iPad Vs. Android tablet

I've been keeping an eye on tablets ever since my wife got an iPad last December. Sure, there's the venerable iPad; it's selling like crazy and legitimized a whole new product category. But I've really been rooting for an Android tablet to compete with it. The Galaxy Tab was an interesting size, but sort of a joke since it's just a slightly larger screen version of the phone I already have.

The Xoom and G-Slate sound great on paper since they equal or beat iPad on most all the specs. But I went and tried them, and came away unimpressed. While Honeycomb (the tablet-optimized version of Android) looks promising, there's almost no (non-Google) apps optimized for it yet. It feels very much like when Android 1.5 was only available on a G1 and trying to compete with the iPhone. But Android's main selling point has historically been that it was available on carriers other than AT&T. With most tablets sold being WiFi only, the carrier is largely irrelevant. I know there's no way I'm going to pay for a second data subscription when my phone (MyTouch 4G on T-Mobile) works really well as a wireless hotspot for free.

Another trend I've seen is that apps and games tend to hit iOS first, then Android later if there's enough demand. This is even more prevalent in the tablet space since iPad has such a head start. I think it has more than 70% of the market share at last count. I've played and enjoyed several great iPad apps while I've been waiting for anything compelling to come to Honeycomb.

A weird side effect of Apple's head start in market share is what it does for component prices. Since most tablets sold are iPads, they get better deals from component manufacturers, and can sell the device for a lower price. The Xoom was famously lampooned for being more expensive than a comparable iPad. While upcoming tablets from Samsung and others will soon fix this, as I write this, the iPad is sort of the "bargain tablet." If you can say that about a $500 toy that you probably don't need.

Finally, I've been able to compare Apple and Android WiFi implementations in a lot of different devices. In short, iOS devices do a much better job of finding and connecting to networks quickly and reliably. I'm actually surprised you don't hear more about this in the media. I doubt I'm the only one seeing this.

So you can probably tell where all of this is leading, but in the next day or two a new iPad arrives at my door. Actually, I'm taking over my wife's old one and she'll take the new one because I'm cheap and don't care about cameras. I may write another post about why I decided to get a tablet instead of a laptop, but it mainly comes down to portability, battery life, and instant-on. Also, I realized the only thing I need out of my laptop is to be an internet machine in my living room, not to run any specific software or games.