Thanks to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Android tablets let you browse the web, check emails and download apps. And now that Tesco’s Hudl recently entered the tablet market, the market for 7-inch Android tablets is more competitive than ever.
Google Nexus 7
Released in August 2013, the latest version of the Asus-manufactured device is one of the lightest tablets, weighing 290g. Operating on the Android 4.3, it features one of the best screens with a resolution of 1920×1200, while the 323 pixels per inch means its display is better than any tablet out there.
Power has also been beefed up with a quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor, while other features include a rear-facing camera and 10 hours of battery life.
You can also control access to certain apps and content and shoot videos up to 1080p resolution.
And if you care about having no microSD support but getting the full Google experience, perhaps the Nexus 7 is a good choice.
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Hudl
Best for affordability and weighing 370g, Tesco’s Hudl, which costs £119 or £60 of clubcard vouchers, has a 14400 x 900-pixel display for 238ppi and about nine hours of battery life.
Unlike Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD, the device comes with a dedicated "T" button in the bottom left hand corner that takes you to the retailer’s online stores, allowing users to download apps for Tesco’s blinkbox system including films, music and books and see their clubcard points.
Operating on the 4.2.2 version of Android, other features include a quad-core processor and 16GB of memory, which is expandable to 48GB using a microSD, and access to Google apps and the whole Android App store.
Kindle Fire HDX
The latest Kindle Fire HD tablet comes in 7- and 8.9-inch configurations and both are said to be three times faster (Snapdragon 800 Processor), lighter (395g) and thinner than previous versions.
The displays are said to be the most attractive, featuring more pixels than Google’s Nexus 7. The 7-inch model (303g) has a screen resolution of 1980 x 1200, giving a PPI of 330, while the 8.9-inch (374g) has a 339 PPI.
Other features include11 hours of battery life as well as 16GB of memory for the 7-inch and 32GB for the 8.9-inch.
It also comes with free cloud storage for all content bought from Amazon, something that the Hudl does not offer right now, while a standard homepage is replaced by a timeline showing you all the media you’ve accessed recently.
The price comes in at £119 for the 7-inch and £229 for the 8.9-inch.
Lenovo IdeaTab A3000
Running on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, the £150 A3000 is as good as you can expect in the low budget tablet market, coming with a 7-inch 1024×600 pixel IPS screen and a 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek processor.
Best for business use, the device comes with a pair of sim slots, which is useful for employees travelling on the road or to different countries.
The 16GB memory can also be expanded up to 64GB via a micro-SD card, but it only has seven hours of battery life, while the 5MP camera is not as strong as its competitors.
Another useful feature is that it comes with a built-in stylus as well as a USB port, allowing users to attach and power-up flash drives and keyboards through the micro-USB slot.
Xperia Tablet Z
Sony’s latest flagship £399 tablet, which is the thinnest in the tablet market at just 6.9mm thick, is another one to watch out for.
More expensive than the others, it sports a full HD display – 1200 x 1920 pixels spread over its 10.1-inch screen and is dustproof, shockproof and you can use it under water to a depth of one metre for 30 minutes.
The other big draw is a battery of approximately eight hours and 8-megapixel camera, which comes with a new lens, a bigger image sensor taken from Sony’s camera-making division, and a new image processing engine.
It has also been complimented for its lightness at 495g and more naturalistic colours and is supposed to be a lot faster thanks to its 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU.
