A detailed guide to buying a Tablet

Who could have imagined that a piece of technology that existed way back in 1972 would not get popularized or commercialized until the late 2000s. Thanks to the first iteration of tablet that came into existence in the form of an iPad in 2010, the term 'tablet' first started gaining recognition as an ultra portable computer. It's surprising that a gadget that had not even seen the light of the day until the past decade would eventually go on to become one of the essential pieces of hardware one needs to have in order to accomplish one's daily tasks. Be it is the online school attendees, be it the creative professionals, be it the binge-watchers, be it the news buff, a tablet has come a long way to appeal to a vast segment of consumers. 

Today, when it comes to buying a tablet, majority of buyers generally belong to one of these categories:-

One, who want a replacement for their laptop. They are tired of carrying the big, bulky laptops to their workplace each day, just to give a PowerPoint presentation or one who travels a lot and does not want to carry one's expensive laptops to watch movies/videos on the journey. They want something light, easy to carry device that works as well as their laptop, if not better.

Two, who want a replacement for their mobile phones. They are either gaming enthusiasts or students who study via online videos or are a heavy media consumer. In each case, the mobile phone’s screen is too less a real estate for them to fulfill the task they want to achieve.

 

In each case, the tablet manufacturers have flooded the market with products to fulfill the requirements for each type of user. However, not all the tablets available in the market are worth your money. In this post, we’ll discuss certain factors that a tablet must be tested upon to qualify it as either worthy of purchase or not and then go on to decide which tablet would be the right buy for you depending upon your usage.

Having spent 5 years in the tech. industry and having designed webpages and applications for both PC and tablets, I have formed a pretty good view of which product in the market is worth your time and money and which is not.

Having said that, I would like you to kindly identify yourself in one of the above two categories, depending upon your lifestyle and tablet buying requirement. This post shall cater to both the category of buyers, individually.

THE FIRST CATEGORY

Buyers belonging to this category want a truly capable work machine with an additional advantage of portability. The tablets that are targeted to this category of buyers are designed to work both as a regular Laptop and as a Tablet as per the user’s requirement and hence the name, Convertible Tablet PCs.

Convertible Tablets PCs
These tablets are commonly known as Tablet PCs and as the name suggests, solve dual purpose of functioning both as a laptop and as a tablet as and when required. These tablets are attached to the keyboard via a magnetic pin. One can attach or detach the tablet to the keyboard depending upon the required use.

When the keyboard is attached to the tablet, the combination works just like a regular laptop does with an added functionality of ‘touch-screen’. Convertible laptops mostly come with either a Windows OS or a Chrome OS, though the latest Apple iPad Pro features the dual capability as well. However, majority of Convertible tablet PC buyers are in the market for a Windows OS installed device. Though, the ones who are Android developers would find themselves more at home with the Chrome OS ones.

(Image of a Convertible Tablet PC)

Now, let’s discuss the Pros and Cons of Convertible Tablet PCs.

PROS:-

• Portability. This one is obvious. You can carry this lightweight dual purpose device in tablet sleeves/cases, thus eliminating the need to carry big laptop bags around.

• Touch-Screen. You have to experience this functionality to cherish it. It’s so much better when you can touch that ‘Start’ button and all the other icons that you are habitual of clicking with a mouse. Having a touch screen functionality makes things so much better.

• Battery Life. This itself is a deciding factor for majority of users who are mostly on the go and find a tough time putting their laptops on charge for 2 hours straight only to get a 4.5 hour of battery life. This is when Tablet PCs come to the rescue, with some of the machines offering battery backup of upto 10 hours.

• Performance. These devices are fast, really fast. After pressing the power button, you can find a fully booted device and ready to take your commands in less than 15 seconds. This is really beneficial for users who require to do a lot of spontaneous tasks like sending an urgent mail to the clients.

CONS:-

• Fragile. No doubt, you have to be careful with these devices. Since the keyboard and screen are attached via a magnetic pin only, you have to be extra cautious with your handling. One hard jerk to the screen could cause it to detach from the pin and fall off.

• Limited Hardware upgradation possibility. These devices are compact in form, thus all the circuits and hardware components are assembled in a small space. So, there is no room for aftersales hardware upgradation. Thus, with these machines, it is advised to go with the hardware specifications that not only caters to your present needs but future proofs your device as well.

Now let’s move on to the second category of users, i.e the mobile replacement seekers.

THE SECOND CATEGORY

The tablets in this category of users do not attach with any keyboard or any other accessory, hence the name, Stand Alone Tablets.

Stand Alone Tablets
These tablets are overgrown mobile phones, though with several added advantages that come with the larger form factor and screen real estate.

Each leading brand manufactures at least five to six such products with varying internal specifications so as to suit each type of user. These tablets, unlike the convertible tablet PCs do not have the functionality of connecting with a keyboard and working like a regular laptop. However, the absence of magnetic mechanism to attach the keyboard opens up more room for the hardware that can be installed onto the device. Thus, you find better sounding speakers and more RAM or internal storage in these devices than a similarly priced convertible tablet PC.

Here, unlike the Convertible Tablet PCs, the majority of tablets in the market run either the Android OS or the Apple’s iOS. This makes sense too, as buyers of these tablets want a mobile replacement and more than 95% of the mobile phones run either on these operating systems and people feel more at home when they find the same operating system in their tablets too.

(Image of a Stand Alone Tablet)

Now, let’s discuss the Pros and Cons of Stand Alone Tablets.

