Tablets are this year’s turn-on for gadget lovers
TECH TALK
The must-have present this year is a tablet. If you can’t afford an iPad an Android is arguably much better value. Are tablets sexy? I suppose they are if you can watch certain movies. But which blue tablets are the best?
The Binatone HomeSurf 8 Touch Tablet is an eight incher. The similarities to a horse don’t end there. It goes like the clappers and it’s got staying power too. It’ll stay up for four hours, playing back videos with gusto, thanks to its rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries. This baby will do everything to please you – it even auto-rotates to provide exceptional viewing pleasure. Phwoar! It’s got stereo speakers and if you want privacy you can take the jack-off option.
With 2GB of built-in storage, you can store 250 images or 500 love songs. Also comes in 7 inches. The money shot? £179.99, available from www.argos.co.uk.
For the same price you can always pick up an Android 2.1, and in what better form than the Disgo Tablet 6000 (above). I found it easy to use it with my Wi-Fi, its Flash made it easy to search YouTube, FaceBook, and Twitter. You can even play it via an HD TV. It’s £129.99 at Amazon.co.uk.
ViewSonic’s new 10 incher (Viewpad 10, £418 at Amazon.co.uk) would satisfy anyone, whether they’re an Android lover or they have a thing for Windows. It’s got a whopping 16GB in storage and a slot that can take 32GB. It’s got a gigabyte of memory and enough processing power to support a built in web-cam (Leslie Grantham take note). As you’d expect from a computer costing £485. Viewpad also comes as a 7 incher.
If you want a cheaper, Flash enabled tablet the Advent Vega is £249.99 at Dixons.co.uk. It’s better in bed than some notebooks (with a Gigahertz of processing power) and claims to last up to ten hours.
Having said that, laptop maker Dell caters for “on-the-go” entertainment (Dell’s phrase) with a Streak (£399, Dell.com, below) which is 5 inches of gorilla glass touchscreen giving you access to 100,000 apps. Sometimes, it’s not the size that matters, but what you do with it. Of course, if you’re watching films with one hand holding your tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab (£449 at Tesco.com) has the hardware to give you some of the best playback.
Nick Booth is the editor of Mobileb2b.co.uk