Find the Best Tablets in 13 Categories

Buying a tablet used to be so simple—you bought an iPad. Now the market is flush with iOS, Android and Windows 8 models with different sizes, features, specs and prices. How to decide? Start with our Tablet Buying Guide. We checked reviews and specs to pick winners among 12 current-generation tablets in 13 categories.

James A. Martin is an SEO and social media consultant and writes the CIO.com Martin on Mobile Apps blog. Follow him on Twitter.

Apple’s iPad mini is nearly ideal for ebook reading because of its small size, light weight, and access to the most ebooks via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google and Apple. The downside: At $329 and up, the iPad mini is expensive.

Google Nexus 7($199) is another good option, as you can read e-books from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google. If you’ve bought into Amazon’s ecosystem, a more affordable option is the Kindle Fire ($159 and up) or Kindle Fire HD ($199 and up). Similarly, Barnes & Noble fans should be happy with one of its Nook tablets ($159 and up).

Price: $329 and up from Apple.

As of this writing, there are more than 700,000 apps in the Apple App Store, with about 275,000 optimized for iPads. While there are also about 700,000 apps in the Google Play Store, Google hasn’t specified how many are specifically optimized for tablets, and plenty of popular iPad-optimized apps—such as Twitter, Pandora, LinkedIn and Dropbox—haven’t been designed yet for larger Android screens. Most Android apps run on both smartphones and tablets, but only those optimized for tablets look good on the bigger screens.

Price: $329 and up for an iPad mini, and $499 and up for an iPad 4th generation, from Apple.

There are Microsoft Office-compatible suites and standalone apps for both iOS and Android. Meanwhile, Office for iOS is coming in early 2013, but early reports suggest Office on iOS lacks key features. Nothing so far beats Office 2013 Home & Student edition on Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet—especially when coupled with Microsoft’s $130 Type Cover keyboard.

Some caveats apply. This version of Office lacks Outlook, but the Surface RT tablet includes mail, contact and calendaring apps. Also, the current Surface tab runs Windows RT, which isn’t the full Windows 8 OS. Though Microsoft will release a Windows 8 Pro version in early 2013, other manufacturers are already coming out with tablet/laptop hybrids running Windows 8.

Price: $499 and up from Microsoft.

Every tablet has a virtual onscreen keyboard for typing, and they’re all useful for short periods. But for any prolonged typing—such as in a Word document—you’ll want a physical keyboard. The best one is by far Microsoft’s Type Cover, an optional purchase for its Surface tablet. It’s a thin keyboard that also serves as the Surface’s cover, yet it feels like a real keyboard. There’s even a built-in trackpad.

Microsoft also sells its Touch Cover ($120) for Surface tablets. It comes in various colors and has a trackpad, but it isn’t as comfortable for sustained typing, and there have been reports that the Touch Cover isn’t terribly durable.

Price: $130 from Microsoft.