Above: Microsoft’s Surface Pro 7, which the company lists as a tablet PC running Windows 11.

Originally published in TTNewsday on December 17, 2021.

Choosing the right tablet computer is really a series of overlapping decisions that take you to different sectors of the computing market.
First consider the operating system running the device.

It’s possible to get tablet computers and even latops that fold over completely to give you a touchscreen interface, but apart from purpose-built devices like Microsoft’s Surface computer and design-alike products, the choices in a true tablet will be between devices running Android and those that run iOS, Apple’s iPads.

If there’s no compelling need for one or the other, such as a company requirement or parity with existing devices, your choice should be guided by the primary use of the device.

Google’s Android OS is more open to the user and functions more like a traditional desktop operating system than iOS, which is often insistently opaque in how it handles files internally.

Both operating systems have an app named Files for instance, but the Android version gives you a real window into where things are placed on your device.
Apple’s version is absurdly limited, only granting access to a few resources on an iPad.
But when it comes to software, particularly casual games and graphics programmes, the iPad is wildly overstocked.

Save for Microsoft Word, available on both platforms, the options for a good wordprocessor on Android, for instance, are appallingly limited.
The Google Play Store is also a bit of a frontier town for software, with multiple apps sporting similar names, buggy garbage apps alongside excellent code and an embarrassment of software that does little that’s useful at all.

That’s not to say that the occasional app that phones home or fails to impress doesn’t show up on the iOS store, it just normally doesn’t stick around for very long.
If your needs are basic, you will find perfectly adequate software for both platforms with little effort.
Chrome, Firefox and Edge are available on both Android and iOS as are staples like ePub readers and the Kindle App.

I’ve found that third-party video playback apps like VLC tend to behave better on Android, but their equivalents on iOS aren’t bad either.
Many are lured to consider Amazon’s Kindle as a tablet computer because of its very agreeable price.

While Kindles tend to be somewhat underspecified in terms of hardware, they are basic Android devices, though they run a flavour of the Google’s OS that’s heavily tailored to Amazon’s services and offerings.
Without some serious effort at installing code that has been very deliberately left out of them, Kindles won’t run any of Google’s apps or services.

The method is documented widely and constitutes minor hacking of the device, and those unsanctioned changes might conflict with future system updates.
For Kindle buffs, the Paper White editions of these devices are affordable ways to read, but trying to much more than that with them inevitably leads to frustration.
Tablet screen sizes are very much a lifestyle decision.

Small seven to eight inch devices are easy to carry around, and are more convenient to use for browsing and reading than a smartphone.
Tablets between nine and ten inches on the diagonal are the size range we tend to think of as being “tablets” roughly the size of a letter-sized sheet of paper. These are great general purpose tools for doing almost anything you might use a small laptop to do.

Larger tablets in the 11 to 12 inch range are almost like little laptops and should only on your wish list if the extra screen real-estate will deliver a significant benefit.
Digital artists who want a bigger canvas, writers who want more screen real-estate and business executives who newed to work with detailed documents like spreadsheets will find these devices, particularly when paired with a good Bluetooth keyboard, to be excellent mobile computing platforms.

As a happy bonus, these larger devices also tend to have more powerful processors and batteries.
The many versions of Android devices tends to work against brands that aren’t in the top tier of production when it comes to accessories.

You will find a great many protective cases, positioning stands, and style-matched keyboards for premium devices like Samsung tablets, Kindles and Apple’s iPads, so if those add-ons are important, it might be a best to stick to popular models which usually offer a good range of choices in accessories.

If style isn’t an issue, any Bluetooth equipped tablet can be paired with almost any Bluetooth keyboard, so there will often be an option available that works for your needs.

Recent Android tablets and iPads running current versions of their respective operating systems also support Bluetooth mice, so you can set up a tablet on a generic stand to work just like a laptop if you need that configuration occasionally.

Mix and match for impact

Tablets are rarely the only device a user will work with and there’s no reason not to use multiple platforms if you want best of breed devices in a smartphone, tablet and laptop or desktop computer.

Microsoft’s Office suite works on all major platforms and I’ve successfully run the apps on an Android smartphone, Apple iPad and Mac desktop computer system.
Many other software tools are being either developed or adapted to be platform agonstic as software begins to operate more like a service on multiple platforms user preference.

I like several no-cost or low-cost tools for working with multiple platforms without OS level barriers getting in the way.
Microsoft To Do (free, Android, iOS, Mac, Windows) allows you to create actionable lists that you can create, update, synchronise and reference on the device that’s closest to you.

Evernote (free, Android, iOS, Mac, Windows) is a note taking tool that I originally began using for text capture on Android. The free version allows you to keep two devices in sync. Microsoft’s One Note is also free also synchronises on multiple platforms, but isn’t quite as seamless or elegant.
Firefox, Chrome and Edge allow you to synchronise tabs using an account you establish in the browser.

Start reading something on one device and you can open the link on another device if you care to. I keep an unholy number of tabs open on the desktop, so being able to sift through them for reading when I’m stuck somewhere with a smartphone is useful.

Dropbox and Box allow you to keep files in synchronisation across a number of devices. Both come with basic, free allotments of online drive space. Google Drive and Sharepoint can do the same thing, but i’ve found them fussier to use.