Toshiba AT100

The Toshiba AT100 (sold as the Toshiba Thrive in the US) is the latest Tegra 2 Android tablet to come from one of the world's big tech companies. In the world of iOS and Android tablets, it's often not a question of having all of the best features.

Sometimes, having a few unique and well-targeted offerings can help you carve out a niche. That's especially true of the Toshiba AT100. While it seems like yet another Android 3.1 tablet that might suffer the same fate as the ill-conceived HP TouchPad – which has now been discontinued – the AT100 does offer some appeal for more advanced, technically-minded users after customisation options and high benchmark scores. Both the HP TouchPad and the Toshiba AT100 are a bit bulky and heavy. Yet, the AT100 differentiates itself from the Apple iPad 2. 

 It has full-size ports for HDMI, USB and SD cards – no adapters required, and no "micro" anything. The rear camera snaps photos at 5MP. The rear cover snaps off – there are optional back covers available in five colours – so you can gain access to remove the battery. Most importantly, enterprising individuals who snap the back cover off will find there are actual screws you can remove and... well, let's just say the Toshiba AT100 is friendlier to potential customisation.

Weighing 725g, the Toshiba AT100 is a bulky monster. That's 160g heavier than the lightest of the light Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Some users might appreciate the heft though, and the back cover has a snake-skin pattern that's easy to grip. You can imagine pulling out the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, at 8.6mm thick, and seeing everyone squint to see it in profile. The Toshiba AT100 is big and bold at 15.7mm – a hair thinner than the Apple MacBook Air.

The Toshiba AT100's 10.1-inch screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio at 1280 x 800 pixels resolution. Toshiba touts its Resolution+ technology, designed to make videos snap. Yet, the screen is not nearly as bright or colourful as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and looks a bit washed out compared to the iPad 2. The Toshiba AT100 8GB version costs $400 in the US, which is the same as the Asus Eee Pad Transformer. We tested the 16GB version of the tablet, which costs $430. Toshiba hasn't yet announced a UK launch price, though the UK release date is 1 September 2011.

LG Optimus Pad

The LG Optimus Pad has been a long time coming. After months of persistent rumours, LG finally announced its 3D tablet at MWC in February. Rebadged as the T-Mobile G-Slate in the US, it was long rumoured that the Optimus Pad would pair 3D video capture with a glasses-free 3D display like the one on the Nintendo 3DS and LG's own forthcoming Optimus 3D handset.

However, that turned out not to be the case. What we have here is a Tegra 2-powered Android 3.0 honeycomb tablet with dual 5MP rear-firing cameras for 3D video capture. The display is not 3D compatible in any way – it's a standard 8.9-inch LCD capacitive touchscreen with a 15:9 aspect ratio and 1280 x 768 WXGA resolution. On-board memory is provided by 1GB of RAM, while our test unit came with 32GB internal flash storage.

The price

For a long time we didn't know how much this tablet was going to cost, but it's just gone on sale in Carphone Warehouse for a scarcely believable £749.99. Yes you read that right. No, you're not imagining it - sit down before you hurt yourself. At this price, this tablet will need to deliver the moon and more to be worth recommending. So, does it have the chops? Let's find out.

Look and feel

It's a fairly generic-looking device and feels so in the hand - it definitely lacks the wow factor of some of the other tablets we've seen of late. It weighs 630g and is substantially thicker than the likes of the Apple iPad 2 – so in general it doesn't have the same premium feel of Apple's tablet or the Motorola Xoom. It feels plasticky rather than solid.

However, LG has made a big song and dance in its press materials about how pleasurable the Optimus Pad is to hold in one hand – and in many ways it is. This is an 8.9-inch tablet which means it sits between the 7-inch tablets like the BlackBerry Playbook and the 9.7-inch iPad 2. The idea is that this size gives the best of both worlds, balancing a nice, portable size with a screen big enough to watch movies on.

 The bezel on the left and right sides are wider than at the top and bottom, making holding it in one hand while you use the other to operate the device quite a comfortable experience. It's fairly heavy, though, at 630g, so holding one-handed is going to get quite tiresome after a while - the much larger iPad 2 only weighs 600g, remember.

 As is the norm with Android 3.0 tablets, the LG Optimus Pad has very few physical buttons. The on/off/standby button is located on the left hand side at the top, on the same side as the small charging port. The volume dials are located just around the corner from the on/off button on the top of the device. Then the other physical features of note are the USB and HDMI connections on the bottom and the slender speakers on each side.

The 2MP front-facing camera is located in the top left-hand corner of the device, which makes it good for both landscape and portrait video conferencing, while the twin 5MP snappers on the back of the device sit front and centre next to an LED flash.There's also a slide-off hatch on the rear of the device that allows you access to the SIM port. The Optimus Pad uses a standard SIM card for 3G access, so a micro-SIM is no good here.

There's no sign of an external storage port under this hatch, though, sadly. It's something that does cause us a bit of irritation – and even though Android 3.0 is currently unable to recognise external storage ports, forthcoming updates will enable this feature so it's disappointing that so many manufacturers have chosen not to include one.

BlackBerry PlayBook

With a name that sounds like something you'd use at a sporting event, the BlackBerry PlayBook is the latest – and most unique – Apple iPad 2 challenger. Running a new OS called QNX, with quirky features like bridging to a BlackBerry phone for secure email and an oddly confusing initial setup, the PlayBook is a stark departure from the more iPad-like Motorola Xoom. 

Business-minded features such as built-in viewers for spreadsheets and word processing files are welcome, and the PlayBook gets extra credit for being fast and nimble on a dual-core 1GHz processor. Throw in a 3MP front-facing camera, a 5MP rear-facing one, a bright and crisp 1200x600 resolution screen, a light 425g body and all the typical gyro, accelerometer and GPS sensors and you have the makings for a powerful 7-inch tablet.

As we discovered in our first hands on test, the PlayBook is sorely lacking third-party apps, but does show promise.  The powerful multi-tasking, where you can run a video in one window and play a game in another with both apps running concurrently, is a first of its kind for a mainstream tab. File storage capabilities, support for an HDMI connection for playing 1080p video and a slick interface make the PlayBook an interesting anomaly. Unfortunately, the overall experience can't compete with either the iPad 2 or the Xoom, and even falters compared to the original Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Yet, we're still hopeful that Research in Motion (RIM) will keep working with developers (it gave them free PlayBooks if they created an app) and boost the device out of niche territory.

At $500 (£300) for the 16GB model we tested (there are also 32GB and 64GB versions available), the PlayBook is the same price as the entry-level 16GB Apple iPad 2.