The starting gun for the Christmas gadget race will be fired on November 1st when the Samsung Galaxy tablet will be available from all O₂ stores. This year has witnessed a revolution in the electronic gadget market, with the influx of smartphones and the invasion of the tablet. Consequently, the world of browsing has changed forever. There are at least 10 new tablets already in or coming in to the market; five for the big brands including the BlackBerry Playbook, Cisco Cius, Avaya Flare, Windows 7, HP Tablet and the Samsung Galaxy. These new additions will engage in battle with Apple’s iPad; the current hot pick of tablets.

With analysts’ claims that the iPad has outsold the launch of other devices and gadgets (including the first ever DVD player), the power of the tablet as an interactive medium is vastly becoming evident. Recent statements have acknowledged its increasing presence in business, and so which tablet is the right tablet stands out as a dominant question.

Mark Seemann, CTO at Cloud provider Outsourcery said, “By early 2011, the UK market will be awash with Business Tablets giving much needed competition to Apple’s iPad. Factors that are likely to influence such decisions will include performance, design, connectivity and price. Measuring up these details, it seems most have taken inspiration from the iPad whilst adapting it to represent their own brand.”

BlackBerry is a premium brand when it comes to business mobile devices and if the initial specification of the BlackBerry Playbook is to be believed, then it should prove very popular. Sporting a new QNXoperating system that supports Adobe Flash, HTML5, multi-tasking, Unified Communications in the form of integrated video conferencing, integrated 3G and Wi-Fi and full High Definition video; the Playbook looks seriously fit for purpose. The rumours are that there will be 16GB and 32GB models available at launch.