Introduction

The move towards paper-free academic environment has long been an objective in the development of tablets. As enthusiastic as I am about this goal—having owned at various point two tablet PCs, one UMPC, two Windows Mobile Devices, a Palm IIIxe, three Android devices and two iPads—even I have to admit that technology had been falling short of expectation. But with multiple touch-based tablets, under competing plaforms, being introduced this year, perhaps we are finally accomplishing the goal? If this is a question you have in mind, read on.

Because this review is meant to focus on the aspects that are of particular concern to students and academics, it does not cover some topics, such as battery life. Interested reader can refer to the many reviews in major gadgets sites (e.g. Engadget: Flyer, Iconia, iPad 2nd Gen, PlayBook, Xoom).

Here is my verdict—scholars from other disciplines often joke that economists are impatient, wanting to know all the findings of a paper in its first pages—if note-taking is crucial the HTC Flyer is the only serious option. If reading fine text is more important then the iPad is the best choice.

The Review Units

The tablets under review are the HTC Flyer, the Acer Iconia Tab A500, the Apple iPad 1st Generation and the BlackBerry PlayBook. All four tablets are being sold in Best Buy. These four tablets cover the two most popular size (~10″ and 7″) and the three available operating systems (iOS, Android and QNX).

A few competitors are not included in this review, notably the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. I find the former sufficiently similar to the Iconia and the 7″ version of latter inferior to the Flyer, and as such I decided not to obtain them for review. A 1st generation iPad is used in this review instead of a 2nd generation one because I own one of the former, and because the latter benefits mostly from being lighter and have cameras. Tablet PCs are excluded from this review—even though I own a Fujitsu P1610—because I consider them belonging to a separate league, as I shall explain in the end of this review.

Size

The iPad and the Iconia are (approximately) 10″ in diagonal, while the Flyer and the PlayBook are 7″. There have been plenty of debates on the merits of each of two sizes. On one hand, 10″ tablets clearly offer more screen estate over 7″ ones. On the other hand, 7″ tablets takes up considerable less space and are much easier to hold with one hand. The choice is ultimately a personal one, depending on your own need.

Left: the iPad 1st Gen. Right: the Flyer

Built

1. PlayBook 2. Flyer, iPad 3. Iconia

Tablets have essentially standardized on how they look from the front: touchscreen with a bezel around it. Thus when it comes to looks, the back is the battleground. That being said, bear in mind that most tablet users will have a case on their device, so the difference in built material is not that important.

From top-left to bottom-right: PlayBook, Flyer, iPad, Iconia.

The PlayBook has a matte rubberised finish, giving a professional feel that ThinkPad users will be very familiar with. The Flyer and the iPad both have a aluminium shell, which is both stylish and eye-catching, the latter not necessarily a welcome attribute at work. The Iconia has a brushed metal finish but is actually made of plastic. While that design is decent looking, it makes the Iconia looks much more like a media-consumption device than a machine for work.

Accessories and Extensibility

1. Iconia 2. Flyer, iPad, PlayBook

Only the Iconia Tab uses a standardized Micro USB connector. The other three each has their own proprietary connector, an approach that I abhor because of the hassle it impose to users.

From left to right: Micro USB, PlayBook’s connector, Flyer’s connector and iPad’s connector.

While all of the tablets in this review have batteries big enough that will handily last you a full day, if you, like me, have a habit of working in multiple locations, chances are you would still want to have multiple chargers. The iPad only comes with one cable, doubling as a changing cable and a data cable, while all the others come with a separate data cable. Base on my personal experience, as long as you have wireless network at all your workplaces there is little need for transferring data with a cable. Thus, the data cable can be used as a charging cable, either by plugging it into a computer or by buying a separate USB charger.

Besides the charger, the PlayBook comes with a nice porch, while the Iconia Tab comes with a microfiber cloth. Now comes the bad news: not only does the Flyer not come with a Pen in the U.S., it does not come with the Porch included with those sold in the rest of the world either. This is somewhat disappointing.

Left: PlayBook’s box. Right: Iconia Tab’s box.

Now comes the biggest selling point of the Iconia: extension ports. While all the other tablets in this review only provides you with a proprietary port, the Iconia actually has a full-size USB port and a HDMI port. The former means you can connect external mouse, keyboard and hard drives to the Iconia. How useful this feature is varies by individual, but there is no doubt Iconia is best among its class when it comes to connectivity.

Iconia’s extension ports. Top-right: HDMI connector. Bottom-left: USB connectors.

