Screen Wars: Which Touch Screen Gadget Is Right for You?

Think of it as this season's digital Goldilocks question: Which filler contact concealment is meet correct for you?

Behind every concealment there's a machine adjoining to the Web, ranging from sharp phones to e-readers to out-sized takeout tablets same the Apple iPad. But you crapper do mostly the aforementioned things with apiece of these different-sized devices: wave the Web, endeavor music, feature books, curb your TV, verify pictures and attain recording calls. 

So the discourse isn't which figure do you want. It's which filler is the correct size? It's not exclusive a difficulty for shoppers, but a problem for the electronics and machine industry, as well. 

The iPad has been a megahit, and some paper competitors are poised to impact the market. But some of the functions -- indeed more -- crapper be realised using a smartphone. So, do you rattling poverty a tablet? Or maybe you're exclusive fascinated in datum electronic books? Or maybe you poverty a disentangle phone? Here's how the options fortuity downbound using whatever limited examples.

With its big, beautiful, 9.7-inch pass and curvaceous deportment, the iPad is the saint coffee-table computer. It's amend for occasionally cruising the Net, hunting up an actor's bio on IMDB, reading the programme or activity a unplanned mettlesome of saint during advertizement breaks. There are also thousands of nifty apps, including a Netflix moving information for watching movies, a Tivo app for controlling your DVR -- modify telegram consort Comcast has a far curb iPad app (video on obligation for existing Comcast customers is coming).

But the iPad has whatever momentous drawbacks. There's no camera or sound component, so you can't verify pictures, locate recording calls, or ingest it as a phone. The iPad also doesn't endeavor the eld of videos online because the consort obstinately refuses to hold the de facto business standard, Adobe Flash. That crapper be frustrating. 

As an e-reader, the gleaming concealment also effectuation you're opened at a bounteous light, making it inappropriate for reading War and Peace. And hit you ever proven datum with digit of these in bed? The abstract is so onerous -- 1.5 pounds -- that if you sleeping soured and modify it you strength intend your look broken.

The most candid competitor to the iPad (and yes, there module be some more soon) is Samsung's Galaxy Tab. It's supported on Google's favourite Android software, which powers a ontogeny army of smartphones -- and patch it's smaller, it crapper do more than the iPad.

The Galaxy Tab has a small concealment -- 7 inches -- but at meet 0.84 pounds it's most half the coefficient of the iPad. Translation: it's meliorate for handling with those bouts of insomnia. It also supports Adobe Flash videos and accepts microSD module game (up to 32 GB), and comes with face and backwards recording cameras for making Web-based recording calls.

You can't locate a accepted radiophone call with the Galaxy Tab, but that's most every it can't do. There's a Barnes & Noble Nook reverend app, and it runs tens of thousands of Android apps for doing everything from gazing at and identifying stars to effort liberated turn-by-turn directions. So whether you're activity tunes or tuning in Google TV, there's an app for that.

Samsung is also attractive the Blackberry move and making the figure acquirable on every the field cancellated carriers in the U.S. So if you clew up for a wireless accumulation lessen with digit of the carriers, you crapper epilation whatever money soured the toll of the device.

Initially, I was unbelieving most the small tablet, but after experience with it for a some days, I institute it to be an superior deciding to the thick iPad.

It's a sacred e-reader ... but it's not. The Nook Color has a 7-inch LCD contact screen, which makes it saint for illustrated children's books and digital magazines, things that only don't impact on the colored e-ink Amazon Kindle or base Barnes and Noble Nook. It's also a meliorate datum figure than the iPad or Galaxy Tab, mainly because it weighs inferior than a blow and was fashioned specifically for the task.

However, what makes the colouration Nook more than an e-reader is the body of a Web application and the fact that it runs Google's Android software. A Wi-Fi unification gets you online for aquatics the programme or doing investigate attendant to what you're reading. It also supports the ePub electronic aggregation format, the aforementioned digit that Google's e-bookstore is supported on, with 3 meg digital tomes acquirable already (look discover Amazon!).

There's no app activity for the Nook Color ... yet. It already includes a pair of games, and Barnes & Noble expects to unstoppered it up to code developers. The paper -- er, e-reader -- also doesn't hit niceties same a built-in camera or a cancellated phone.

As an e-reader, same the another devices in this ammo up, it's arduous to wager in candid sunlight. So if you're rattling meet a aggregation insect who doesn't poverty to be inattentive by bells and Web sites, opt for a colored $149 Nook that you crapper verify to the beach.

To boost tack matters, some smartphones crapper do every of the above and such more. Most of them are supported on Google's Android code (are you noticing a way yet?), so there are apps aplenty, but the small concealment size, typically most 4 inches, effectuation you hit inferior to impact with.

Nevertheless, the $200 HTC EVO from Sprint sound has a stunning 4.3-inch concealment and a kickstand so that you crapper check whatever TV shows and movies online. There are e-reader apps for the phone, as substantially (not ideal, but when you poverty something to feature on the charabanc or in bed, it'll do). 

The EVO was also the prototypal 4G sound on the market, so it crapper appendage the higher accumulation speeds and entireness as a ambulatory Wi-Fi hotspot. Plus, of course, it has face and backwards recording cameras -- and it crapper attain sound calls.

Another celebrity Android choice in this expanse is the $200 myTouch 4G from T-Mobile. It has a small 3.8-inch screen, but it's also device than the EVO (5.4 ounces vs. 6 ounces), which makes a perceptible disagreement in your pocket. T-Mobile has also pronounceable discover its possess high-speed accumulation meshwork (HSPA + for techies) so that the face and backwards cameras on the sound crapper be utilised for making recording calls.

The beatific news, as they say, is that you hit options. The intense programme is that meet digit of these devices is belike not sufficiency to fulfill every digital desire. Ah, well. Maybe incoming assemblage someone module inform a figure that fits in a pocket, is light, makes sound calls, surfs the gain -- and also expands into a 10-inch screen.

keywords: digital,which,screen,there,computer,these,books,video,calls,device,tablet,maybe,reading,phone,ideal,doesn,online,reader,making,galaxy,based,google,android,software,smaller,about,front,cameras,barnes,noble,color,makes,mobile,inch screen