Tablet Buying Guide for Summer 2012

The good news is that this is the most exciting time yet for the form factor, with exciting and competitive products available or coming soon from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple. The bad news, of course, is that all this choice makes buying decisions that much harder. Let’s take a closer look at each of the major players. Here’s our tablet buying guide for summer 2012.No need to describe this one for you. For the time being, the iPad still dominate the tablet field. It commands the most apps and, in its newest generation, an absurdly high-resolution display. Bluetooth and software like Pages, Garage Band, and iMovie make it a device for both creation and consumption (though it’s still a bit awkward to pair with a keyboard). If you know someone with a tablet, it’s probably an iPad.


Here are the three most important questions, then: Do you enjoy or prefer iOS? Are you willing to pay at least $400? And do you want a 10-inch tablet? If you answered yes to all of these, you’re probably in the market for an iPad. One caveat, though: Bloomsberg and the Wall Street Journal are reporting that Apple is putting a new, smaller iPad into production, likely for release this fall. Most tech pundits predict that the product will feature a 7.8 inch screen to allow for easy scaling of apps, and that Apple will shoot for a price range between $200 and $300. If you’re intrigued by the thought of a smaller, cheaper iPad, and you’re not necessarily looking to buy something right this minute, it might be worth waiting a couple months