Slate Showdown: iPad Vs HP Slate Vs JooJoo Vs Android

By Dan Nosowitz

Everybody’s talking about tablets, especially those single-pane capacitive touchscreen ones more specifically known as “slates”. The iPad is the biggest news maker, we posted The iPad on the Future, but there are lots headed our way (most with built-in webcams).

Here’s how they measure up, spec-wise:

As you can see, they have different strengths and weaknesses, some of which will become more clear in the coming months as we learn more about each tablet. (That Dell Mini 5 is especially inscrutable right now.)

The iPad has the most storage, cheap 3G, the time-tested iPhone OS and its mountain of apps, and a serious amount of Apple marketing juice behind it. But it’s also

famously lacking features common to the other tablets, such as webcam and multitasking. The Notion Ink Adam is perhaps the most interesting of the bunch, with its dual-function transflective screen from Pixel Qi: It can be either a normal LCD or, with the flick of a switch, an easy-on-the-eyes reflective LCD that resembles e-ink. Its hardware is also surprisingly impressive – but it remains to be seen if Android is really the right OS for a 10-inch tablet.

The Dell Mini 5 and forthcoming Android edition of the Archos 7 tablet are two of a kind, almost oversized smartphones in their feature sets. Is an extra two or three inches of screen real estate worth the consequent decrease in pocketability? Perhaps not. And finally, there’s the maligned JooJoo, formerly the CrunchPad, a bit of an oddball as the only web-only device in the bunch. It doesn’t really have apps, can’t multitask, and pretty much confines you to an albeit fancy browser, sort of like Chrome OS will. The JooJoo is also the only tablet here to have no demonstrated way to read ebooks.

Apple's NEW I-PAD - YES! I-PAD

The best way to experience the web, e-mail, photos and video, Hands Down! All of the built-in apps on iPad were designed from the ground up to take advantage of the large, Multi-Touch screen. And they’ll work in any orientation. So you can do things with these apps you can’t do on any other device.


Ryan Anson/AFP/Getty Images
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs announces the new iPad as he speaks during an Apple Special Event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts January 27, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif.

Everything you know about computers just changed.

With its introduction of the iPad, Apple is likely to transform the way you do everything from read the newspaper to prepare business presentations. You might not experience these changes this year or next, but several years from now, you will likely look back on your current computer, even if it’s a brand-new model — yes, even one from Apple — as an archaic system that was clunky and frustrating to use.

The reason for this can be summed up in one word: touch.

The iPad is controlled with a 9.7-inch, touch-sensitive screen, and it heralds a transition from using a mouse and a keyboard for typical computing tasks to touching, tapping and gliding your fingers on a silky glass screen. Anyone who owns an iPhone or iPod touch, Apple’s other devices with a so-called "multitouch interface," knows how wonderfully intuitive and intimate the experience can be, especially when compared to a hulking desktop machine.

The iPad signals the moment when computers changed from being bulky products tethered to desktops and power cords to thin, portable devices you can carry in one hand and slip into a backpack. In Store APRIL 2010 for about $499

To read the entire story, go to: Apple's new I-pad