With the advancement of technology, today, tablets are a hot gadget in the market, which was earlier captured by laptops and mobile phones. Tablets are smaller than laptop and bigger than Smartphone; it is ideal to take along while on the go. One can browse the internet, create and share presentations, videos conference with clients, stay connected with corporate email, download books, games and videos, watch movies, share photos and much more with it tablet. Owing to several advantages, tablets are gaining popularity. Apple’s iPad was the first ever such mobile computer that was launched in India, about 4 years ago. However, with its gaining popularity, today such devices are manufactured by popular mobile manufacturing companies and are based on different platforms such as Android and Windows. Hence, choosing the right tablet has become important. Here is a guide to help you choose the right tablet.
Purpose of buying a tablet
Before even thinking of buying a tablet, give a second thought if you even need one. Knowing the purpose of buying this gadget is very important. If you need a tablet for the purpose of business, you will want a tab that has a screen size of at least 9 inches or more along with an external keyboard. However, for gaming purpose the requirements of features and functionalities are different as it will need a powerful graphics processor. Similarly, if you want to invest on a tablet for your family or kid, the device should have features like powerful parental control. Since, the different tablets available in the market cater to different needs of users, it is very important to decide the purpose of buying the tablet.
Extensive Market Research
Once the purpose of buying a tablet is clear, it is important to carry out an extensive market research. As there are several of them available in the market, it is essential to carry out both online and offline market research to get a good deal. Moreover, knowing the features and functions of the tablet that you would want to invest on is as well necessary. Read the reviews about it and compare it with other Smartphone available in the market within the same price bracket. This will help you in choosing the right one that has good features and comes in your decided price range.
Size of the tablet
Choosing the right size of the tablet is equally important as choosing features and functions. There are tablets available in the market that has different sizes, which starts from 7 inches. If you want a lightweight and easily portable, a 7 inch tab is the right one; however, if you want a better tablet that solves the purpose of gaming provides more real estate for apps, movies, etc. while still being lightweight and portable, then an 8 inch tab is good one for your needs. For business requirements, which encompass heavier tasks like surfing the Web and editing documents, making them the best choice for productivity, a 10 inch or a larger tablet is required as it makes the work easier.
Choosing and knowing the Operating System
Choosing the right operating system is important as it is the OS on which the smooth functioning of various apps and multitasking of your tablet will depend. Hence, before buying it is important to know which platform is better that will best cater to your requirements. There are several tablets available today that works on different platforms and knowing each of them before deciding on which one to buy is essential.
Processor
A processor in a tablet is like the engine of a car, which determines its proper functioning. Apple’s iPads are powered by 64-bit A7 chip, which offers quite fast performance. If you desire to buy other brands, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 is among the superfast processors available today; however, an octa-core chip provides neat and decent performance. The popular ones that are commonly found include Nvidia’s Tegra 4 processor (in the Surface 2 and several Android slates) and Intel’s Bay Trail chips (in Windows 8.1 devices now and Android soon). There are also low-end chips and thus, it is important to go through a few reviews before buying one.
Random Access Memory
Random Access Memory, popularly known as RAM of your tablet is responsible for fast and smooth functioning of your tablet’s applications without having any lag timings. Higher the RAM, better is the performance of the tablet. Having at least 1 GB RAM is important for smooth and enhanced multi-tasking but if you will be using it for high-end task than 2 GB RSM is necessary. So, it is very important to check the RAM of the before buying.
Storage Capacity
Like Smartphone and laptop, Tablets also comes with internal storage, which enables you to store data and applications on your device. So, when you buy a tablet, always go for the one that has ample storage capacity. It is better to choose a model that supports microSD card that will allow you to expand the storage capacity. However, it is advisable that you choose the one with at least 16 GB of internal storage.
Battery
Battery is one of the essential factors of any device and so is for a tablet. If you will be using your tablet on long plane trips or you constantly run from one meeting or such other important activity, the endurance of your tablet will definitely matter. Moreover, if the tablets battery backup is not good enough you will have to face hindrance in your work as you will not be able to surf the Internet or access the Wi-Fi. Hence never buy a tab that offers a battery backup of less than 7 hours.
Budget
After checking all the above mentioned specifications and aspects, one should always keep in mind the budget. The starting price of tablets is from about Rs. 7,000 that goes up to Rs. 60,000 and one should keep in mind that availability of features and functions solely depends on the price. Hence, deciding upon the budget as to how much money you would want to invest on this gadget is highly important. However, you should not compromise on features like battery, processor and RAM.
Purpose of buying a tablet
Before even thinking of buying a tablet, give a second thought if you even need one. Knowing the purpose of buying this gadget is very important. If you need a tablet for the purpose of business, you will want a tab that has a screen size of at least 9 inches or more along with an external keyboard. However, for gaming purpose the requirements of features and functionalities are different as it will need a powerful graphics processor. Similarly, if you want to invest on a tablet for your family or kid, the device should have features like powerful parental control. Since, the different tablets available in the market cater to different needs of users, it is very important to decide the purpose of buying the tablet.
