Battle of the tablets

August 9th, the new 4G LTE Playbook will be released to carrier in Canada. Rogers, Bell and Telus will initially sell it in Canada and slowly the playbook will make its way into more hands and more countries. The 4G LTE Playbook is the second in Research In Motion’s lineup in tablets. It allows users to be able to use the internet anywhere and improves upon all the areas considered weak in the first version.

Released in July the Google Nexus 7 is the first in a partnership between Google and Asus. The Nexus 7 was designed to take on the Playbook, Kindle Fire and Amazon tablet market. Sales are said to be going well as both the 8 and 16 GB models have been sold out on the Google Play store. The tablet is running Android OS 4.1 (Jelly bean) which is google’s newest operating system.

 

Both tablets are new to the market. The 4G Playbook so much so that it hasn’t even hit the shelves yet and the Nexus 7 only recently. These two tablets will be the main competitors in this price range until a new Kindle Fire or lower priced tablets becomes available. When it comes to size they both rock the same 7 inch screen which is great for portability and storage, they are roughly the same size wise but the Playbook is about 85 grams heavier.

There are some major differences in the way that the tablets were designed and their target audiences. The 4G Playbook has a couple things that the Nexus 7 doesn’t including a front facing camera, LTE (HSPA+) connectivity, flash and NFC. The advantage for the Nexus 7 is the cheap price, consumer familiarity with Android and 46 more pixels per square inch then the Playbook. Lets take a quick look at the pro’s and con’s for both:

Playbook Pro’s – Flash makes using the internet great, instead of getting mobile websites with 1/2 the information missing, you get the full site. The rear 3MP camera allows for crystal clear communication between devices, the 5 MP front camera allows for great photos from the tablet and the 1080p allows for HD recording from the device. The 32 GB of storage allows for a lot of photos, videos and apps to be put onto the device. The device also has access to over 40,000 apps dedicated to it and Blackberry 10 for users to enjoy.

Cons – The Playbook name has been kind of tarnished with the half backed release of the first one and the company situation itself. Other then the small bump in speed and the LTE this playbook is almost the same as the original the only difference is the 300+ difference in price. This device only has 40,000 apps where as Nexus 7 has apps ranging in the 400,000. The price might be a little high for consumers as it is almost in Ipad range which has much more support int he general public.

Nexus 7 Pros – Its cheap, and allows for people who might not be able to afford a higher end device the opportunity to own a tablet. There are tons of free and paid apps for the users content, 10 hours of battery is good to get you through the day and running OS 4.1 gets all the latest from Google and Android. The Quad core CPU should help power this device through spam and handle the users demands.

Con’s – 8/16 GB of storage is small and wont be able to handle lots of movies. The lack of a front facing camera means no peer device communication and the 1.2 MP front and 720p recording is a little weak in today’s market. The lack of flash means a user will experience mobile sites instead of regular one including some videos from youtube and more.

Lets check it them out!

4G LTE Playbook	Google Nexus 7
Operating System : Playbook OS 2.0	Operating System: Android 4.1 – Jelly Bean
Dimensions: 194 x 130 x 10 mm Weight: 425 g	Dimensions: 198.5 x 120 x 10.5 mm Weight: 340 g
Size: 600 x 1024 pixels, 7.0 inches (~170 ppi pixel density)	Size: 800 x 1280 pixels, 7.0 inches (~216 ppi pixel density)
Memory: 32 GB storage, 1 GB RAM	Memory: 8/16 GB storage, 1GB RAM
Camera: Primary: 5 MP, 2592×1944 pixels, auto focus Video: Yes, 1080p Secondary: Yes, 3 MP	Camera: Primary: 1.2 MP Features Video-calling Video Yes, 720p Secondary No
CPU: Dual-core 1.5 GHz	CPU: Quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A9
Tools: – Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic – Micro HDMI port – Document viewer/editor – BlackBerry Bridge – Media player MP3/WMA/AAC+ – Video player DivX/WMV/XviD/3gp – Organizer – Predictive text input – NFC	Tools: – Google Wallet – SNS integration – MP4/DivX/Xvid/H.264/H.263/WMV player – MP3/WAV/eAAC+/WMA player – Organizer – Image/video editor – Document viewer – Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration – Voice memo – Predictive text input (Swype)
Browser: HTML5, Adobe Flash	Browser: HTML
Price: 32 GB – $549.99 outright (Telus), $549.95 outright (Bell) and $349.99 on a year year plan (Rogers)	Price: 8GB – $199.99, 16GB – $249.99 (US)
Battery: 4800 battery or 8-9 hours	Battery: Standard battery, Li-Ion 4325 mAh or 10 hours