Tablets aren’t quite a commodity yet, but there are sure a lot of them on the market, from the sub-$100 generic Android devices to the high end Microsoft Surface Pro and Apple iPad.
When AT&T sent us one of the new HD Trek Android tablets that they’re offering, we were curious to have a closer look…
As with notebook computers, the primary difference between tablets in the current market isn’t really technical specs as much as it is the operating system itself. Much of what we do nowadays takes place online anyway, so as long as the device has a good Web browser and connectivity options, it seems not that important what OS you’re running. Well, to be fair, there are probably a dozen or two must-have applications too, including Facebook, Netflix, Kindle and a sprinkling of favorite games (for me, Cribbage and Bejeweled top the list), but they’re all available on the major platforms anyway.
AT&T sent along the new HD Trek, along with a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 and we pulled an iPad Mini out of the storage cellar too. Three 8″ tablets at three very different price points. How do they compare? Let’s have a look!
Top to bottom, that’s the iPad Mini (with a Nuvango sticker on the back), the AT&T HD Trek and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 resplendent in its white case. As you can see, the Mini is just a few mm shorter, but looked straight on, it’s also a bit wider:
You can really see the sticker in this shot. We’re huge fans of the Nuvango stickers for our gear, by the way!
Notice how similar the Samsung and HD Trek tablets are in terms of camera placement. By comparison, the iPad has a much more modest camera on the very top left of the back plate.
All three tablets have a similar shortcoming: they’re all highly sensitive to glare, as is, um, glaringly obvious in our reflectivity test:
All three have bright, vivid screens, though the HD Trek and Tab 4 both run at 1280×800 with 16 million colors on their 8.0-inch screens, while the iPad Mini features the Apple “retina” display at 2048-by-1536 resolution on its slightly smaller 7.9-inch screen. Is the difference noticeable? Not really. Sure the text might be a smidge crisper, but for everyday use the resolution of the Android tablets is more than sufficient for sharp, vivid movies, photos and text.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 features support for a user-inserted MicroSD card, along with a SIM to offer cellular connectivity through your carrier (separate charge, wifi-only models available, yadda yadda), as shown:
The AT&T HD Trek has similar functionality, though its slots are rather weirdly located on the back rather than the edge of the unit:
And the Apple iPad Mini? Well, if you have the cellular unit, it has a SIM slot, but that’s it. Apple’s not big on offering users the ability to slip their own memory cards into units, whether tablets or smartphones. That’s a +1 for the Android crowd, for sure.
Where there’s the most variation between the three tablets is the control at the bottom of the front face:
In this case, the iPad Mini is on top, the HD Trek is in the middle, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 is the one with a big button and two labeled pressure areas (really, invisible buttons) in addition.
In practice, I think that whichever one you use becomes natural for you quite quickly. I like having the button on the front personally, but I spend a lot of time with Samsung and Apple products too.
So what’s different about them? The operating system. Some design nuances. But all in all, they really are quite similar products and if you have a small number of apps you use, it might surprise you how easily you could switch between them and remain quite productive.
And so, finally, the real difference might just be price, and that’s where AT&T has a couple of neat tricks up its proverbial sleeve as I write this…
The AT&T HD Trek is $199, or $49.99/mo on a 2-year contract or $10/mo on an installment plan perfect for students. If you’re ready to jump into the Samsung camp, however, there’s an even better deal: Get a Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Active, S6 Edge + or Note 5 and AT&T will throw in the Galaxy Tab 4.0 8.0 free (well, free with a 2-year commitment). That’s hard to beat! (don’t want to switch smartphones? Then the Tab 4.0 will run you $299 without a contract or $15/mo for 20 months). Finally, the latest generation iPad Mini from AT&T runs $26.50/mo for 20 months or $529 with no commitment.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. As stated above, AT&T sent both the HD Trek and the Galaxy Tab 4 along for our testing and evaluation (the iPad Mini was already in-house). This post was written with the cooperation of AT&T Wireless, but we are responsible for the analysis and commentary, as always.