Buyer's Guide: The Best Touchscreen Tablets

As a relatively new type of product with such loosely defined uses, it's hard to pick one tablet as the best of the bunch. When choosing a model, think about how you plan to using your tablet and what factors are most important to you. Here are a few things to look out for:

- Screen: this is a very important feature of any tablet. To avoid disappointment, look for models that use PVA, IPS or custom IPS screens. These screens ensures decent contrast levels and nice, wide viewing angles.

- Design and handling: most tablets weigh at least 550 g, which means they're not exactly ultra-light. If you can, try a tablet out in a high-street store before you buy to get a feel of how comfortable it is to hold, how heavy it feels and whether the weight is evenly balanced. Tablets also vary in size from 7" to 10.1" so some models are clearly more portable than others.

- Battery life: some manufacturers load their tablets with what's basically a big smartphone battery—fail! The best tablets can hold out for up to nine hours' use but anything above six hours is decent. Note that connection to a 3G network will run the battery down more quickly.

- Connectivity: Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi/3G? Basically, you're more likely to use a biggish tablet in a place where there's Wi-Fi (at home, in a café etc.) so you could probably live without 3G. Plus, tablets with 3G are usually more expensive than Wi-Fi-only models. However, 3G can be a real advantage in a compact, more portable tablet, but make sure you weigh up the price and battery life too.

- Other: all tablets now have a photo and video camera, but we still can't really see the point of this feature. A front-facing webcam clearly has its uses, but who's going to go snapping photos or filming movies with a tablet? We therefore don't think you should place too much importance on the quality of the camera when making your choice.

With these factors in mind, here's our pick of the best tablets out there right now.

Editor's Choice

Asus has followed up the EeePad Transformer with a second version that's even more impressive than the original. The EeePad Transformer Prime is a powerful, versatile and seriously attractive product. With the optional keyboard dock and a new set of slimline dimensions (8.3 mm for the tablet), this all-aluminium hybrid tablet turned luxury netbook is out to impress.

The 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen uses a new kind of IPS technology called IPS+, ensuring unprecedented contrast levels and boosting brightness to over 600 cd/m², which makes it easier to read outdoors. The tablet runs on Nvidia's flagship Tegra 3 processor, a 1.5 GHz quad-core CPU with an extra 500 MHz 'companion core' to take care of basic tasks.

From office computing and web browsing to 3D games (that can be displayed on a compatible 3D TV via the HDMI 1.4 output!) and basic photo editing (thanks to SD/SDHC card slot on the keyboard dock), the Transformer Prime is a tablet that can handle pretty much anything you throw at it (within reason, of course). Plus, with over 16 hours' battery life, you really can't go wrong!

Two Alternatives

Best of the Rest

Here are a few more of our favourites.