Apple iPad 3, Motorola Xoom 2, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and Asus Transformer Pad Infinity: Who Has the Upper Hand?

The much speculated and highly anticipated third generation iPad from Apple has finally been announced by the company. Though it has been considered as a revolutionary device, it still has to face a tough competition from the other big guns in the arena.

Three tablets - Motorola Xoom 2, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and Asus Transformer Pad Infinity - still hold a threat for the new Apple-made device.

Let's see who stands where in the race.

Operating System: The new iPad has arrived with a modification of Apple's iOS 5.1 and is also available for older iOS models. The Galaxy Note 10.1 and Transformer Pad Infinity both, on the other hand, are powered by Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich. The Xoom 2 was launched with Android 3.2 by Motorola. However, the Xoom 2 is expected to receive an Android 4.0 update in due course later this year.

Display: The new iPad sports an amazing 2048 x 1536 resolution 9.7-inch IPS LCD display that boasts 264 pixels per inch, and the pixels themselves are indistinguishable, similar to that of an iPhone 4 and 4S. Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, in comparison, comes with a 10.1-inch 1900 x 1200 pixel display. However, both are capacitive, just like the Xoom 2. The Motorola tablet and the Galaxy Note, nonetheless, still have HD displays at 1280 x 800. In conclusion, all three non-Apple tabs have 10.1-inch displays. Apple stands a clear winner in this area.

Processor: The new iPad from Apple sports an Apple A5X chipset with a dual core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 processor with PowerVR SGX543MP4 GPU, compared to iPad 2's A5 chipset and a dual-core chip based on the new ARM Cortex-A9 design, clocked at 1 GHz. All the tablets that have been mentioned here are dual-core rather than quad-core. Galaxy Note 10.1's chip is clocked at 1.4 GHz, while the Xoom 2's TI OMAP 4430 is 1.2GHz. Transformer Pad Infinity employs the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, clocked at 1.5GHz. The closest competitor Apple has in this area is the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 that has been employed by Asus for their tablet. But the new A5X is still expected to be advanced when compared to most of the tablets in the market at the moment.

Camera Specs: The new iPad has a 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus rear facing iSight camera with Touch focus, geo-tagging, HDR, face detection, and video recording at 1080p at 30fps with video stabilization. The device also has a front-facing VGA camera compared to the Xoom 2's 1.3 megapixels, and the 2 megapixel cams on the other tabs. Motorola Xoom 2 also matches the 5 megapixel resolution, but can only shoot 720p. Galaxy Note, on the other hand, features a 3MP camera, but can still take 1080p video. The Asus-made tablet, however, stands apart from everyone else with an 8MP camera that can also record at full HD.

Graphics: The A5X chipset from Apple has brought about better graphics capability with Apple revealing that it has quad-core graphics. Similar to the iPhone 4, the previous iPad and iPad 2 both had an Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX-based graphics chip. But the new iPad has the PowerVR SGX543MP4. The Xoom 2 also uses a similar chip, packing the PowerVR SGX540. Asus, on the other hand, uses the Adreno 225 GPU from Qualcomm apart from the Snapdragon CPU component featuring two Krait cores.

Communication and Connectivity: The new iPad, as compared to the previous iPad 2, has introduced 4G LTE connectivity alongside the Wi-Fi capability. However, the 4G LTE is also available in North America for the Transformer Pad Infinity. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is available in a 3G variant, although the Xoom 2 is Wi-Fi only in the UK. It is to be noted that all the tablets here have an accelerometer and ambient light sensors. The Motorola Xoom 2 and Galaxy Note 10.1 also feature digital compasses and magnetometers. Bluetooth 4.0 is also available on the new iPad and Asus Transformer Infinity compared to Bluetooth 2.1 on the Xoom 2 and Bluetooth 3.0 on the Galaxy Note. The new iPad can also be used as a personal hotspot via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB. There's also Micro USB on all three other tablets aside from the new iPad. The Xoom 2 and Transformer Pad Infinity also feature Micro HDMI.

Storage and Memory Options: The new iPad, similar to its predecessors, has arrived with variants of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of storage. Galaxy Note 10.1 and Transformer Pad, however, also come in these sizes. Xoom 2, in comparison, only features 16GB of memory. Nonetheless, all the tablets have 1GB of RAM. All the tablet devices have microSD slots except for the iPad.

Battery Life: The new iPad offers as much as 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video or listening to music, and up to a month of promised standby time. However, this drops to 9 hours when the iPad is being used on 4G. Transformer Pad Infinity also offers 10 hours, as does the Xoom 2. The Note 10.1 is also believed to clock in around the same.

(Information from Techradar.com)