PROS:-

• Extremely portable. This is the prime positive point of these tablets and the single most important reason to why these tablets are sold in mind boggling numbers all over the world.

• Screen size. Whether you require a smaller 7 inch tablet or a larger 10.5 inch one. There is a tablet for each one of you, catering to your personalised requirements.

• Robust. These devices, unlike convertible tablet PCs do not have any detachable parts. The absence of any magnetic pins or hinges makes these tablets extremely robust and tough.

• Better Specifications at a lesser price. Since these tablets do not have the added functionality to work as a laptop, the cost comes down and that too by leaps and bounds.

CONS:-

• Limited functionality. This one is obvious. Since this is not a convertible tablet, it does not have to behave like one. The performance and the tasks you can accomplish on a convertible tablet PC can’t be accomplished on this. Take for example, you have to copy a paragraph of one word file to another. In a PC or a tablet PC, you can simply use the ‘Ctrl+C and ‘Ctrl+V’ command and your job is done, as simple as that. Achieving the same functionality in stand alone tablets is not possible due to hardware constraints - particularly, absence of keyboard.

• Performance. We knew this one was coming. Didn’t we? A stand alone tablet doesn’t have the prowess and the processing power to handle heavy tasks like music or video editing. Simply speaking, these tablets are not designed to tackle performance intensive tasks. After all, a 7 mm thin device can’t have enough space to fit in those dedicated GPUs and those heat sinks which are a must for performance intensive tasks.

Having discussed the two types of tablets along with their Pros and Cons, let’s proceed to discuss the specifications one should consider in these tablets that qualify the product for a good purchase and for long term reliability.

For First Category of users i.e., Convertible Tablet PCs

• At least an Intel Core i5 Processor, 10th Generation or higher or an equivalent processor from Ryzen's AMD series.

• At least 8 GB DDR4 RAM, though 16 GB of RAM would give you unmatched performance and you won’t face any lags or stutters even when handling the heaviest of heavy tasks.

• At least a 128 GB SSD or a 1 TB HDD. When deciding on a Tablet PC, it is imperative to note that the generation of the CPU or the amount of RAM are not the components that bring drastic changes in performance, it is the presence or absence of SSD that does. In case of SSD, when the user requests a file, the controller, also known as processor of an SSD has the exact addresses of the blocks where the specific data is written, and the data is almost instantly made available to the user. There’s no waiting for a read/write head to find the information it needs. SSD access times are thus measured in nanoseconds. This results in potent performance, which is evident from the fact that SSDs have a read-write speed of up to 3500 MBps. There’s no waiting for a read/write head to find the information it needs. On the other hand, HDDs manage to provide read-write speed only in the range of 50–170 MBps.

• At least a 3 MB Cache. Most users are unaware of this term, though it is one of the most important factors on which the performance of your device depends.

For Second Category of users i.e Stand Alone Tablets

• At least 3GB RAM. More RAM would be preferable if intense multi-tasking is required or if needs to install multiple academic/profession specific software.

• Full HD Display.

• At least 32GB internal memory to install all the necessary applications. Music, Photos, Videos may be saved to an SD card, hence there should be a provision for the expansion slot.

• 6–7 hours of screen-on time. Generally, a tablet with battery capacity greater than 5000mAh would impart great results in terms of battery life.

• 8 to 10.5 inch Screen size. Larger screen size is best suited for reading/creative purposes. For general use, 8 inch screen would be fine.

Furthermore, awareness about the ways by which manufacturers resort to maximizing their profits by packing-in gimmicky and often unnecessary features that are best avoided in a tablet, too needs to be kept in consideration while making the purchase -

• Bloatware - In order to rack up profits, some manufacturers often pre-install applications in the tablets they produce, the creators of which pay hefty fees to the brand for doing so. Such apps are often difficult to uninstall and eat up the storage space.

• Extraneous Specifications - Face unlocking, Optical Image Stabilization in camera, water resistance, etc., are some of the specifications that find their best use in a mobile phone.

• Subscription of Paid Apps/Services - Brands often pre-load some of their tablets with annual/monthly subscription to some of the otherwise paid apps/services. The truth is, cost of that subscription is already included in the cost of the tablet. Therefore, by avoiding such marketing gimmicks one can save considerable amount of money.

Now, remember not all products available in the market are built for consumer satisfaction. Some are built to last only for 1–1.5 years, after which they start showing signs of lags and hiccups. This forces the consumers to again purchase a new device and hence the business of manufacturers thrive.
Only a few devices in the market are designed to last more than 3 years with little to no drop in performance.

Note: In our constant endeavour to assist you in making an informed buying decision, we test the new launches of the products on multiple parameters, and if they stand tall in our analysis we periodically add them to the below mentioned list of our recommended products. So, if you plan to make the purchase at a later time, you may visit the links once again at the very time of buying to ensure that the purchase turns out to be a very fruitful one.

Convertible Tablet PCs
For Indian residents:- Best Choice 1, My Preferred Choice, Best Choice 2, Best Choice 3, Best Choice 4, Best Choice 5, Best Choice 6, Best Choice 7, Best Choice 8, Best Choice 9, Best Choice 10, Best Choice 11 and Best Choice 12

Stand Alone Tablets
For Indian residents:- Best Choice 1, Best Choice 2, My Preferred Choice, Best Choice 3, Best Choice 4, Best Choice 5, Best Choice 6, Best Choice 7, Best Choice 8, Best Choice 9, Best Choice 10 and Best Choice 11