If Apple has always dominated the tablet market, its competitors had worked hard to catch up with the apple giant. But with the 2020 revision, it retains its place as a world leader in the matter. Without revolutionizing things, it stands out by being the model with the most attractive quality / price ratio of the brand, thanks to its balance both in terms of performance and the possibilities offered by the OS to the Apple.

If you are looking for a compromise between performance and budget, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 is the perfect proposition. It is suitable for both homeowners (in Wi-Fi version) and nomads (in 4G version) and will delight both parents and children. It is designed for multimedia and is particularly effective in this use even if the screen calibration would have deserved more attention from the brand.

With his iPad Pro, Apple gives us the best tablet available today. It even walks on the flower beds of many laptops. Power, ergonomics and versatility are its key words. As a bonus, it is available in a Wi-Fi version or 4G, all in four storage levels. The version 12,9” also benefits from a Mini-LED panel allowing a contrast close to infinity and a blooming limit.

New mid-range reference from Samsung, the S5e is versatile and qualitative. It comes to take the place, until then unexploited, of true mid-range model in Korean. It aims to be the best versatility / price compromise among Android tablets. Despite its slight lack of performance, it is in our eyes an excellent alternative to the Apple ecosystem thanks to its significant advantages.

Samsung understood when designing this product that there is no point in changing a winning formula. The brand offers here the only truly high-end Android tablet. By equipping it with recognized components, it achieves almost faultlessness. All of this forms a qualitative whole, both in terms of hardware and software. It is dominated by Apple only because of its less efficient processor.

Honorable Mentions

Amazon Fire 7: The ultimate basic family tablet. For very small budgets, the Fire 7 is a solution. It is certainly not the most beautiful or the most efficient but, for its price, it has the merit of doing well what is asked of it. It is primarily intended for multimedia and is intended to be the ultimate family tablet. You can even equip it with a specially designed shell for kids. Released in 2020, the HD 8 offers a nice increase in performance but also at a higher price.

iPad Mini 5: A truly compact iPad. This version of the iPad combines a compact format (7.9 “Retina display) with high performance. Ergonomics and software optimization are in the spotlight, allowing the Mini 5 to compete with larger models thanks to its A12 Bionic chip. It is not in our selection because there is currently no real competitor for this product.

Microsoft Surface Pro 7: A hybrid tablet dedicated to productivity. Half-tablet, half-PC, it does not find its place in the current market. It has 8 GB of RAM and an Intel Core i5 ensuring good performance and exemplary fluidity (version i7, 16 Go RAM available). Power is sufficient for common tasks but too weak to match its competition for heavier tasks. Its screen is of good quality and its autonomy is high. It is more often considered an ultraportable than a tablet.

How To Choose The Best Tablet?

If the craze for touchscreen tablets was at its peak a few years ago, it is clear that, since 2016, it has been decreasing.

Suddenly, new releases are less and less common, but each of them brings its share of new features.

Here is a list of criteria to be observed before purchasing:

• Screen: since the tablet is mainly based on this component, it is essential that it be qualitative. A high resolution and a high-level display quality are to be favored in order to benefit from the sharpest possible rendering. As this type of device is intended for mobile use, the screen must guarantee good visibility outdoors by minimizing reflection from light sources and having good contrast and good brightness.
• Ergonomics: this type of terminal is larger than a smartphone. Particular care must therefore be taken in its ergonomics. Thus, the different models must be usable with one or two hands, in landscape or portrait format, while benefiting from good robustness. This criterion is generally determined by the materials used and the weight of the device. The placement of items such as physical buttons and speakers is also important, in order to provide the best possible experience.
• Versatility: the format of the tablets does not make them suitable for a specific function, so versatility is an important factor. Some use them for professional purposes, others for multimedia. Performance is determined by processor and RAM. They have an influence on the capacities of the device: the game is more greedy than the streaming.
• Autonomy: As with smartphones, a tablet should have a good battery capacity so that you don’t have to leave it plugged in all the time. Nomadic use obviously implies that this autonomy is as extensive as possible. This endurance is often influenced by the technology used by the screen and the software optimization (standby mode, processor management, etc.). In other words, just because your battery is bigger doesn’t automatically mean you will have better battery life.

There is also the question of the operating system since, at the present time, three of them coexist:

• iPadOS (Apple) : it is very intuitive and regularly updated. The application store is more suitable for tablet use and gives more productivity options than Android. Apple Addicts will find their happiness in our dedicated selection.
• Android (Google) : it is the most widespread system (we have also devoted a dedicated comparison to them). It offers a large number of applications and has the particularity of being fully customizable.
• Windows (Microsoft) : it has adapted the operating system intended for computers to touch tablets. This allows devices running under this OS to potentially run all the programs available on the computer.

NB: If you’re in the market for a new tablet, our review of the best tablet styluses might interest you.

Productivity enthusiasts can also turn to hybrid, half-PC, half-tablet solutions.