Amazon UK publishes a list of its bestselling tablets. Although calmer now than it was earlier in the year, it still changes quite often. However, aggregating the lists over time and refining the definition of a tablet allows us to see trends that have persisted over the months since the market for tablets became large enough to reveal useful information. The "New iPad" launched just before our last list appeared, but now that it's been out for a few days, some people are clearly buying the new model direct from Apple and selling their used iPad 2 via Amazon or EBay. These iPad 2s are still strong machines and they have driven the average price on Amazon up to around £235. Amazon's list is gradually stabalising which will allow us to add more to our refined list over the next few days. For more detail on the market as a whole, look at the trends tab.
It looks as if the second hand iPad 2 is now driving turnover and deservedly so because it's a fine piece of equipment with a solid platform and a huge choice of apps and accessories. Not to mention the fact that when showing off to your friends, not many of them will truly be able to tell at a glance whether yours is the latest model or the not-quite-latest model.
Globally Apple's its market share may soon be coming under threat. However, in the UK, where we cannot buy America's number two tablet - the Amazon Kindle Fire - the iPad reins supreme.
The iPad is a fabulous product - apparently unlike the Kindle Fire for which technical reviews have been rather luke warm.
New for 2012 - the capacitive screen version of this original. It's not at all
bad, considering the price which is perhaps why it has spent quite a bit of time showing as out of stock, but now it's back to the top of the list.
It has 512Mb of RAM (quick access memory) which is not that bright, but it is better than the really budget offerings, and it has quite a fast processor (1.6GHz).
The NAND Flash memory (a tablet's equivalent of a hard disk drive) has now been increased to 8Gb. This is equivalent to the lowest option for most of the branded offerings.
Again, common amongst the cheaper models, is the lower resolution - 800x480 pixels.
Like many of the cheaper tablets, this runs Android 2.3 (called Gingerbread.) This is a pretty robust version of the platform, but a little out-dated and, according to Google, who developed it, it's better suited to phones than tablets. It still works well enough for most purposes, though.
3.
=
Asus EeePad Transformer Prime TF201
It
has not been plain sailing for the new version of the Asus Transformer.
The original was last year's best reviewed tablet and it still performs well. This new model has a very sexy brushed metal back and was the first tablet to come with the Tegra 3 processor (which confusingly has four cores.)
Problems surfaced around the issue of wireless reception both for WiFi (although Asus deny this) and for the GPS receiver. The claim to have GPS has been removed from the specification altogether and the supply of these tablets has been kept tight, but it has moved up to number 3 in our list despite a pretty high price.
For all the issues, this is probably the best buy amongst quality Android tablets.
4.
=
NATPC / Tabtech M009S / M010S
Resistive Screen - not so good.
These more or less identical black (M009S) and white (M010S) models of a 7" tablet make quite a few appearances in Amazon's list.
There is now also a slightly faster cousin, the M009F.
The "company" or companies (NATPC or their friends Tabtech, Tabtronics, TTfone, Fineslate and Ployer) have been amongst Amazon's top sellers of Android tablets for months now, yet you will struggle even to find their websites.
In truth, this is something of a crossover between a tablet and a mobile phone with a screen of only 5.3" diagonally. Many of it's sales will no doubt be with a phone contract, so it is likely to sell better overall than it appears to in this list.
We have classified it as a tablet though, on the rather arbitrary criterion that its screen is larger than 5 inches. (Amazon have it as a "SIM-free mobile phone" and not listed with the other tablets.)
The hardware is pretty impressive with dual 1.4GHz processors and a stylus that helps take the tablet to a more mature market niche. The Note stylus also comes with a screenshot function which is available in one form or another on several Samsung tablets. To be honest, the lack of an easy way to take a screenshot was a significant shortcoming in the basic Android platform. The functionality is added in the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich which will shortly be available for download for the Note.
A commentator here likes the stylus because, for her, sometimes a "finger just sometimes isn't enough."
6.
CloudNine Neuropad 2
Tablets like this one
may well be shaping the market more and more over the next few months. It actually comes out of the box with the new Ice Cream Sandwich platform and has all the basics of tablet life - Youtube players and the like. It also offers the full Android Market (which on my tablet has confusingly renamed itself as the Play Shop)
The specifications are adequate, with a fairly standard but high speed 1.5GHz processor, and the smaller, but still usable, 512Mb of memory.
It comes at a pretty budget price and compromises include the limited memory, fairly low resolution screen and lack of GPS.
If you can say to yourself that these compromises don't matter that much, then this could well be your perfect choice of tablet.
7.
A1CS X220
The X220 has the larger 10" format, but no capacitive touchscreen for easy finger operation, or sexy high resolution. Notice that it has only four rows of icons - one less than the original 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab. Some versions promise GPS, though, and an HDMI output, so that's some boxes ticked...
Some variants of the X220 are called the Flytouch 3 and some come with space for a 3G SIM which would mean they could perform as SatNavs without your having to rely on the caching function in Google Maps.
Many variants of this model offer Android 2.2 (which was called Froyo). It is getting pretty out of date now. The model has been on sale in more or less this form for over a year, and while it could be a good candidate for a second hand purchase, you should be expecting quite a discount from the original price.
8.
Storage Options 53715 Scroll Excel 7
This 7" tablet comes with a the older Gingerbread version of Android (2.3). It is sound, though and many mobile phones are also sold using this platform.
There is a very similar, but slower and cheaper first-generation version of this tablet still available - the 53511 Scroll Essential 7. Perhaps this could essential be for the children? You could show off by adding them to your party bags.
9.
New
Archos Gen 9 Turbo 8" 502036
Another new tablet arrives with Android ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) packing quite a punch for a pretty competitive price. Archos have quite a range of tablets and you need to be quite careful to get the right.
This one comes, not only with ICS, but also with 1Gb of RAM (quick access memory) and that makes quite a difference.
It also has a handy slot in the back for fitting in a 3G dongle which will then be fit neatly into the tablet. (They call it a 3G USB Stick.) In this way you can get the WiFi version first and later decide if you want to add the 3G accessory.
This tablet has been around for a while and is probably back in the best seller list through sales of "pre-owned" units.
While it is in many ways quite a standard 7" tablet, it does have the option, like the newer and smaller Galaxy Note, of using a stylus to annotate screenshots, PDFs, presentation and so on - quite a neat feature hence it's appearance in
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Although calmer now than it was earlier in the year, it still changes quite often. However, aggregating the lists over time and refining the definition of a tablet allows us to see trends that have persisted over the months since the market for tablets became large enough to reveal useful information. The "New iPad" launched just before our last list appeared, but now that it's been out for a few days, some people are clearly buying the new model direct from Apple and selling their used iPad 2 via Amazon or EBay. These iPad 2s are still strong machines and they have driven the average price on Amazon up to around £235. Amazon's list is gradually stabalising which will allow us to add more to our refined list over the next few days. For more detail on the market as a whole, look at 
.
The "company" or companies (NATPC or their friends Tabtech, Tabtronics, TTfone, Fineslate and Ployer