The distinction between PCs and Tablets and smartphones are growing thin day by day. Due to this reason, the world is transforming at a pace no one can really predict. Back in the days when the PCs were superior and the only computing device, we had to use it no matter what. I still remember those days when the PC had to be carried around to imitate mobile computing platforms. Later on, we had the luxury of not-so-smart phones and laptops. Gradually with the development in the silicon based equipments, the laptops grew lighter and smaller and the not-so-smart phones grew smarter and became smart phones. PCs used to be dominated with the Windows operating system, and it was the same for the Laptops, as well. The transition from Laptop to smartphone was where Windows lost its dominance. However, this wasn’t a considerable blow because consumers weren’t going to replace their laptop or PC by a smartphone.
The current situation has significant changes. Now the PC is there, and the laptops are also there where Windows still dominates them. Then there are the Tablet PCs and the Smartphones. These two products aren’t dominated by Windows as opposed to latter. The turning factor is that, consumers are starting to replace their laptop or PC by Tablets and that is going to cost Windows dearly. Owing to this reason, we can find drastic improvements to the operating system provided by Microsoft for Tablets and Smartphones. Hence we will talk about both product categories individually and compare them.
Android Tablet
Competitions tend to make products advance and innovative. That is what happened with Android. Looking at their history, one can get a clear understanding of how much they have grown for this short lifespan. That is the reason analysts declare that Android Tablets are going to surpass iPads by the next few years. We will talk about Android Tablets in two steps as well; the devices and the operating system. The devices have a large diversity unlike iPads since they are manufactured by a lot of vendors. Some of the leading Android Tablet vendors are Samsung, Asus, Motorola and Huawei. Owing to this, there are tablets that have very advanced hardware in them. For instance, Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime has a very advanced hardware set up.
On the other hand, the operating system is also open source. This enables manufacturers to tweak the operating system to suit their devices. Another advantage is that the tablets will have various and dynamic user interfaces that users can choose. This may be considered as a disadvantage as well where the synergy of the hardware and software is considered. Android operating system is developed having a general model in mind and hence it may not serve the specific purposes hardware can serve. For instance, there was a window of time where quad core processors weren’t fully supported by Android although now it has been fixed. Android used to be hasty on UI but now it has an admirable user experience with many different interfaces. The apparent difference you can identify is that simplicity is not essentially an item in Android’s agenda. It can be anything you want, and if you want it simple, you have to make it simple.
Compared to the Windows App Store, Android Play Store has a large number of applications. Further, Android has always been good at multitasking and easily surpasses Windows Tablets. For instance, the new Samsung Galaxy S III (not a Tablet PC) can play a video on top of any application you’re working on which is extreme multitasking. It won’t be long before the tablets have this feature, as well.
Windows Tablet
When we take a Windows Tablet, the first difference we see is the interface. Windows 8 has an attractive metro style UI where they use live tiles to display information and applications. This would be refreshing to consumers who are used to the conventional UI from Android or iOS; hence it might attract an initial base of customers. The next attraction would be the supported architectures. Windows 8 is to support both ARM based architectures and x86 based architectures. What this implies is that, Windows can be used in both the low end mobile computing platforms and tablets that come with high end processors like Intel or AMD. This is Microsoft’s master plan in getting their dominance back. If it succeeds, it doesn’t matter whether the market trend is PCs or laptops or Tablet PCs, Microsoft Windows will run on all those computing platforms and ensure their dominance.
When you look at the app store, Windows has a lot of catching up to do. This may be because Android Play Store is relatively old compared to Windows App store and hence there are a lot of cumulated applications. Microsoft has launched some strategies to catch up and hopefully it’ll pay out soon. When it comes to the market size, Android has definitely dominated the smartphone market and trying hard to dominate the tablet market, as well. On the other hand, Windows has dominated the PC/laptop market and launched a product that is aimed at tablet market. Hence we can expect heavy competition from these two vendors for market share in the coming future.
A Brief Comparison between Android Tablets and Windows Tablets
• Android is an open source operating system whereas Windows is not.
• Android allows manufacturers to design their own products and tweak the operating system while Windows has strict guidelines for manufacturers on how to design their product.
• Android has native style user interface while Windows has attractive metro style user interface.
Conclusion
Comparing two products will always have a logical base and a clear cut conclusion. What if the comparison is between two categories of products and the products has a wide variety inside each category? Then giving out a conclusion would be not fair to every product in each category. Hence I won’t give a conclusion, but we can declare this much. There will be a steaming competition between Android and Windows as well as iOS in the near future. The outcome of this can only be anticipated and is largely dependent on what manufacturers will produce and which OS they would decide to use on their product. Hence, as a consumer, you can stay tuned to the market condition and take your pick because, by the time a decent Windows tablet comes in to market, these three giants will be in equivalent platforms in terms of usability. However, price may be a deciding factor since Android tablets are offered for a low price at the current condition.