iPad 2, Kindle Fire and Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime: How Do They Stack up?

Amazon Kindle Fire and Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, which were launched in the recent past, have already become two of the best-selling tablets, eating into iPad 2's market share.

Kindle Fire achieved this despite not having many high-end features in comparison with the Apple's tablet while the Asus tablet comes with some great features.

But the big question is - Do they really stand tall against Apple iPad 2?

Here is tech comparison of the three tablets.

Size: iPad 2 has a dimension of 241.2×185.7×8.8 mm and weighs 1.33 pounds while the Wi-Fi and 3G version of the iPad 2 weighs 1.35 pounds. Amazon Kindle Fire has dimensions of 90×120×11 mm and weighs 0.91 pounds. Eee Pad Transformer Prime, however, comes with a dimension of 263 × 180.8 × 8.3 mm and weighs 1.29 pounds.

Display: Amazon's tablet has 1024 x 600 screen resolution capabilities at 169 ppi while iPad 2 has an LCD screen and has resolution capabilities of 1024 x 768 at 132 ppi. Transformer Prime, on the other hand, has a 10.1-inch high-definition Super IPS + LCD capacitive touchscreen that comes with Corning Gorilla glass protection and a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels at 149 pixels per inch (ppi) density in 178 degrees ultra-wide viewing angle.

Processor: iPad 2 has a 1GHZ Apple A5 custom dual-core processor and 512RAM of memory. Kindle Fire, on the other hand, has a 1GHZ dual-core TI OMAP 4 processor and also offers 512RAM of memory while Asus Transformer Prime is the world's first quad-core tablet that has Nvidia Tegra 3, 1.3 GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, ULP GeForce GPU.

Memory: Amazon packs an 8GB of internal storage space with Kindle Fire but the Amazon designers focused on the practical uses of secondary storage spaces and added cloud storage options, although only for content purchased on Amazon.com.

Compared to Kindle Fire, even the smallest the iPad comes with more storage of 16GB, which then goes up to 32 and 64GB of storage space but Apple does not provide a microSD slot for memory expansion.

The memory in the Asus tablet is 1GB RAM and 32/64 GB storage capacity with a microSD card slot, giving an extra 32GB support and 8GB life time free Asus WebStorage.

Operating System: iPad 2 uses the iOS 5 operating system while Kindle Fire runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Asus, however, features the Android 3.2 Honeycomb that can be upgraded to OS 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with a layer of the latest Waveshare UI and with Adobe Flash support to provide a vivid online experience.

Battery: Apple claims that iPad 2 offers about 10 hours of battery life while Kindle Fire gives 8 hours of the same. Asus Transformer EEE Pad gives talk time of about 12 hours.

Camera: iPad 2 features dual cameras. The rear camera has a 0.7 megapixel with 5x digital zoom unit that can be used to record video and capture up to 30 high-definition frames per second with audio. The front camera is only a VGA unit. Still this is much better than Kindle Fire, which has no cameras, either in the front or at the back.

This one feature makes the Asus tablet a clear winner as this tablet has an 8 megapixel camera with 3264x2448 pixels, LED flash and autofocus and 1080p video playback capability. The Asus tablet also comes with a 1.2 megapixel front facing camera for video calls. The camera boasts of features like back-illuminated CMOS sensor and large aperture design.

Pricing: iPad 2 ranges between $499 and $899 while Kindle Fire comes at the amazingly low price of $199. Transformer Prime again ranges between $499 and $849.

Apps and GPS: Kindle Fire has a little more than 15,000 applications to choose from while iPad 2 has more than 90,000 applications. Kindle Fire does not have the GPS option, unlike the 3G models of the iPad. With Asus Transformer Prime, on the other hand, the user gets access to over 500,000 apps that are available on the Android Market to compliment the tablet experience.

Music: Unlike Apple's iTunes store, Amazon Kindle Fire and the Amazon Web site allow users to download Digital Rights Management-free (DRM) music, allowing you to transfer them to any device you like. The Asus multimedia, however, provides @vibe, an online music hub, which is an incredible free platform for accessing more than 7 million songs.

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