 Tablets are great for everything, from playing games, to watching video, to reading books, magazines, and all sorts of other stuff. They can even be used as drawing slates, and in spite of the outrage from many tech nerds, many people use them as their primary cameras. Some people like to use tablets as their only computers, but for many of us, tablets are secondary devices. They complement our smartphones and our laptops. A good tablet should be lightweight, fast, well built, have lots of apps available, and be easy to use. It should also easily last through a day of heavy use, or multiple days of lighter usage. It should also have a large ecosystem of accessories available, things like styluses, cases, and keyboards, things that let me do more with my tablet than it can normally. When everything is considered, it's clear that Apple's iPad Air is the best tablet on the market for most people. It's very well built, is exceptionally lightweight, has a fast processor, has a battery that easily lasts for days, and has a great high resolution screen. The screen is easy to look at for reading, but vibrant and colorful enough for videos to look great too. The Air also benefits from the hundreds of thousands of iPad apps available on Apple's iTunes app store. Virtually every major app and service has iPad apps available, many of which take advantage of the Air's larger display. And iOS is one of the simplest and easiest to use mobile operating systems, so virtually anyone can pick up an iPad and quickly grasp how it works. There are also countless accessories you can get for the iPad Air. But it really works great out of the box too, so you shouldn't feel compelled to buy an accessory if that's not how you want to use your tablet. While the Air is the best tablet for most people, the iPad Mini with Retina Display comes in a close second. It's smaller, 7.9 inches versus 9.7, and slightly lighter, making it better for holding in one hand and reading. It's also easier to slip into a bag and take with you wherever you go. I find myself on planes and trains all the time, so the iPad Mini is actually the better choice for me. It's not as versatile as the Air, but it's more portable, which is more important for my needs. There are countless other tablets on the market too, but most of them aren't actually worth your consideration. Samsung literally has dozens of tablets on store shelves, but they all suffer from the same software issues, which make them confusing and frustrating to use. They're also very plastic and chintzy feeling compared to the iPad. Many have excellent displays, and some even come with smart pens for writing on those displays. But those features aren't enough to make up for the other shortcomings. Microsoft has been trying to figure out tablets for years, and the Surface Pro 3 is its best effort yet. But it's a much better desktop computer than a true tablet, it's just too big and clumsy to be portable or comfortable to use for long periods of time. And while it can run lots of old Windows apps, there's still relatively few true tablet apps available for it. Google's own Nexus 7 is a relatively good smaller tablet, and you can find it for pretty cheap these days. But it's been around for over a year, and it has more software issues than the iPad Mini. Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX boasts a very nice display and a lightweight design, but it's hampered by a limited app selection. It's really tailor made to present Amazon services and make it easy to purchase from the retail giant. But you can get all of Amazon services on the iPad and still be able to do a lot more. And that's really it. Tablets are fun to use, and great for many things like reading, playing games, watching video and more. And the iPad Air is the best one you can get.