The GSMArena tablet shopping guide: March 2014

Wi-Fi-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 Wi-Fi-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 (available in the US and the UK). 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 - it costs $129/ £79 respectively. That's less than €100, so it's a price other major manufacturers simply can't beat. However, Barnes & Noble is more or less clearing its inventory than making a dime on these prices. Rumors are they have a new tablet range to announce in 2014.

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 have difficulty getting future Android versions.

Also 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. If you do however you are in for a big tablet on a bargain basement price.

Up next is a compact tablet from Asus. While perhaps not necessarily the first name that springs to mind when it comes to compact size tablets, Asus is now the world's third largest tablet maker and Google's prime tablet hardware partner. And that should tell you something.

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 - it's either 8GB or 16GB of built-in storage with this one.

The screen is a bit low on pixel density, but it's an IPS LCD unit so it offers excellent side viewing angles making for a nice user experience.

The second generation Nexus 7 (2013) 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 yet few tablets to run Android 4.4 KitKat, as well. Not to mention it's pretty much the only compact tablet to come with built-in wireless charging capabilities, which is a nice perk even though you'd need an optional wireless charger for that.

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. The user available storage on the 16GB version simply doesn't cut it.

Finally, in terms of raw horsepower, only few tablets can match or beat 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-varied Amazon App Store for your app needs and have Amazon's web services replace Google's.

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