Extensive Market Research
Once the purpose of buying a tablet is clear, it is important to carry out an extensive market research. As there are several of them available in the market, it is essential to carry out both online and offline market research to get a good deal. Moreover, knowing the features and functions of the tablet that you would want to invest on is as well necessary. Read the reviews about it and compare it with other Smartphone available in the market within the same price bracket. This will help you in choosing the right one that has good features and comes in your decided price range.
Size of the tablet
Choosing the right size of the tablet is equally important as choosing features and functions. There are tablets available in the market that has different sizes, which starts from 7 inches. If you want a lightweight and easily portable, a 7 inch tab is the right one; however, if you want a better tablet that solves the purpose of gaming provides more real estate for apps, movies, etc. while still being lightweight and portable, then an 8 inch tab is good one for your needs. For business requirements, which encompass heavier tasks like surfing the Web and editing documents, making them the best choice for productivity, a 10 inch or a larger tablet is required as it makes the work easier.
Choosing and knowing the Operating System
Choosing the right operating system is important as it is the OS on which the smooth functioning of various apps and multitasking of your tablet will depend. Hence, before buying it is important to know which platform is better that will best cater to your requirements. There are several tablets available today that works on different platforms and knowing each of them before deciding on which one to buy is essential.
- iOS : Apple’s iPad was the first ever tablet launched all over the world and the name has become synonymous to all tablets. However, iPad runs on iOS operating system that is solely developed by Apple for iPad and iPhones. However, there are a wide range of Apple products available that runs on different iOS, which makes choosing the ideal one little difficult. It is always better and advisable to buy the latest version i.e. iOS7. With this operating system you can have a colorful and modern design upgrade. A new Control Center menu (accessed by swiping up) makes it easy to snap various settings, and enables enhanced as well as smooth multitasking.
- Android : Android is one of the most popular and preferred platforms for both tablets and Smartphone. It gives surety of original integration with Google services that embraces Maps, Search, YouTube, Gmail, Hangouts, and many more. Moreover, Android OS is customizable and offers better access to more than a million of apps that is available on the Google Play store. The best thing about Android is that the apps that are available on other OS like iOS and Windows, which are paid downloads are most often available free of cost here. In addition, Android also offers better features as well as provides Multi Window multitasking.
- Windows : Windows Operating System for tablet is much new as compared to Android and Apple iOS. Despite being one of the dominant OS in the laptops and desktop computers, a tablet that runs on Windows platform is not very popular. However, with the advent of Windows 8.1 OS, tablets that runs of it are much more diverse and all kinds of tablet-laptop hybrids as well as familiar slate designs can be found. Microsoft’s Live Tile interface is dynamic and easy to customize and with a better user-interface, tablets that run on this platform are good. However, the only drawback of Windows OS is that it does not have as much apps and games as the other two has.
Processor
A processor in a tablet is like the engine of a car, which determines its proper functioning. Apple’s iPads are powered by 64-bit A7 chip, which offers quite fast performance. If you desire to buy other brands, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 is among the superfast processors available today; however, an octa-core chip provides neat and decent performance. The popular ones that are commonly found include Nvidia’s Tegra 4 processor (in the Surface 2 and several Android slates) and Intel’s Bay Trail chips (in Windows 8.1 devices now and Android soon). There are also low-end chips and thus, it is important to go through a few reviews before buying one.
Random Access Memory
Random Access Memory, popularly known as RAM of your tablet is responsible for fast and smooth functioning of your tablet’s applications without having any lag timings. Higher the RAM, better is the performance of the tablet. Having at least 1 GB RAM is important for smooth and enhanced multi-tasking but if you will be using it for high-end task than 2 GB RSM is necessary. So, it is very important to check the RAM of the before buying.
Storage Capacity
Like Smartphone and laptop, Tablets also comes with internal storage, which enables you to store data and applications on your device. So, when you buy a tablet, always go for the one that has ample storage capacity. It is better to choose a model that supports microSD card that will allow you to expand the storage capacity. However, it is advisable that you choose the one with at least 16 GB of internal storage.
Battery
Battery is one of the essential factors of any device and so is for a tablet. If you will be using your tablet on long plane trips or you constantly run from one meeting or such other important activity, the endurance of your tablet will definitely matter. Moreover, if the tablets battery backup is not good enough you will have to face hindrance in your work as you will not be able to surf the Internet or access the Wi-Fi. Hence never buy a tab that offers a battery backup of less than 7 hours.
Budget
After checking all the above mentioned specifications and aspects, one should always keep in mind the budget. The starting price of tablets is from about Rs. 7,000 that goes up to Rs. 60,000 and one should keep in mind that availability of features and functions solely depends on the price. Hence, deciding upon the budget as to how much money you would want to invest on this gadget is highly important. However, you should not compromise on features like battery, processor and RAM.
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