The Tablet Phenomenon
By Wayne Maruna

    Tablets may seem like fairly new devices, but remember Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from the mountain on a pair of tablets. With respect to modern electronic tablets though, we tend to think that Apple started the whole thing with their iPad.  Actually there were a series of devices, including PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), dating back before 2000 that were forerunners of the modern smartphone and tablet. Perhaps the first device that was actually called a Tablet PC came from Microsoft around 2000 and was generally considered a failure.  I don’t think there is much debate that the popularity of the tablet as we know it today started with the launch of the Apple iPad in 2010, and it remains the top rated tablet today by most accounts.

    But Apple is far from the only tablet producer in today’s market, which is primarily segmented by the operating system employed:  the Apple iOS (shared with the iPhone), Google’s Android, Microsoft Windows, and Amazon Fire OS, which is a heavily modified version of Android. When one buys a tablet, they are not only buying into the hardware, but also the whole of what is referred to as the tablet’s ‘ecosystem’, which includes the operating system, the available app store, and the manufacturer’s update policies.

    Microsoft markets its Surface tablets primarily to business, professional, and commercial clients who have need of the full Microsoft Office suite.  Their earliest surface tablets ran a version of Windows called RT which was poorly received in the marketplace.  Newer models run Windows 10 and can use Windows application software.  Surface tablets tend to run toward the high end of the price scale.

    Apple followed up its hit iPad with the smaller iPad Mini and the recently introduced large format iPad Pro.  All three run Apple’s iOS operating system. All software applications must be obtained from the Apple Store, which boasts the largest collection of tablet program applications (or ‘apps’.)  Apple’s prices for the various models at the time of this writing start at $269 for the older model iPad Mini 2 with 16GB of storage, and climb all the way to $949 for the iPad Pro with 128GB of storage.

    Google licenses its Android operating system to a number of partner hardware producers, including Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, Asus, HTC, LG, Sony, and pretty much anyone else not named Apple. Each of these manufacturers is allowed to modify the system to add their own unique apps or user interface.  Google also partners with certain manufacturers, like Asus and HTC, to produce tablets marketed under Google’s own Nexus brand name.  These are said to run ‘pure Android’ as Google intended.  Google often updates its operating system, and the Nexus tablets are the first to receive the updates.  All others may or may not follow, as there is added complexity to adjust the updates to accommodate the vendor’s own unique modifications. Similar to Apple’s Store, Google maintains the Google Play Store, which is the main repository of available apps for Android tablets and phones.

    Amazon’s Fire OS is based on Android but has been heavily modified to tie the user into Amazon’s own app store and exclude users from the Google Play Store.  More so than the other tablet makers, Amazon markets the various Fire models to consumers who favor reading and entertainment (movies and music) apps. People who have purchased Amazon Prime memberships for $99 annually gain certain benefits from using Fire models.  Amazon has recently replaced some of its higher-end models with lower spec models in order to sell them at more consumer friendly prices.  Their latest Fire 10 model with a 10.1” screen and 16GB of on-board storage was on sale recently for as low as $179.  To hit this price point, the screen resolution, measured in pixels per inch (ppi), was compromised to measure 149 ppi, one of the lowest numbers on current tablets.  By comparison, their prior year model, the highly regarded $400 Fire HDX 8.9, had a pixel density of 339, higher than even the 264 ppi of the iPad Air and Pro. (Pixels are essentially a pinpoint of light, and the more you can pack into a given space, the sharper the displayed image.)

    There are many factors that go into the selection of a tablet.  Perhaps the most obvious is screen size, which generally ranges from 6” to 10” measured diagonally.  Most are found in a range of 8” to 10” sizes. The iPad Air measures 9.7”, the Mini comes in at 7.9”, and the new Pro model is 12.9”.  The new Amazon Fire 10 has a 10.1” screen, while the latest Google Nexus 9 is 8.9”.  In addition to size, price is driven by on-board storage, which ranges from 8GB on the low end to 32GB on most tablets, 64GB on some tablets, and 128GB on a few.  Note that on an 8GB tablet, after you deduct for the operating system and a few other things, you only have about 5GB available for personal storage; on a 16GB model, that available number is just over 11GB.  I recommend 16GB as a minimum, with 32GB preferred.  Most tablets manufacturers allow you to store your music and movie media in their respective ‘cloud’ so more space is not necessarily worth the up-charge.

    With increased screen real estate comes increased weight, though newer models tend to be thinner and therefore lighter.  Weights generally range from around 10.5 ounces for 7” to 8” tablets to about 15.5 ounces for 10” range tablets.  A few ounces may not sound like much, but if you’re holding a tablet for any length of time, you can tell the difference, which is why most people purchase matching combination case/stand units.

    Tablets have become common in households because they are just so handy. In the next two monthly issues, I plan to talk about a hands-on comparison of four tablets that use three of the tablet ‘ecosystems’.