Sometimes good things come in small packages-or form factors. With the holiday shopping season upon us, we'll help you decide between the best small tablets on the market: the Apple iPad Mini, the Google Nexus 7, and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD.
Portability
With a weight of only 11 ounces, the iPad Mini is the lightest of the pack. It's also the slimmest, at a hair over a quarter inch thick. But the Nexus 7 only weighs an ounce more, though it's a full 40 percent thicker than the iPad Mini. The Kindle Fire HD has the same thickness as the Nexus 7, but it weighs three full ounces more than the iPad Mini.
You'll need a proprietary Lightning connector from Apple to charge the iPad Mini, or grab an adapter to charge from USB ports. The Kindle Fire HD Nexus 7 charge from standard Micro USB.
The iPad wins in longevity, though, clocking in at almost 12 hours of continuous playback. The Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HD will go for nearly 10 hours each, so you should be able to make it through the day without a recharge with all three tablets.
Performance
The iPad Mini has a zippy A5 processor, but it's not quite as good as the processor in the regularly-sized iPad or the iPhone 5. The Android operating system on the Nexus 7 multitasks better than the iPad Mini, and there's more control over which apps are running. The Kindle Fire HD plays games well, though Amazon offers a smaller selection than the Apple AppStore, and the Kindle Fire HD's operating system is basically a dumbed-down version of Android.
Screen
At 7.9 inches, the iPad Mini has the biggest screen of the three, larger than the 7-inch screens of the Kindle Fire HD and the Nexus, but the iPad Mini has the lowest resolution, 1024 by 768 pixels. Both the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HD have 1280 by 800 pixel resolutions.
But movies and games still look good on the iPad Mini's larger screen. Text is a little more blurry, but more of a web page or magazine is visible on the iPad Mini.
Content
Apple's AppStore still has the largest selection of games, movies, music and apps. Amazon members get access to InstantView for movies with the Kindle Fire HD, but the selection of proprietary apps is still quite small, though it's growing quickly. Google's Play Store carries a wide selection of games and apps, and third-party developers port their products to Android as quickly as possible.\
But with the same screen resolution as the iPad, the iPad Mini can run all the old apps and games right out of the box.
Price
The Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 are competitively priced at just $199. The iPad Mini, however,has a much heftier price tag of $329, likely more than it's worth.
If all your tech is exclusively from Apple and you want your new tablet to work the same and share the same media and apps, get the iPad Mini.
If you already have plenty of Kindle books or you're an Amazon subscriber, consider the Kindle Fire HD.
Most people who don't fit into either of those two categories will be happiest with the features and the price of the Nexus 7.