Event Coverage

HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2012: Editor's Choice - Part 1

By Team HardwareZone - 29 Feb 2012

Best Tablet

Best Tablet

What makes a particular tablet the ONE to buy? You should know by now that it's not all about the specs. In fact, a purchase decision is based on a variety of factors such as apps, branding, build quality, design and price, which can be summed up in two words - user experience.

In  2010, there were very few viable tablet options in the market for serious consideration. However, 2011 proved to be the year of the Android OS as it proliferated across a variety of mobile phones and tablet devices. To help users to tread across this explosion of devices, we even wrote a guide to help users understand what differentiates one tablet from another and what matters most to the user.

With such a wide variety of devices to choose from, we just had to consider all available options to consider who walks away with our Best Tablet accolade for the Editor's Choice awards. For this showdown, we considered the best option available from each vendor, regardless of screen size, sub-categories and OS type.

Nominees:

  • Acer Iconia Tab A500
  • ASUS Eee Pad Transformer 
  • Apple iPad 2
  • RIM BlackBerry PlayBook
  • Huawei MediPad
  • HTC Flyer
  • Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet
  • Motorola Xoom
  • Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 
  • Sony Tablet S 

And the Winner Is...

Apple's superb optimization of the hardware and software aspects results in an unrivalled user experience on the iPad 2, which left us no doubts that it is the best tablet today.

Though the Apple iPad 2 is an incremental upgrade from the first iPad, it still packs a punch and performs admirably well against the flood of Android tablets this year. Till today, no other tablet can match its silky smooth user interface, rich App Store and most importantly, its battery performance. 

Scoring Breakdown
Criteria/Model Apple iPad 2 Acer Iconia Tab A500 ASUS Eee Pad Transformer RIM BlackBerry PlayBook Huawei MediaPad
Design 9.0 7.0 8.0 8.0 8.0
Features 9.0 7.0 9.5 8.0 7.5
User-Friendliness 9.0 7.5 8.0 8.0 7.5
Performance 9.5 7.0 8.0 8.5 6.5
Value 9.0 7.0 8.0 8.0 7.0
Overall 9.0 7.5 8.5 8.0 7.0
Price S$668 (16GB Wi-Fi) S$799 S$898 S$668 S$598

 

Scoring Breakdown

Criteria/Model HTC Flyer Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet Motorola Xoom Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Sony Tablet S
Design 8.0 7.5 8.0 9.0 8.5
Features 8.5 8.5 9.0 8.5 8.5
User-Friendliness 7.5 7.0 8.0 8.0 8.0
Performance 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5 8.0
Value 6.0 7.0 7.0 8.5 7.5
Overall 7.5 7.5 8.0 8.5 8.0
Price S$1068 S$999 S$888 S$848 S$668

*Note: Prices listed in this article are accurate at the time of product evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.