ipad mini • Tags •

Best of 2012: Tablet of the Year

Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) picks the best tablet computers of 2012.

The best tablet on the market is not always the best value for money on the market.

While most major technology manufacturers make tablets, not all are able to bring them to market at prices that makes sense. As a result, no-name brands compete alongside the biggest names in the business. They can’t match the quality of the big guys, but their prices are often unbeatable.

The choice for the best tablets of the year takes both of these factors into account.

The tablet ranking is divided into 10” devices or thereabouts, those with screens smaller than 9”, and then the overall choice of Tablet of the Year.

Apple and Microsoft reveal their new strategic thinking

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) Last Thursday, the world changed – once again.

Microsoft’s launch of Windows 8 was the obvious, expected and long-planned main event. Not quite as expected or planned, Microsoft’s nemesis, Apple, announced its first disappointing financial results in many years.

The irony of this turning of the tables was that, just two days earlier, Apple had made its own biggest product announcement in its history. It had launched the new iPad mini 7.9” tablet, along with a fourth generation iPad, and new versions of its iconic iMac computer, MacBook Pro laptop and Mac mini computer.

Such an extensive upgrade of its range, the launch of a new format and the arrival of the iPad 4 barely six months after the previous version, represented a show of force by Apple. Coming – not coincidentally – two days before the launch of Windows 8, it sent a message that Apple was able to go large any time it wanted, and that it had not lost its touch for producing deeply desirable products.

At the same time, however, it revealed chinks in its armour. Crucially, the new 7.9” iPad mini represented the first major new product from Apple in more than a decade that did not lead the market. It was a response to the massive inroads made into its tablet market share by 7” tablets, in particular Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

Weekly Top 10: Fastest rising search terms from South Africans on Google

With the help of Google Trends we are publishing the top 10 searched for phrases (minus the sexy stuff of course) by South Africans on Google over the previous seven days.

Last week saw the release of the iPad Mini as well as Windows 8. Guess which brand caught more shine amongst South Africans!

Last of brands making the listing of fast rising searches last week including Gumtree, PSL, ABSA, BA, Dischem, Incredible Connection (thanks to the iPad Mini?), Mango and Netbank (Nedbank?).