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New iPad vs Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 vs Asus Transformer Pad

With the new iPad causing a stir, find out how it stacks up against Samsung's Galaxy Tab and Asus' Transformer, among others.

Andrew Lanxon Editor At Large, Lead Photographer, Europe
Andrew is CNET's go-to guy for product coverage and lead photographer for Europe. When not testing the latest phones, he can normally be found with his camera in hand, behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food. Sometimes all at once.
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  • Shortlisted for British Photography Awards 2022, Commended in Landscape Photographer of the Year 2022
Andrew Lanxon
7 min read

Now we've seen Apple's new iPad and gotten a handle on what it offers, it's important to remember it's not your only tablet-shaped option. Here I take a look at how the latest generation stacks up against Samsung's latest Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, the Asus Transformer Pad, Sony's Tablet S and the Amazon Kindle Fire.

Screen

The most exciting update to the iPad is the screen. Apple has slapped in a so-called retina display, giving the screen a 2,048x1,536-pixel resolution -- that's four times the resolution of the iPad 2. At 264 pixels per inch (ppi) it's pin-sharp and superbly colourful, too.

At 10.1 inches, the Galaxy Tab 2's screen (below) is slightly bigger than the iPad's 9.7 inches, but with a 1,280x800-pixel resolution and 149ppi, it's far behind, so don't expect anything like the same level of detail on screen. It seemed pretty bright in our hands-on time though, so it's far from unpleasant to use.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1

The Sony Tablet S has the same resolution as the Galaxy Tab 2. It's also bright and fairly vivid, although it didn't particularly impress any more than the iPad 2 in our review, so it's not likely to offer any serious challenge to the new iPad's screen.

The latest iteration of the Transformer Pad -- dubbed the Infinity -- offers a 1,920x1,200-pixel resolution, which again doesn't match the iPad's, but at 224ppi it's not a million miles away, and represents the current best resolution on an Android slate. It's super-bright and colourful as well, so videos and pictures look great.

The Kindle Fire is more of a glorified ebook reader than a proper tablet, and therefore comes with a cut-down price tag. It still manages to offer a decent screen though. It's 7 inches, and it has a pixel density of 169ppi -- higher than the iPad 2's 132ppi, but not close to the iPad 3's 264ppi. For the money though, it does a good job.

Processor

The iPad has seen a bump in processor power too. It's packing Apple's latest A5X dual-core chip, which also offers "quad-core graphics". We'll need to do some hands-on testing to figure out what that means in practice.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab, Kindle Fire and Sony Tablet S all pack 1GHz dual-core processors, which make operation pretty nippy. I'd tentatively put the Tablet S and Galaxy Tab on a par with the iPad 2, with all three being able to handle impressive 3D gaming. I'm therefore expecting the new iPad to offer a significant improvement -- and it'll have to if it's editing 19-megapixel pictures in iPhoto.

Asus Transformer Pad

The Transformer Pad (above) comes with the latest Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core chip, which promises monster performance and excellently smooth gaming. I've used the Transformer Prime and can indeed vouch for its searing power.

Apple, however, makes the bold claim that the A5X chip offers four times the performance of the Tegra 3. It didn't provide any details on exactly what tests were used, so I'm taking this with an enormous pinch of salt. But the Transformer Pad is certainly the only tablet for the moment that stands any chance of tackling the new iPad, and if Apple's claims are accurate, it's not going to be able to.

I'll be pitting these two against each other in the full review, so check back soon on this.

Design

The iPad hasn't seen much in the way of an improvement in the design. It looks identical to the iPad 2, although it is in fact a little thicker and slightly heavier. Fans of outlandish design won't be too chuffed that there's no new flair to get excited about.

The Galaxy Tab 2 has some tweaks on it that make it stand out a little from its predecessor. Silvery strips down the side make it a tad easier to hold, but the back is a plain, unbroken expanse of grey that's arguably pretty boring. It doesn't have the overall clean, simple aesthetic you find on the iPad.

