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It’s been a great week. A few weeks ago, I got the 64GB Asus Transformer Prime and have spent a lot of time playing with it. Then this week, I won a new 64GB iPad 3 for being the top graduate student in the department. The criteria wasn’t based solely on grades, but on several factors determining well-roundedness. The best part wasn’t the iPad, but the fact that all the professors were the one to select me. It’s always nice to be recognized.

Anyway, I brought the iPad home, and Mark and Bri had an all out brawl over the thing. Since I had the Asus, they got the iPad. Technically, it’s Mark’s…for now. Bri can use it whenever she wants, but it is connected to Mark’s iTunes account. It will become hers when she goes off to college in another year or so. I get to use it whenever I need to test iOS stuff for work or research. I can’t say I’m really disappointed about it though. I love my Android tablet, and since they are iPhone users and I am not, it just made sense.

The other day, I was in class listening to what had to be the most boring lecture this semester. I look over at my friend, Chris, and notice he is playing a game on his iPad. It looked hauntingly familiar, and I asked, “What are you playing?” He whispers back, “Grand Theft Auto III.” I whip out my Android tablet and go directly to Google Play. YES! There was an Android version. I went home that night and called Bri into my room to show her what I had. The next day, I went out and bought a Logitech game controller for the tablet. The micro-HDMI cable is on its way from Amazon, and we are about to move to the next island. Squishy game in full effect around here. The long time readers of this blog might remember this reference to GTA 3 given by Bri, when unbeknownst to me, her dad let her play the game at five years old.

What the game made me realize is that I made the right choice on tablets. Yes, you can connect a bluetooth game controller to the iPad and you can buy an adapter to get HDMI output to a TV. The graphics are better on the iPad, but the Android has so many more features to it. The keyboard dock attachment is the big edge here. It’s not just a keyboard addition, but has a working trackpad, as well. The tablet’s internal SDmicro card, and the one on the dock give you greater expansion capabilities. You can install the game directly to the memory card if you want. The USB port allows a wired controller, so you don’t have to deal with batteries. Plus you can use the USB port for so many other things (Android also has bluetooth if you want to go that route). The CPU is a quad-core, so there is zero lag with applications. If all that wasn’t enough, the keyboard dock gives you another 6 hours of battery life. Lastly, as I said in the last post, the file system on the Android makes organizing your data so much easier. This has really helped with the school stuff to easily locate the dozens of documents I have stored for reference.

Did anyone else make the jump to the new iPad? Or are you more interested in the Android offering? What do you love about your tablet?