GSMArena tablet shopping guide: December 2013

WiFi-only Compact tablets

In this chapter, we'll be focusing on compact tablets measuring about 7" and lacking cellular connectivity. This includes tablets that either do not have 3G-enabled models at all, or the lower-cost WiFi-only versions of tablets that do. The list is sorted by price, low to high.

We get things underway with the Nook HD tablet from Barnes & Noble. The Nook offers a 7-inch 1440 x 900 display, alongside a rather modest 1.3GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 processor. What the Nook really has going for it, however, is the price - at less than €100, it simply can't be beat by the major manufacturers.

Some sacrifices were inevitable, of course, and those come in the form of performance and availability. The Nook's TI OMAP 4470 processor is passable at best in terms of processing power and, given that Texas Instruments has retired from the chipset game, could go the way of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and have difficulty getting future Android versions.

Also, keep in mind that the Nook could be hard to find in your region. Of course, all Nook tablets come with a custom Nook UI, which is quite far from a true Android experience, so you better know your rooting/CyanogenMod if you are going the Nook's way.

Up next is a compact tablet from Asus. While not necessarily the first name that comes to mind when it comes to compact size tablets, Asus is not the world's third largest tablet maker and Google's prime tablet hardware partner for no reason.

The Asus MeMo Pad HD7 offers a quad-core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. For all intents and purposes, it's a cheaper version of the original Google Nexus 7 (also made by Asus), except that it's running on MediaTek chipset and has a microSD card slot for expanding the limited memory.

The second generation Nexus 7 tablet caused quite a stir at its unveiling this summer, and Google/Asus really went out of their usual ways to give the Nexus 7 a complete and thorough upgrade. The tablet is powered by a quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset with Adreno 320 GPU, and 2GB of RAM. The Nexus 7 is one of the first tablets to run Android 4.4 KitKat, as well.

Plus, it's the only one of our tablet recommendations that weighs below 300 grams. The only real downside is that is has no memory card slot, so you should definitely pay the premium to get the 32GB model.

Finally, in terms of raw horsepower, nothing beats the Kindle Fire HDX. It runs on a quad-core 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor and Adreno 330 GPU, alongside 2GB of RAM. While it will handily outperform the Nexus 7, its Android version is highly customized and does not have Google Play support. Instead, you'll have to rely on the less-robust Amazon App Store for your app needs.

There's no microSD card slot either, so we recommend at least the 32GB version if you decide to go for the latest Kindle Fire.