tablets are great for everything from
playing games to watching video to
reading books magazines and all sorts of
other stuff they can even be used as
drawing slates and in spite of the
outrage from many tech nerds many people
use them as their primary cameras
some people like use tablets as their
only computers but for many of us
tablets are secondary devices they
complement our smartphones and our
laptops
a good tablet should be lightweight fast
well-built have lots of apps available
and be easy to use it should also easily
last through a day of heavy use for
multiple days of lighter usage it should
also have a large ecosystem of
accessories available things like
styluses cases and keyboards things that
let me do more with my tablet than it
can normally when everything is
considered it's clear that Apple's iPad
air is the best tablet on the market for
most people it's very well-built it's
exceptionally lightweight has a fast
processor has a battery that easily
lasts for days and has a great high
resolution screen the screen is easy to
look at for reading but vibrant and
colorful enough for videos to look great
too the air also benefits from the
hunches of thousands of iPad apps
available in Apple's iTunes App Store
virtually every major app and service
has iPad apps available many of which
take advantage of the airs larger
display an iOS is one of the simplest
and easiest to use mobile operating
systems so virtually anyone can pick up
an iPad and quickly grasp how it works
there are also countless accessories you
can get for the iPad air but it really
works great out of the box too so you
shouldn't feel compelled to buy an
accessory if that's not how you want to
use your tablet while the air is the
best tablet for most people the iPad
Mini with Retina display comes in a
close second it's smaller 7.9 inches
versus 9.7 and slightly lighter making
it better for holding in one hand and
reading it's also easier to slip into a
bag and take with you wherever you go I
find myself on planes and trains all the
time so the iPad Mini is actually the
better choice for me it's not as
versatile as the air but it's more
portable which is more important for my
needs there are countless other tablets
on the market too but most of them
aren't actually worth your consideration
Samsung literally has dozens of tablets
on store shelves but they all suffer
from the same software issues which make
them confusing and frustrating to use
they're also very plastic and chintzy
feeling compared to the iPad many of
excellent displays and some even come
with smart pens from writing on those
displays but those features aren't
enough to make up for the other
shortcomings Microsoft has been trying
to figure out tablets for years and the
surface pro 3 is its best effort yet but
it's a much better desktop computer than
a true tablet it's just too big and
clumsy to be portable or comfortable
for long periods of time and while it
can run lots of old windows apps they're
so relatively few true tablet apps
available for it
Google's own Nexus 7 is a relatively
good smaller tablet and you can find it
for pretty cheap these days but it's
been around for over a year and has more
software issues than the iPad Mini
Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX boasts a very
nice display and a lightweight design
but it's hampered by a limited app
selection it's really tailor made to
present Amazon services and make it easy
to purchase from the retail giant you
can get all of Amazon services on the
iPad and still be able to do a lot more
and that's really it tablets are fun to
use and great for many things like
reading playing games watching video and
more and the iPad air is the best one
you can get
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