Many people love the full-sized iPad, but some of us, likes yours truly, prefer smaller, 7-inch tablets. Over the last few months, everyone, even Apple, has decided that small tablets are great. Since then, I’ve bought several of the latest and greatest and based on my own experiences here are my recommendations for what you should look for on Black Friday and, indeed, any other day of the year.
I prefer the smaller tablets because I find them to simply fit me better. For me, tablets are primarily for consuming data. I watch videos on them, I read books on them, I use them for Web-browsing, and I use them for e-mail. If you want to use a tablet for a work, you really want a full-sized tablet such as the iPad 4, Nexus 10, or a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Me? I’ll use a laptop. For sheer enjoyment though give me a mini-tablet any day of the week.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. No one is really offering “deals” on any of the top 7″ tablets except for the Amazon Kindle Fire HD. For all the rest, expect to pay me full price. That said, you should look for bargains on such accessories as the microSD cards for more storage and cases.