Sony Tablet S

Sony's Tablet S (above) is the most unusual in terms of design. It's fatter at the top, which is supposed to give it a 'folded magazine' look and also makes it easier to hold. It won't be to everyone's taste, but I was keen on it, and it's particularly comfortable to hold for extended periods. It's mainly made from plastic though, which feels much less classy than Apple's slate.

The Transformer Pad has an all-metal chassis with an attractive spun finish, resulting in a good combination of burly and stylish. It's not the slimmest tablet ever and when you dock it with the keyboard, you're probably going to need a bag to carry it round with you -- but at least you can be safe in the knowledge that it can take a few knocks.

The Kindle Fire is the smallest of the bunch, but it's still pretty heavy, so you might want to think twice before slipping it into your coat pocket. There's not much design flair, but its black monolothic aesthetics are fine for a budget tablet.

Extra features

While there are some features I would have liked to have seen on the new iPad -- such as the voice assistant Siri -- there are a couple of additions worth noting. The newly announced iPhoto app will no doubt be hugely popular with the keen shutterbugs among you, as will the improved camera.

Mix in the existing iCloud services, the App Store, AirPlay streaming to compatible speakers, and the super-simple operation and it's easy to see why the iPad has become so popular.

All the other tablets run on the Android operating system, barring the Fire (which does, technically, but I'll come back to that) so you'll be able to enjoy the usual multiple homescreens, live widgets and a bulging Google Play app market. The Galaxy Tab offers Samsung's various hubs for music, video and social networking too, which you'll appreciate if you're used to Samsung's Galaxy S2 smart phone.

The Tablet S' most attractive feature is that it's compatible with the Sony PlayStation store and can run many old -- but classic -- PSOne titles such as Crash Bandicoot and my personal favourite, Coolboarders.

The Transformer Pad's main feature is evident in its name -- it comes with a keyboard dock. Slot them together and it becomes more laptop than tablet, allowing you to write long documents without having to awkwardly jab at an on-screen keyboard. I found it to make extensive typing to be particularly comfortable.

Amazon Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire (above) does technically run on Android, but you might not know it by looking. Amazon has stripped everything down to its bare minimum -- including storage capacity -- so you'll mainly be relying on Amazon's various streaming services and cloud storage. That's one of the reasons we're yet to see the Fire in the UK, as we don't have these services here yet.

The Fire doesn't offer the same elite performance or features, but it's designed to be a more basic device, ideally doing for movie streaming what the original Kindle has done for ebooks.

Price

So how much are these shiny slates going to set you back?

The new iPad has kept the the same pricing structure as the iPad 2, starting at £399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only model, up to the princely sum of £659 for the 64GB model with Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity.

There's no official word on pricing for the Galaxy Tab 2 yet, but its predecessor is still on sale for £399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model. It's unlikely that Samsung is going to significantly drop the price, but it really should if it hopes to challenge Apple.

There's no official word on just how much the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity will cost, but the Prime is currently on sale for £500, so expect the Infinity to be at least that much, if not somewhere North of £600. 

The Sony Tablet S manages to slightly undercut Apple by coming in at £350 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only model.

For the cash-strapped among you, the Kindle Fire should take the cake with a speculative UK price of £129. It's a good price, but you're sacrificing many of the features of the top tablets in order to achieve it.

Conclusion

While there's much more variation with Android tablets, none of them can match the iPad in terms of screen quality. Apple reckons it's top of the pile power-wise, but I'll have to wait for more tests before I agree or disagree with that.

Whether you prefer Android or iOS is a matter of choice, but there's no denying that Apple's interface is simple and effective and its integration with AirPlay and iCloud is a lovely bonus. The App Store has far more tablet-specific apps than the Android equivalent, too. If you prefer tinkering and customising your layouts, however, you'll probably be happier with an Android slate.

In this test, the iPad is the winner. The iPad 2 was by far the most popular tablet on the market and hasn't really been bothered by sales of Android slates. Although tablets like the Transformer brag about huge reserves of power, the iPad's ease of use has helped it remain in the hands of the vast majority of tablet users and shows no signs of letting that change.