Tech Focus: Tablet Wars

Digital Foundry looks at the challenges Apple faces with the arrival of the Google Nexus 7 and Microsoft Surface.
For over three years, only one tablet product has gained traction with the mainstream: Apple's phenomenal iPad. Niche challengers have come and gone, while heavyweights including RIM, Sony, Samsung and Motorola have all singularly failed to make any kind of impact on Apple's stranglehold on the market. Now the Cupertino giant's closest rivals have finally woken up: Microsoft and Google are both rolling out the big guns with the upcoming releases of Surface and the Nexus 7.
There's little doubt that the iPad has defined the prerequisites of a mainstream-focused tablet, and to a certain extent both of these challengers are "me too" products. Each is based on the notions of a slick, user-friendly interface, capacitive touch-screens, and low-power integrated processors paired with large batteries to provide stamina in the 8-10 hour range - the defining elements of the iPad.
However, the differences between the products are interesting in that they illustrate exactly where Apple's challengers believe its weaknesses are: the question really is whether these perceived deficiencies are enough to really open up the market.
"The likes of RIM, Sony and Samsung have all failed to effectively challenge the iPad phenomenon. Now Apple's rivals have finally woken up - but can Microsoft Surface and the Google Nexus 7 compete?"

Google's approach is intriguing: with the Nexus 7, it has staked a claim to the value end of the market, looking to offer an approximate high-end experience in a package that is a fraction of the cost of the $500 top-end "New iPad" and half the price of the $400 iPad 2. Google's tablet miniaturises the experience onto a 7-inch, IPS 1280x800 screen that cuts some corners on brightness and colour reproduction but crams a lot of pixels into a small enough area to give something approaching Retina fidelity.
Elsewhere, all the core functionality you would expect from a tablet is present and correct, while more extravagant elements that have somehow become a standard on more expensive tablets have been stripped out - so there is no rear-mounted camera for example, no HDMI output - and only a single microUSB port.
Only 8GB and 16GB SKUs are planned and there is no support at all for cellular connectivity - Google's strategy seems to be in attracting the value-conscious and tablet newcomers, and perhaps convince them to upgrade when the time is right to another Android tablet. The Nexus 7 is produced by Asus, and the Nexus 7 comes across to a certain extent as a "gateway" product to the firm's more expensive offerings.
Microsoft's Surface has no pretensions in masking the "me too" elements of its design. Although it has opted for a widescreen display over the iPad's 4:3 screen, there's little doubt that it aims for the premium side of the market in exactly the same way as the Apple tablet, with its high-end magnesium finish and weight/dimension advantages over the current generation iPad. At its presentation for the device, a huge amount of focus was put into the kickstand - curious, as it suggests that Microsoft believes that a great deal of tablet-time is spent near some kind of static, flat surface that it can rest upon.
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Google's Nexus 7 aims to differentiate itself from iPad with a bargain $199 price-point, along with a user-experience that offers much of the slickness and appeal of Apple's established, market-leading offering.

But the true point of difference that Microsoft is banking on is Windows 8 and everything it represents: specifically functionality, productivity and the ubiquity of the OS on other devices. A fully featured USB port means that virtually any peripheral can be run from the tablet - printers, storage drives - with standard Windows drivers being used to run them. The Touch and Type covers in combination with Microsoft Office potentially offer Surface RT a level of functionality well beyond what the iPad offers, in a pleasingly integrated manner.
Traditional, native x86 Windows programs won't work on the Surface RT however, and therein lies one of Microsoft's biggest challenges: building its own version of Apple's walled garden app store. Having failed comprehensively with Windows Phone 7, Microsoft desperately needs to create transaction infrastructure that rivals Google Play and iTunes. Just a couple of months from launch, there are still some question marks over the Metro marketplace and the level of support it will attract.
"A merging or convergence between OSX and iOS has been mooted for years now, but Microsoft has got their first by rolling out Windows 8 simultaneously on computer and mobile platforms."

Of course, the advantage Microsoft has is the sheer proliferation of Windows on traditional computers and laptops. The next version of the desktop OS features support for Metro apps, along with the compatibility with traditional x86 binaries missing from the RT tablet. The same core kernel is deployed on all devices, be they tablet, smartphone, laptop or desktop - representing an unprecedented level of convergence.
In this respect, Microsoft is well ahead of Apple: there have been rumours for some time that iOS and OSX would merge, or overlap more overtly at some point, but Windows 8 manages to pull that off successfully in the here and now. It's a state of affairs reflected in the Surface hardware too. While the RT tablet has access to Metro apps only, the Surface Pro - running Intel ultra-low voltage CPUs - is effectively an Ultrabook class PC squeezed down into a tablet form factor just a little heavier and thicker than the New iPad. It supports Metro while running traditional apps and games (albeit less demanding ones owing to the Intel integrated GPU). Most tantalising of all, the integration of powerful x86 hardware into the tablet form factor is hugely compelling - in a stroke, Microsoft not only provides an intriguing alternative to the iPad, but it is also taking on the Macbook Air too.

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