading a
kids book.
•Coming at the iPad.
The
first iPad and subsequent iPad 2 achieved market dominance for several
reasons: excellent battery life, the most apps, and slick, easy-to-use
iOS software.
Still, for all its popularity, the iPad has deficiencies. It doesn't run on 4G cellular networks, the fastest; there is no USB
or HDMI port; and there are no memory expansion options. None of those
are deal-breakers, but such holes do give rivals an opening.
Among
the strongest competitors are Galaxy Tabs from Samsung that can tap
4G networks. These well-received Android models come in 7-, 8.9- and
10.1-inch screen versions. And the Galaxy Tab so closely resembles the
iPad that Apple has sued Samsung, claiming the Galaxy tablets and some
Samsung smartphones violate its intellectual property.
Generally
speaking, companies chasing the iPad attempt to hook buyers with a
fresh angle. Lenovo, the Chinese company behind ThinkPad laptops,
pushed a $499 (and up) ThinkPad tablet that would appeal to a
business-friendly consumer. ThinkPad Tablet is one of the few modern
slates to take advantage of a pressure-sensitive digitizer pen, a $30
accessory that you can use to draw, doodle or capture notes in the
boardroom. (The 7-inch HTC Flyer also has a digital pen.) Another cool
accessory is a $100 keyboard folio that lets you prop up the tablet to
use with a physical qwerty keyboard, a traditional strength of ThinkPad
notebooks.
Toshiba also tries to compete by
supplying features common to laptops. Its Android tablet, the $380 (and
up) Thrive, has a full-size USB port you can use to connect flash
drives with pictures, videos, music and documents. There's a full-size
SD slot to accommodate memory cards that serve the same purpose. An
HDMI port with an optional cable lets you connect Thrive to a
high-definition TV monitor for viewing on the big screen. But a bulky
design may be one reason that Thrive isn't exactly thriving.
Sony
is coming at Apple with unusual designs. The "wedge" design on the Sony
Tablet S ($500 and up) tablet is meant to evoke a folded-back
magazine. Meanwhile, a new Android tablet from Sony, the Tablet P
promised soon, has dual 5.5-inch displays. Why two screens? You might
show a picture on one screen, and a map with the location where it was
shot on another. The market will decide if the extra display is truly
useful or merely a gimmick.
Research In
Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook is a handsome 7-inch tablet, and it's been
discounted to as low as $200 in some places. But PlayBook has generally
flopped because it lacks native e-mail, cellular connectivity or the
number of apps of rivals, and a key software update that may address
certain shortcomings is delayed until February.
The
10.1-inch Motorola Xoom Android tablet, as low as $359 on sale, was
generally well-received when it arrived early last year, but, like many
Android tablets, hasn't sold well.
Earlier
this year, Hewlett-Packard pulled the plug on the slick WebOS operating
system behind its TouchPad tablet. But you can still find TouchPads for
sale at attractive sub-$300 prices.
Some
rivals compete on price. A recent search on Amazon.com showed that you
can buy a Coby Kyros 7-inch Android tablet for as little as $112, and a
PanDigital tablet for $87.
These surely aren't iPads, but most customer reviews at the site are positive.
•On the horizon.
Apple has bested Google when it comes to tablet acceptance. Whether
Android can make significant inroads is an open question. Google is
rolling out a new version of Android dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich that will
unify software on its smartphones and tablets. It also remains to be
seen what Google does with Motorola Mobility in tablets, when and if its
proposed acquisition of that company goes through.
And don't rule out Microsoft.
In very early versions, the Windows 8 operating system that runs on tablets looks very slick.
But that's getting ahead of the curve.
Buyers
this holiday season have a variety of pleasing options at various
prices, whether they're springing for a budget e-reader or a pricey,
full-scale multimedia tablet.
[Hottest low price Android tablets are here: http://on.fb.me/vxin0Y ]
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