Tabs to make you fab

The way smartphones have captured the imagination of Indian consumers is for everyone to see. Wherever you go, you will find someone glued to the gadget. Hence, the answer to whether tablets would be able to make their presence felt remained under a cloud. But to our surprise, they managed to do well. 2013 witnessed the arrival of several interesting devices in the Indian market. Google's Nexus 7, Asus Fonepad 7 managed to attract many. And that seems to have boosted the confidence of tablet makers to come out with more for the technology-hungry Indian consumers. Harsh Vardhan takes a look at this year's gizmos and what 2014 has in store in this segment

APPLE
So the iPad mini with Retina Display turned out to be a pretty sweet tablet. Of course, the new iPad Air also arrived. It boasts incremental but still significant improvements over the excellent 3rd and 4th generation iPad displays. What comes next? It's Apple we're talking about here, so who knows. Will we see a larger iPad refresh in February? Or perhaps the yearly cycle has now firmly moved to October.

ASUS

Asus introduced a wide range of tablets during the second half of 2013, including the Transformer Pad TF710T, its latest and fastest Android tablet. Running on a Tegra 4 processor with a quad-core Cortex-A15 CPU 1.9GHz with 2GB of RAM and a 2560 x 1600 pixel IGZO-TFT display, the Transformer Pad TF710T, the device boasts of a good battery life too. Also interesting is the new Transformer Book Trio, a dual processor device that stakes its claim to tablet, notebook, and desktop territory. The 11.6-inch device packs an Atom processor behind the glass to run Android 4.2.2 as a tablet with 64GB of flash storage.

Lets also not forget about the Asus 10.1-inch Transformer Book T100 and 11.6- and 13.3-inch Taichi convertibles, 6-inch Fonepad Note FHD and 7-inch Fonepad.

It is likely that we will see more tablets from Asus early in 2014. Our guess: a new PadFone mini tablet, 5-inch MeMoFone, and maybe something running ChromeOS

GOOGLE
Google has managed to dominate the 7-inch tablet market with the Asus Nexus 7 in 2013. It also has launched the 32GB 3G model. What's next? We are expecting the Nexus 10 to arrive in India within the first few months of 2014. It is currently the sole 10-inch tablet, which comes pre-loaded with Android 4.4 KitKat. It's also possible that we'll see a Google ChromeOS-based tablet.

SONY
The Xperia Tablet Z is Sony's current flagship slate tablet. The sleek aluminium-finished Sony Vaio Fit with a 'multi-flip' screen that switches between laptop and fold down tablet is also an interesting offering. The Fit has a third 'viewing mode' that flips the screen onto the back, Asus Taichi-style. If rumours are to be believed, we may get to see the arrival of Z2 with Android 4.4 KitKat in 2014.

SAMSUNG
Samsung isn't afraid to make big moves, with different form factors ranging right up to a rumoured 12.2-inch monster tablet. That one's just a rumour at this point.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 2013 edition was a sophisticated tablet targeted at high-end consumers. This 10.1-inch (FHD) tablet features an Octa-Core processor coupled with 3GB RAM. It is being said that the company has a lot of things to offer in the near future.

Samsung's 2014 tablet roadmap is becoming a bit clearer if rumours of new 'Pro' and 'Lite' models pan out. According to sources, four devices are on the slate for next year ranging from an 8.4-inch model all the way to a 12.2-inch Galaxy Note. Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4,

Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1, Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite. Also, the tech giant is working on introducing AMOLED screens to its 8- and 10-inch tablet lines.