The shopping season is here, hurrah! Of course, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday long gone you might have missed out on the best deals to buy a WiFi tablet. Or have you? Electronic devices like tablets or laptops sometimes get the sharpest discounts right before Christmas to late January, depending on when the next model is due. So the best deal might just be ahead. Here’s a quick shopping guide for the best WiFi tablets out there.
10. Barnes & Noble Nook HD+
The Nook HD+ is amongst the cheapest large tablets out there and delivers a complete and complex reading experience with some pretty good app options. While it isn’t the best tablet out there it is the best for reading, particularly for magazines and comics, although other media support is somewhat lacking.
9. Amazon Kindle Fire 8.9 HD
Amazon’s Kindle is among the cheapest devices out there but it is somewhat lacking in utility apart from reading and enjoying media. It is nonetheless one of the best cheap wifi only tablets and certainly the cheapest in its price and size range.
8. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
The Galaxy Note Phone/Pad crossover took the world by storm. The 10.1 Note enjoyed less success though it is perhaps the best Samsung has offered so far, as tablets go. An interesting choice that comes with what most tablets out there are lacking: a stylus
7. Asus Transformer Prime
Already a year old the original transformer can still duck and weave its way through the tablet market today. Sporting its signature keyboard and a quad core GPU, the Prime can take on Apple in both processing power and style. The only thing it’s lacking is popularity…
6. Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700
The next generation, six months after the Prime had an even better processor and one of the clearest displays in the market, rivaling Apple’s retina Display. The camera is also very good something surprisingly rare on tablets.
5. Apple iPad Mini
Apple’s new fall debut broke the Jobsian canon that Apple will never put out a 7 inch tablet. The mini launched to enthusiastic reviews but mixed sales. At first it might look like Jobs might have been right about there being no market for small tablets but sales are slowly picking up, even if many people are choosing the older iPad (which has very similar stats) over the mini.
4. Kindle Fire HD
The same problems that its big brother has apply to the 7 inch Fire. It’s a purely video, audio and text device. You can’t use it for anything else. But then again it is technically an e-book reader so why would you want to in the first place. The best thing that the fire has going for it is the price. At $200 it is a steal. And it is significantly better graphically than its competitor the iPad mini at nearly half the price.
3. Google Nexus 7
The Nexus is the little tablet that could, a little gem from Google by way of Samsung that can stand tow to toe with the Apple line-up at prices more comparable to the Fire HD. And with one of the best battery lives in the market you’ll be able to enjoy the Nexus 7 for long stretches at a time.
2. Google Nexus 10
The 7’s big brother has a fantastic screen, a fast processor, 2GB of RAM and is optimized for Jelly Bean. It is also a very fast, sleek tablet and a joy to play with. Its minor problems, like the defective charger or the lack of extra storage are fully excusable. At $400, the Nexus 10 delivers quite a bit of tablet for your money.
1. Apple iPad
The 4th generation iPad is… well pretty much like the 3rd generation one, only faster. The main improvements added to the new device are the ones that changed with the whole device family: the new ‘lightning adapter’ and the earpods. Be that as it may, the iPad is still the best tablet on the market and the dominant product to boot.
And yes, the Microsoft Surface isn’t on the list… While the windows 8 devices might soon carve out a market share, so far the clunky software design has utterly failed to impress, especially for a device that is so expensive.
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