Reading

Large format documents: 1. iPad 2. Flyer, PlayBook 3. Iconia
Novels: 1. Flyer, PlayBook 2. iPad 3. Iconia

10″ tablets definitely have an edge when it comes to displaying documents. That said, the 7″ tablets performed surprisingly well. I had no problem reading an article from the Quarterly Journal of Economics on the Flyer or the PlayBook. Furthermore, the smaller size of the 7″ tablets make them quite a bit easier to hold with one hand, which is a considerable advantage for those on the go.

Left: Flyer. Right: iPad.

The Iconia, while having a 10″ screen, is ranked third in both formats because its default PDF reader was not able to correctly display the document above.

The iPad, the Flyer and the PlayBook are essentially a match in terms of screen quality, which means you can expect rich, deepy colors from all of them. The Iconia Tab, on the other hand, is a notch behind the others in this regard. Note that the Iconia’s screen is by no means of poor quality, but just that the competition is better.

From top-left to bottom-right: PlayBook, Flyer, iPad, Iconia.

Text Input and Selection

1. Flyer 2. iPad 3. Iconia 4. PlayBook

Because of limited screen estate, on screen keyboards of all the tablets in this review shows by default only the keys for alphabets and a few essential punctuations. By doing so, the 10″ tablets have keys that are almost as big as a full-sized keyboard. Fluid typing on these tablets are achievable provided that you have a case or a stand holding the tablet. The 7″ tablets, on the other hand, are very versatile if you are comfortable with thumb typing.

From top-left to bottom-right: PlayBook, Flyer, Iconia, iPad.

The Flyer ultimately stands out because of its excellent implementation of symbol entry, which allows the user to enter numbers and symbols by press and holding varies keys. Note that Samsung tablets, not included in this review, came along with an input method called Swype, which is arguable an even better input method.

Flyer’s keyboard.

Text selection is a feature that has come a long way. The iPad and the Flyer has what many considered the best method of text selection on tablets: when you press and hold on text, a magnifying glass appear to allow for fine control of the cursor points. Iconia, with default Android 3.0, only have cursor points, as is the PlayBook.

From left to right: iPad, Flyer, Iconia

In the end, while these tablets work well for typing notes and email conversations, trying to type an essay on them would bound to be frustrating. Users who need to do a lot of typing are better of with convertibles like the Fujitsu P series, or hybrids like the Eee Pad Transformer.

Inking

1. Flyer 2. iPad 3. Iconia 4. PlayBook

Unless you only deal with the basic alphanumeric characters, chances are you would find typing notes insufficient. The ability to record handwritten notes has always been one of the reason I use tablets. In this regard there is no competition—thanks to its active digitizer, the Flyer is the best by a large margin. As the videos below demonstrate, the capacitive touch screen of the other three tablets is not accurate enough to allow for good handwritten notes.

From top to bottom: Flyer, iPad, PlayBook.

The Flyer’s advantage extends beyond simply being more accurate. The included Notes application integrates with Evernote, a service which automatically synchronizes your notes online and do character recognition, making your handwritten notes searchable.

Email

1. Iconia, iPad 2. Flyer 3. PlayBook

The Iconia and iPad both have a two-panel threaded email client, which takes advantage of the screen estate of a tablet. The Flyer, currently only on Android 2.3, does not have access to the newest Android Gmail client. As such, its users at the moment have to choose between using the Gmail client, which is threaded but single-panel, or the HTC email client, which is two-panel but not threaded. The PlayBook does not come with an email client.

Instead of using an email client app, a user can instead opt for using a webmail interface. By default, Gmail displays a two-panel interface on iPad’s browser. Follow the instructions here—except at the last step, choose ‘iPad’ instead of ‘iPhone’—to enable the same interface for the Flyer.

Office Applications

Because none of the tablets comes with office applications by default, this review does not go over them. Quickoffice and Documents to Go are two suites that are available on all platforms, with the iPad having the additional optiona of Apple’s own iWorks.

Price

At the moment of writing, an 16GB Wi-Fi version of: the Flyer fetches for $500 + $80 for the pen, the Iconia for $450, the iPad 1st Gen for $350, the iPad 2nd Gen for $500, and the PlayBook for $500. Given that the Flyer is noticeably more expensive, it only makes sense to go for it if you really, really need to write notes.

Is there a place for Tablet PCs?

To conclude this review, I would like to come back to the topic of Tablet PC. Steve Job famously noted that Apple has sold more iPads in nine months than all Tablet PCs combined. The problem with Tablet PCs is that none of them have more than two of the three essential characteristics of a successful tablet—portability, battery life and versatility. This makes Tablet PCs ill-equipped to compete with the newer crop of tablets.

That being said, sometimes having two essential characteristics is enough. If you need a active digitizer to work with Photoshop or offline character recognition, Tablet PCs are still your best bet. Hardly anyone would conclude from more people use Window’s Calculator than Matlab that Matlab is a failure. Each tool simply has its own role.