For many the $499 starting price of the iPad may be considered too expensive. While it is often claimed to be the only tablet worth buying there are many alternatives that can be found at much lower prices. Not too long ago the only option for a cheap tablet was to get an 'iPad ripoff' off of eBay which would come running and outdated version of Android on an underpowered processor. Now, well-established companies are entering the tablet industry with high quality products at very competitive prices.
10" Tablets
Ten inch tablets are roughly the same size as the iPad, however most are in a widescreen aspect ratio while the iPad uses a 4:3 display.
HP Touchpad
The HP Touchpad was was webOS's introduction to the tablet market. Originally sold for $499, it was considered a weak competitor to the iPad, but gained much more hype when the HP 'fire sale' sold the remainder of all Touchpads for just $99. You can now find them being re-sold on sites such as craigslist or Kijiji, hopefully buying it close to the price they bought it for during the fire sale (but probably not).
Asus Transformer
Out of all of this generation's Android tablets including the Motorola Xoom and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 the Asus Transformer is still considered to be the best Android tablet. With a price point of $399 - $100 less than its competition, it is the clear choice for those who want to use Android. While you may want to wait for the upcoming super-fast Transformer Prime Asus has said that its price will remain at $399, but we can hope that it will drop soon enough.
7" Tablets
Seven inch tablets are often called the 'sweet spot' for screen sizes. Tablets of these size are generally not compared (or at least should not be) to the iPad because most are primarily used as e-readers.
Blackberry Playbook
Made by the Canadian company RIM, the Blackberry Playbook is the company's first step into making a tablet. Using the QNX operating System, the Playbook - like the Touchpad - is plagued by a lack of apps. Version 2 of the the Playbook's OS will add an an 'Android App Player' allowing Android apps repackaged for Blackberry App World to run, but has been delayed until February. The Playbook is currently priced at $499 but is on sale for $199 in Canada from November 18th to the 24th. In the US the Playbook will be available for $199 on Black Friday only.
Kindle Fire
The Kindle Fire is Amazon's brand new tablet, featuring a heavily customized version of Android 2.3. The Fire is praised for being fully integrated with Amazon's ecosystem - offering movies, music, books, and more. Because of this the Kindle Fire is quickly becoming the most talked about Android tablet and is expected to be the first real competitor in sales to the iPad. Unforunately, the Kindle Fire is not available outside the US. Neither are it's major competitors from Barnes & Noble. In Canada a new alternatve to the Fire is the Kobo Vox, but is getting bad reviews due to its quite outdated hardware.
It's amazing the power you can get in such a small device for a relatively low price, and the prices are only going down. The tablet market is getting more and more choice all the time, and there are always new products to look at. But what would I recommend? I currently use the Asus Transformer. It's very fast and I - unlike some really like Android Honeycomb. At this time if you are not buying an iPad Android has a wider selection of apps than webOS and QNX, and what would you do if there wasn't 'an app for that'?
