ViewSonic VB730 User Manual download pdf (Page 18)

20 consumer reports JANUARY 

FEATURE

Three recent arrivals are welcome additions to the market

Hot new tablets

  in tablets are

bringing more choices, new fea-

tures, and better prices. Here’s a

rundown based on our initial

tests (we’ll fully test all of them soon):

Apple squeezed its highly successful

iPad into a more affordable and smaller

package, the iPad Mini. Our tests found

Apple’s new tablet as good as its larger sib-

lings in almost every respect. We also

found it more convenient for reading be-

cause it’s smaller and lighter. For details,

see the facing page.

Microsoft finally entered the market

with a serious competitor to the iPad and

Android tablets—the Surface with Win-

dows RT (the new operating system for

tablets based on Windows 8.) Larger than

most tablets, the Surface is a fine piece of

hardware, with a built-in stand, great

add-on keyboards, and an excellent dis-

play. It runs versions of classic Office ap-

plications. But Microsoft has a ways to go

on its app store.

e Barnes & Noble Nook got a major up-

date with the 7-inch Nook HD and 9-inch

Nook HD+. e Nook HD has the highest

screen resolution among smaller tablets,

and Barnes & Noble kept the starting price

at $200, a true bargain. It also improved the

shopping experience and added other inno-

vative features, such as user profiles. e

Nook HD+ starts at $270.

ese new tablets lived up to expecta-

tions in many ways, our preliminary tests

showed. But as with other tablets, if you

also want a physical keyboard, you must

pay extra. For our assessment of the variety

of add-on tablet keyboards, see page 22.

The Barnes & Noble Nook HD is the highest

resolution tablet of its size. Priced at 

for GB  for GB, it has a screen whose

resolution is  pixels per inch. That’s not

much less than the  pixels per inch on

the third and fourthgeneration iPad with

Retina display. Here’s how it stacked up

in our preliminary tests:

Images and text look great. Its inch

screen lived up to expectations, delivering

images that nearly equaled those of the

Apple iPad Retina screens. Viewing angles

were similar to the iPad’s, as was the ability

to read in bright light. We did find that

colors weren’t quite up to iPad standards,

thanks to slightly yellow, lesssaturated

colors. And we found the text on the Nook

HD almost as crisp as the iPad’s.

Magazines are a strength. At . pounds,

the Nook HD is among the lightest tablets

and narrow enough to fit in one hand.

So it almost feels as if you’re holding a small

magazine. It’s certainly better for reading one

than the previous Nook, which squeezed text

into a narrow column. On the Nook HD, text

fills the entire screen. Scrolling is smooth and

magazine pages curl as you turn.

If you’re an avid

magazine reader,

however, you’ll

probably prefer the

Nook HD+, whose

display is larger and

has a slightly squarer

shape, making it

better suited to

publications. It can

accommodate an

entire page of type

without forcing you to

clumsily scroll around

the page as you read.

It wasn’t available to

test at press time.

Video and audio were fine. Streaming

video appeared quite good on the Nook HD.

Sound was less tinny than you’d expect on a

device this size, but still not as loud as on the

new iPad Mini. Touch response was also fine,

and games that require swiping were easy to

play. But photos that you view in landscape

mode have black task and status bars above

and below the shot, shrinking it.

Unique features are helpful. Both Nooks

have features that distinguish them from

other tablets we’ve seen. For example,

you can set up as many as six personalized

accounts on a single device.

You select an account by dragging its icon

to open up the associated user’s profile,

which contains that user’s books, magazines,

apps, and scrapbooks. With parental

controls, you can set up children’s accounts

that restrict their ability to browse, shop,

or access files in the device’s library.

Scrapbooks are another useful feature.

When reading a magazine or catalog, you can

clip a page and add it to a scrapbook by

dragging two fingers down the side of a page

or by using an onscreen scissor icon that you

summon with a touch.

Bottom line. If you’re looking for a small

tablet, the Nook HD is a fine choice at an

excellent price. It’s quite portable, even

compared with other inch tablets. The

sharp text that the highresolution display

renders should especially please readers.

While the selection of content and

“curated” apps is more limited than the iPad’s,

or even those in a number of other Android

stores, it’s enough for most people, especially

given its broad selection of magazines.

The Nook HD delivers on its display

HIRES DUO The Nook

HD and HD+ nearly

match the resolution of

the Apple Retina display.

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