Best Tablets for School

With Christmas season kicked off many consider giving computer to their kids. It is a generous gift that every kid loves and (lets face it) needs for school work.

Tablets are selling better than notebooks these days. In this last quarter for example there are 21.5 million tablets shipped, while only 14.6 million notebooks. So, let us look at some tablet alternatives that may suit your kid well and will not cost you an arm and a leg.

Nexus 10 offers a great bang for your buck. Google made this tablet in collaboration with Samsung. Released only couple of months ago, Nexus 10 is one of the best tablets around. It has a beautiful 10.1-inch Super PLS TFT capacitive display with 2560×1600 pixel resolution and 299 ppi pixel density, well protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 2. It is powered by dual-core 1.7 GHz Exynos 5250 processor with Mali-T604 graphics and 2 GB of RAM.

Connectivity options are Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP, NFC, microUSB. Rear facing 5 MP camera shoots with autofocus and has a LED flash. Front facing FaceTime camera is 1.9 MP. Storage options are 16, or 32 GB with no expansion via card. Li-Po 9000 mAh battery should give you 9 hours on a charge. Nexus 10 sports google’s latest Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS and sells for a very reasonable $399.

Read Nexus 10 detailed review.

Apple iPad 2

Tablet market is still dominated by Apple so let’s look at iPad 2nd generation. (Yes iPad 3 and 4 are awesome but costly and kids lose things!) 9.7‑inch LED Multi‑Touch IPS TFT scratch-resistant display has somewhat outdated 1024×768 pixel resolution and 132 ppi pixel density. iPad 2 is powered by a fast 1 GHz dual-core A5 processor with 512 MB of RAM and PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics. The operating system is iOS 4, but it is easily upgradable to Apple’s newest iOS 6. Battery lasts solid 9 hours. Storage starts at 16GB, but you can use iCloud service for expansion. Storage options are 32 GB and 64 GB. Cameras are outdated. Front cam is 0.3MP, rear one is 0.7MP, but records 720p video. Connectivity is via 802.11 a, b, g, n, or optional 3G through AT&T or Verizon. Apple places many native apps on their devices so software should not be an issue. For $399 iPad 2 is still a great deal.

ASUS Transformer TF101

ASUS Transformer TF101 can be bought for about $350 with optional keyboard. This is a great convertible tablet/netbook. It is a last year model, but it kicks some serious butt.

It has a 10.1-inch scratch-resistant LED-backlit IPS LCD display with 1280×800 pixel resolution and 149ppi pixel density. TF101 is powered by Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset clocked at 1GHz. For connectivity TF101 has Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP.

Storage options are 32GB or 64GB expandable via microSD (up to 32GB). There are two cameras on Transformer TF101. Rear facing primary camera is 5MP with autofocus. Front facing skyper is of 1.2MP. Battery will last 9 hours.

Read ASUS Transformer TF101 review.

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