Samsung Galaxy Tab S vs Dell Venue 8 7000 vs Nexus 9:Winner is..............................

 Samsung Galaxy Tab S

Samsung has been pouring a lot of effort into making a really decent iPad rival, and that strategy has seen some hare-brained decisions (such as launching the Tab Pro in January 2014, and then replacing it a few months later with the Galaxy Tab S).

But, apart from annoying anyone that's already bought into the Tab Pro range, this strategy has finally yielded a brilliant tablet in the shape of this Super AMOLED-shod Tab S duo. Available in both 8.4- and 10.5-inch screen sizes, Samsung has taken the best of its OS and technology ability, fused them with the best display on a tablet and created something pretty special.                                                                               Performance

The Galaxy Tab S 8.4 is, generally speaking, very smooth and slick. The kinks and jerkiness we detected in the Tab Pro 8.4 are mostly absent, though the Tab S 8.4 doesn’t zip along quite as smoothly as the Snapdragon powered Galaxy S5.

The processor behind this is Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa (5420), which is in eight core chip with four ARM Cortex A15 CPUs clocked at 1.9GHz, and four lower-power ARM A7 cores at 1.3GHz. It’s right up there with the most powerful processors on any Android phone or tablet, scoring 904 in Geekbench’s single-core test, and 2,669 in the multi-core. Even accounting for Samsung’s reputation to boosting benchmarks with high performance modes, it’s clear this is a very powerful device — it’s only slightly slower than Galaxy S5, HTC One M8 and OnePlus One.

It’s a slightly less impressive performer in the graphics department, though it’s still more than powerful enough to run even demanding games smoothly. It scored 13,518 in the 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited test, whereas the latest phones are getting close to 20,000 these days. It’s only a few thousand points less than the iPad mini 2, though, and you’re unlikely to find any games that won’t work on it. As with most phones and tablets at present, the Tab S has more processing power than it really needs.

The battery life is great, the screen has to be seen to be believed (and is excellent for media and internet viewing, which is really the point of a tablet) and the price is on a par with the rest of the industry. Well done, Samsung.

$349.99                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           VS                                                                                                                                                           Dell Venue 8 7000                                                                                                                                   The Dell Venue 8 7000 is remarkably thin and lightweight with a comfortable feel. At just 6 mm it outclasses the Galaxy Tab S 8.4, Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact and iPad Air 2 which are 6.6-, 6.4- and 6.1 mm respectively. One thing is for sure, it feels extremely svelte and lightweight in the hand – although 310 g makes it a little heavier than its Samsung and Sony rivals. We also like the feel of the uni-body metal casing which covers most of the tablet. The Intel RealSense depth-sensing camera is an innovative feature and the preloaded Dell Gallery efficiently works as a central hub for photos. Dell's Venue 8 7000 tablet is the first device to feature Intel's RealSense Snapshot camera, which uses depth perception to let you refocus after a shot or measure objects you've photographed. However, this 8.4-inch slate has a lot more going for it than just a fancy camera, with its sleek, ultra-slim aluminum chassis, long battery life and the most colorful screen we've ever seen on a tablet. The screen is a rich, sharp 8.4-inch OLED, at 2,560 by 1,600 and 359ppi. That's the same size and resolution as the Galaxy Tab S 8.4. Most of the front of the tablet is a glass slab that runs up to the edges of the body, although there's a bezel for the screen under the glass. Below the screen, there's a half-inch "chin" with the front-facing camera and speaker on it. That's a very convenient way to hold the tablet when you're doing things like reading or watching videos. The Venue 8 7000 has all the latest network technologies: dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS, and NFC. The Dell Venue 8 7000 comes with Anroid 4.4 KitKat, and may be getting an Android 5.0 Lollipop update sooner rather than later. Battery life is great, at 8 hours, 5 minutes of Wi-Fi video streaming.  Dell Venue 8 7000 sports 16 GB of internal storage, 2 GB of RAM Its storage capacity expands up to 512GB via microSD card slot and it has a long-lasting battery.

but,Screen quality also does nothing to help pictures taken with the tablet look better, even with all of the sophisticated stereoscopic camera technology onboard.There's a learning curve to using the depth-sensing camera and the photo-editing software. The tablet can get hot during long periods of use.

THE BOTTOM LINE Dell's ultra-thin machined aluminum frame and its even thinner bezels on a fresh, nonsymmetrical design make this the best looking slate next to any iPad.With its powerful 3D camera and strong image editing features the Dell Venue 8 7000 makes the strongest case yet for tablet photography.       Price:$399                                                                                                                                               VS                                                                                                                                                           Nexus 9                                                                                                                                                     The Nexus 9 is a bit of a weird one - it's both the replacement for the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 10, without really being a sequel to either thanks to the all-new 8.9-inch screen.

For the eagle eyed among you, you may notice it's jumped up a place in our rankings. That's because it can now be picked up for around £210, making it super affordable. It'll likely be replaced in the next month when Google launches a new slate - but for now it's a steal.

It's mimicking the iPad range by going for a 4:3 screen ratio (which means wider viewing for web browsing, but annoying black bars above and below when watching movies) so you've got a wider device that's not quite able to be gripped in one hand.

But that doesn't mean it's not a great tablet, helped by the fact it's made by HTC. The brand has brought over its Boomsound speakers for greater front facing audio, and the screen is certainly high resolution too.     Weight: 425g | Dimensions: 228.2 x 153.7 x 8mm | OS: Android 5.0 | Screen size: 8.9-inch | Resolution: 1536 x 2048 | CPU: Dual-core 2.3 GHz | RAM: 2GB | Storage: 16/32GB | Battery: 6700 mAh | Rear camera: 8MP | Front camera: 1.6MP