Your Tablet Choices - What's on the Shelves

With the Apple iPad recently making its official debut into the Indian market, things are heating up for the competition. It’s not dying down anytime soon and that’s a good thing. With more and more tablet devices making their way into the Indian market we’re getting spoilt for choice even in this segment. For those wondering what’s out there right now, here are your tablet choices –

Apple iPad
Wi-Fi + 3G:
16GB – Rs. 34,900
32GB – Rs. 39,900
64GB – Rs. 44,900
Wi-Fi:
16GB – Rs. 27,900
32GB – Rs. 32,900
64GB – Rs. 37,900

At one point of time, although the technology was still gathering steam at the time, the iPad, even with it’s flaws and initial ‘raw’ feedback it received from the community was considered the definitive tablet/mobile computing device. With the sudden explosion of Android powered devices, Apple’s device faces quite a bit of competition as newer tablets are being launched with interesting USPs and prices that could make or break the California based company. But Apple’s going nowhere and the iPad still remains a favorite amongst quite a few of today’s tablet consumers despite its shortcomings. The 3G version will require you to have a micro SIM for connectivity with a 3G plan.

Galaxy Tab – Rs. 29,000

The Galaxy Tab was supposed to be the iPad’s biggest competitor in 2010 offering quite a bit of functionality over the Apple’s offering. It was the first to make it out in the country with what was then Android’s very latest version of the OS i.e. version 2.2 aka Froyo. The device, like all Android based tablets that came before it was also equipped to be a fully functional mobile handset as well offering 3G connectivity, with Adobe Flash 10.1 support for browsing and all the goodies that Google OS has to offer including a 3MP camera and a secondary camera for video calling. The Tab can be used with a standard sized SIM and although available with 16GB of onboard storage, it allows for more memory via microSD cards.

Olive Pad - Rs. 23,990

The Olive Pad was an unlikely candidate to usurp the tablet throne from Apple’s iPad. Not that it did. It was however the first tablet device to officially make it to the Indian shelf. The Olive Pad came offering a simplistic design with stereo speakers, a 3MP AF camera (plus secondary VGA in front), external memory support and full mobile handset functionality for calls and text messages. The OlivePad is also available with Froyo out of the box. Olive is also shipping the Olive Pad with a customized user interface that offers quite a bit of unique functionality.