5 best tablet PCs for business needs
Tablets have existed for a pretty long time before the iPad changed the stale landscape and made them into slim, fast and fashionable devices that everyone can use. Today’s tablets are a lot different than their ancestors, and they haven’t really been suited for business use, mainly because of their operating systems – Android and iOS haven’t really been known for their security and corporate-oriented features.
That is, until the latest versions hit the market. Right now, Android Ice Cream Sandwich and iOS 5.1 have full device encryption, which is the number one pre-requisite for any business and corporate devices, and with the thousands of apps on their markets and remarkable expandability and flexibility of both platforms, it’s easy to see how they could be used for any kind of business purposes. With that in mind, here are just a few tablets that you should take into consideration if you want to use them in your business and are looking for the best models:
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet
The ThinkPad Tablet was one of the most awaited slates, and it didn’t disappoint when it finally came out. The tablet has everything a business user might need, including on-device encryption, a pressure sensitive pen-input digitizer, an IPS display with a 1280×800 pixels resolution, the Nvidia Tegra 2 processor (which is still among the most high performance platforms on the world), two cameras, up to 64 GB of storage space, a full-sized SD card slot and USB port, HDMI out and more.
Dell Latitude ST
The Latitude ST is an Intel Atom-powered tablet that offers pretty much everything you’d ever need for business use, thanks to Microsoft’s Windows OS and the many business oriented apps available for it. The tablet has the Atom Z670 processor, 2 GB of RAM, a 10.1 inch touch screen with pen input support, a 128 GB SSD, two cameras, Wifi N, GPS and HSPA+ – pretty much everything a good tablet should have.
Toshiba Thrive
The Toshiba Thrive 10.1 inch tablet is the perfect choice for the price-conscious business user. The tablet offers a very practical set of features, including a full-sized SD card slot, full sized USB and HDMI out ports, two cameras, a dual core processor, Android Ice Cream Sandwich, GPS, 4G modem, a user-replaceable battery and more.
Asus Transformer Prime
The Asus Transformer Prime is one of the most popular Android tablets on the market, and it’s easy to see why: the device has everything one might need, including an attractive design with a metal housing, a nice 10.1 inch IPS display, dual core processor (there’s also the TF201 with a quad core Tegra 3 if you need more performance), and of course, the keyboard dock, which turns the tablet into a full-fledged netbook, while extending the battery life and adding more expansion options. The Transformer Prime is great for consumers, as well as business users.
Apple iPad
The Apple iPad needs to be included simply because it’s a great overall tablet and it’s actually one of the first devices to be used by business users for work while traveling or in the office. With over 500,000 apps on the market, you can do pretty much everything you want on this device, and it has enough performance to satisfy anyone, video out capability, 3G modem, GPS, a lot of third party accessories including nice keyboard docks and more – pretty much the only think lacking is a good on-device encryption, but that will be added through a software update soon.
There are plenty of other devices on the market that can easily fulfill the needs of even the most demanding business people, but I believe the above five-o to be the best when it comes to a combination of features, performance, reliability and price. Be sure to give them a try before deciding which tablet to go with!
