Asus Transformer Pad 300: Biggest Competitors

Asus is set to begin shipping its new tablet - the Transformer Pad 300 - on 22 April. The gadget was unveiled at Mobile World Congress (MWC) and after the release of Apple's new iPad is set to be the biggest tablet launch of 2012.

The Asus Transformer Pad 300 will have a 10.1in LED backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen and a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. It features ten-finger multitouch functionality and includes Corning Gorilla Glass which protects the screen from daily wear and tear.

It is powered by the Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset, featuring a 1.2GHz quad-core CPU and GeForce 12-core GPU. The Nvidia Tegra 3 features the unique 4-Plus-1 architecture with the fifth companion core handling less intensive operations to help improve battery life.

The new Asus tablet will run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) which features a new lock screen action, enhanced text input and spell checking, multitasking and resizable widgets. It features an eight-megapixel rear-facing camera which offers Full HD video recording, and is joined by a front-facing camera of 1.2 megapixels.

In terms of connectivity, it includes Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with Wi-Fi hotspot and Bluetooth 3.0 featuring A2DP and EDR wireless technology. The tablet provides 16GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot which supports up to 32GB. It's battery promises up to 10 hours of use on a single charge.

But does the Asus Tranformer Pad 300 have enough firepower to compete with the other devices in the tablet market? Let's find out:

Apple's New iPad

The new iPad, which is the main competitor for any tablet manufacturer at the moment, comes with a LED-backlit IPS TFT capacitive touchscreen with a huge resolution of 2,048 x 1,536 pixels. The 9.7in tablet includes a scratch-resistant glass front with an oleophobic coating. It is powered by a 1GHz Cortex-A9 dual-core CPU which is joined on the A5X chipset by the PowerVR SGX543MP4 GPU.

The tablet runs comes now with the latest verison of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 5.1 which adds a number of features including the ability to delete individual photos from Photo Stream, better audio quality, facial recognition, improved podcast controls as well as addressing some known bugs.

The new iPad features a 5 megapixel camera and a secondary VGA front-facing camera for video calling. It also lets you capture Full HD 1080p video with additional video stabilisation.

The tablet supports internal storage options of 16/32/64GB all coming with 1GB RAM. It features Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n with Wi-Fi hotspot as well as Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP technology. It's huge 11,560mAh battery promises standby time of up to 720 hours and regular usage of up to nine hours.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1

The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 unsurprisingly features a 10.1in PLS TFT capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. It uses a Corning Gorilla Glass screen and the device is powered by a 1GHz Cortex-A9 dual-core CPU combined with a PowerVR SGX540 GPU. The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 runs Android 4.0.3 which has been skinned with the TouchWiz UI.

It has a 3.15 megapixel rear-facing camera as well as a secondary VGA camera for video calling. It features Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n with support for Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi hotspot. The Samsung tablet offers support for Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP.

The tablet includes internal storage options of 8/16/32GB all paired with 1GB RAM and has a microSD card, expandable up to 32GB. It features a 7000mAh battery.

Lenovo IdeaPad S2

Another competitor to Asus Tranformer Pad 300,the Lenovo IdeaPad S2 comes with an LED-backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. The 10in tablet is powered by a 1.5GHz Krait dual-core CPU, Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon chipset and Adreno 225 GPU. It runs Android 4.0.

The tablet has a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera and a secondary VGA camera. It includes internal storage options of 32/64GB with 1GB RAM. The Lenovo IdeaPad S2 includes Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with Wi-Fi Hotspot support as well as Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR wireless technology. It uses a 1350mAh battery which promises a battery life of up to nine hours.

Asus Padfone

The Asus Padfone is a unique devices which features a combination of a smartphone and a 10.1in tablet. The smartphone part has a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels. The 4.3inch device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset featuring a 1.5GHz Krait dual-core CPU and Adreno 225 GPU. It runs Android 4.0.

The Padfone has an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera as well as a secondary VGA camera. It includes a 16/32GB internal storage options and 1GB RAM. In addition, it has a microSD card supporting up to 32GB of extra storage. It features Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n with Wi-Fi hotspot as well as Bluetooth A2DP wireless connectivity.

The Asus Padfone uses a 1520mAh battery which promises a standby time of up to 440 hours and talk time of up to eight hours 30 minutes on 3G networks.

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