Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 vs Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet vs Apple iPad Air:Winner is.........................

Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5                                                                                                                     It's the best screen I've seen on a tablet and the Retina iPads are the only ones that really come close. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S rocks a vividly colorful, razor-sharp screen and exclusive software perks in an ultra-thin and lightweight design. That fabulous display is backed up by plenty of grunt and a battery that ensures you can keep going for a day or two. There's a case to be made that 7-8 inches is the sweet spot for a small tablet, but at least the Tab S offers two choices to buyers. The Galaxy Tab 10.5 is fast. Not as fast as the top-end phones like the Snapdragon powered Galaxy S5 and OnePlus One, but still more than powerful enough. It scores 2,669 in the multi-core test in Geekbench 3, which puts it in the top 5%.

It suffers a little more in the graphics department. Here, more powerful phones and tablets like the Nvidia Shield Tablet have a noticeable advantage. This shows in a 13,500 score in the 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited test, which falls a long way short of the 20,000 or so of the top phones.

But most people won’t notice this difference in actual games. We couldn’t find any game on Android that didn’t run smoothly or look good. The middling graphics performance should only concern serious gamers.

But,The plastic backing and faux-chrome rim will certainly not be to everyone's tastes, but that aside this is a tablet with very few negatives. Starting at $500, it's a high-end purchase. Touchscreen response can lag if many of its memory-hogging apps are open in the background.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Ultimately it's a whisker away from being a 5-star tablet. I'd like to see small improvements in the camera, the hardware design and the way Android fits to larger screens, but other than that it's a tablet that Samsung can be very, very proud of. An exceptional screen and a long list of software goodies make the Galaxy Tab S Samsung's best tablet to date and our top Android choice for an entertainment slate.                                              Key Features: 10.5-inch, 2,560 x 1,600 AMOLED display; Exynos 5 Octa 5420; 3GB RAM; 16GB storage; 802.11ac Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.0; microSD up to 128GB; 7,900mAh battery; 465g

Manufacturer: Samsung                                                                                                                          Price:$500

 VS                                                                                                                                                           Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet                                                                                                                               Sony's previous Xperia Tablet Z was an incredibly slender piece of kit, measuring only 6.9mm thick, but the new model has managed to slice off even more, coming in at only 6.4mm. Its slimness is immediately noticeable when you pick the slate up as it feels like a thin pamphlet. At 426g it's very light as well, which should help make it comfortable to use for longer periods.Design-wise, not much has changed since the previous model. The front is a button-free, all glass design, while the back panel is a wide expanse of matte black plastic, with the minimal Sony branding in the middle. Like its predecessor, the Z2 Tablet is completely waterproof, allowing it to shrug off an errant spilled drink or let you dunk it in the sink to rinse off smeary fingerprint marks.The 10.1-inch display boasts a Full HD resolution, making it well equipped to tackle glossy, high definition shows on Netflix. It's not quite matching the iPad Air's whopping 2048x1536-pixel resolution, although side-by-side, I doubt you'd notice much difference.On the back of the tablet is an 8-megapixel camera which should be at least good enough for some Instagram shots of whatever you've cooked that evening.Stuffed into that skinny frame is a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, clocked at an impressive 2.3GHz, backed up by 3GB of RAM.                                                       Specifications

Display type10.1 in

RAM3 GB

ProcessorQualcomm Snapdragon 2.3 GHz

Dimensions (WxDxH)0.25 in

Weight15.03 oz                                                                                                                                           VS                                                                                                                                                             Apple iPad Air                                                                                                                                           The Air is a tangible upgrade over the previous, fourth-generation iPad, no longer in production and so banished to the annals of history. The new iPad slots right in where its predecessor left off, priced at $499 for a lowly 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB, and $799 for the maximum 128GB configuration. The iPad Air delivers more performance and comparable battery life in an attractive and impossibly thin-and-light package. An improved front-facing camera makes FaceTiming look better, and the Retina Display still looks great.

But, The Touch ID fingerprint scanner, introduced on the iPhone 5S, is sadly absent here, meaning you’ll still have to type in a passcode with every unlock and a password with every purchase. Starting at $499 for 16GB, it’s still expensive compared with the competition.                                                                           Performance:                                                                                                                                               The iPad Air shares the same processor with Apple’s flagship phone, albeit with a slight bump in clock speed. While the 5S runs at 1.3GHz the Air runs at 1.39GHz. It can achieve this because of the increased space and improved heat dissipation of the Air compared to the much smaller iPhone 5S.

Indeed, before we go into the detail about performance it’s worth noting that the iPad Air manages to keep its cool with consummate ease. Even when running intensive 3D games and apps for hours it barely breaks a sweat and, therefore, neither do your hands.

In practice, the iPad Air is blisteringly fast. Apps open instantly and games like Infinity Blade 3 look sumptuous and run smoothly. The benefits of having a SoC means that the GPU can be used to tackle compute tasks, which makes video editing and compute intensive apps, like AutoCAD, show no hint of slowdown.

The iPad Air performs 59% faster than the iPad 4 in the 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited CPU and GPU test and 91% faster in Geekbench 3 tests. The Peacekeeper browser test, which assesses web browsing performance, shows that the Air trounces its predecessor by being more than twice as fast. It's also faster than the stonking Snapdragon 800 processor on the likes of the Sony Xperia Z Ultra and Google Nexus 5. We're talking matter of degrees here, but the difference is there all the same.

Battery life:                                                                                                                                                   Battery life on the iPad Air is quoted at "Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music". We would say that's actually not a bad estimate, although the drain was closer to 2% every 10 minutes in general use, which equates to around nine hours' use.

Standby time is much, much better though. We found that we could stick the iPad Air in a bag, taking it out for the commute and messing about with on the sofa at home, for at least three days before it began to get low on battery.

In fact, the only real task that killed it was connecting to our amplifier via Wi-Fi while simultaneously streaming music to the same device through Bluetooth. It's doing things like this that make you realise that this is the kind of thing that we envisaged at the turn of the century, a tablet that has the brains and connectivity to do all the tasks we could want.In terms of connectivity, we've already mentioned the excellent Wi-Fi performance (in terms of distance from router, rather than improved speed) through the Multiple In, Multiple Out (MIMO) technology.

4G bands are now covered throughout the globe, and low power Bluetooth is also on board as well, making it an incredibly well-connected device.

The bottom line: Functionally, the iPad Air is nearly identical to last year’s model, offering only faster performance and better video chatting. But factor in design and aesthetics, and the iPad Air is on another planet. It’s the best full-size consumer tablet on the market.                                                                         Specifications

Release date11/1/13

Display type9.7 in

OSApple iOS

ProcessorApple

Wireless connectivityWi-Fi

Dimensions (WxDxH)6.6 in x 0.29 in x 9.4 in

Weight1 lbs                                                                                                                                               Price:$479.00