How The iPad 2 Wins The Tablet Race vs. Motorola Xoom vs RIM Playbook vs HP TouchPad

Today Apple has finally launched the iPad 2 and it’s already making waves in the tech community.

For Starters – Here are the Launch Prices for iPad 2 in the USA.

* iPad 2 16GB WiFi version – $499
* iPad 2 32GB WiFi version – $599
* iPad 2 64GB WiFi version – $699
* iPad 2 16GB WiFi +3G version – $629

* iPad 2 32GB WiFi +3G version – $729
* iPad 2 64GB WiFi +3G version – $829

Also the new tablet is going to get a HDMI video out with the help of the cable provided along with which you can also charge the unit. You dont have to setup or perform any configuration for this HDMI mirrored video output and it would cost you $39 extra.

So here we at Techie WhizKid decided to do our own update on the iPad 2 launch in a different way. – No! We will not review the iPad 2 as frankly we dont have 1 and you can read all the iPad 2 reviews on other big sites like engadget and gizmodo and techcrunch. But we decided to scour the web and bring to you the configurations of the iPad 2 along with it;s rivals like Motorola Xoom, RIM Playbook and HP TouchPad and then we bring you the startling revelation on How The iPad 2  manages to Win The Tablet Race vs. Motorola Xoom vs RIM Playbook vs HP TouchPad.

Firstly Introducing the Apple iPad 2

Now let’s focus on the specifications and configurations of iPad 2, Motorola Xoom, RIM Playbook and HP TouchPad

Apple iPad 2

Motorola Xoom

HP TouchPad

BlackBerry PlayBook

Here is another infographic which depicts  iPad 2 vs. Motorola XOOM vs. LG G-Slate vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Click on the image for full size

Now Coming to the Sole and Major Reason on why The iPad 2 Wins The Tablet Race vs. Motorola Xoom vs RIM Playbook vs HP TouchPad – Lack of Availability of Proper Apps corresponding to the other tablets when compared with the iPad 2 Apps available on Launch date.

According to popular Tech Blogger – Robert Scoble on his blog scobleizer writes:

We now know what the choice is:

1. Apple iPad 2. Has apps. 65,000 of them.
2. Motorola Xoom. Has no apps. Oh, sorry. 16. At least no apps designed for the large format. Designing an app that works on a smart phone isn’t the same as designing one that works on a large screen. Most of the apps I’ve “stretched” really suck compared to their iPad equivalents.
3. HP TouchPad. Has no apps. Heck, it isn’t even shipping yet.
4. RIM PlayBook. Has no apps. Heck, it isn’t even shipping yet.

Therefore – No apps, no sale.

And according to Alexander Falk – Founder of Altova GmbH in 1992; member of the W3C XML Schema WG that defined the XML Schema 1.0 specs; co-creator of the popular Altova XMLSpy tool suite for all things XML; President & CEO of Altova, Inc. on his blog – XML Aficionado writes on why the Motorola XOOM – The First Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” Tablet is such a big disappointment.

Let’s start with the Xoom hardware problems first:

• It is rather heavy
• The battery life is too short (about 5-6 hours rather than the 10 advertised)
• The power-button is in the most ridiculous spot on the back of the device (next to the camera & flash)
• The plastic snap-on cover is bulky and adds weight and thickness to it

Yes, the screen with HD resolution is nice. But that’s about the only thing that is better than the original iPad.

Now let’s talk about the Android 3.0 issues:

• There are only about 16 apps available that are designed for an Android tablet form-factor. Robert Scoble goes into great detail on that issue in this blog post today.
• When you run a few apps (and download some that are more designed for a phone) you inevitably arrive at a state, where the UI starts to feel sluggish – despite the dual-core CPU. The way that background applications can eat processor cycles and make your foreground application feel incredibly slow is a design flaw that I’ve already observed in the Motorola Droid a year ago. And it hasn’t been fixed in Android 3.0.
• In using the device for a couple of hours, I got multiple apps to crash on me.
• The Android app store is still extremely difficult to navigate and you cannot easily tell the good applications apart from the “me too” junk.
• When connected to an Exchange server and trying to archive a piece of e-mail, the list of available folders is shown by flattening the entire folder hierarchy instead of displaying it properly. Therefore, I have to scroll down for 4-5 pages until I find the folder I need.
• The idea to put widgets on the home screen that are more than just an icon is nice. But the implementation is ridiculous. There are plenty of apps that claim to be a widget, but all they are is an icon. Other apps, such as Twitter, have a widget view, but you cannot control the update frequency. With the CNN widget this leads to flickering and nervous screen updates. Then, when you tap on the widget, it takes forever to load the app and display the news.
• Flash player isn’t available yet.
• There is no movie availability other than YouTube. Nothing even remotely similar to the iTunes store where I can simply rent or buy a movie anytime.

I could go on for a long time. It is simply ridiculous how far from the truth the TV commercial for the Motorola Xoom is.

And, of course, now that the iPad 2 has been announced today, the Xoom looks even worse…

So, there you go, we have covered a few but important factors as to why and  How The iPad 2 Wins The Tablet Race vs. Motorola Xoom vs RIM Playbook vs HP TouchPad

But still these are early days for the Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets and we can see app development for the Honeycomb go in full swing once the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is rolled out by Samsung, but as they say if you are an early starter in the race – you often end winning it – Clearly Round 1 belongs to Apple iPad 2 and they clearly win the first round in terms of Apps Availability over Motorola Xoom, RIM Playbook and HP Touchpad.