The best tablets for under £200

 

Tablet sales this Christmas are expected to excede PCs for the first time

If the hype is to be believed, 2013 is going to be a tablet Christmas and, over the next few weeks, these handheld devices are set to outsell personal computers for the first time.

Google, Amazon, Samsung and even Tesco are vying to grab a big slice of the sales action – a market long dominated by the Apple iPad. Once dismissed as a product that would never catch on, tablet computers have transformed the way households access the internet and entertain themselves.

 

Want to catch up on a missed TV programme or watch a downloaded film on the go? It's now possible, and on a screen whose quality puts many TVs to shame. Then there's email that you can talk to rather than type, a web-surfing experience done by touch rather than mouse, and more games and apps than you can shake a stick at.

 

With the countdown to Christmas starting in earnest, Guardian Money decided to check out the non-Apple market – ie, the options for those who don't have the minimum £250 it costs to get your hands on the smallest iPad. We've weighed them up, checked the camera quality and surfed a thousand websites, so you don't have to. We also talked to the experts who live and breathe this stuff. Aiming at the lower end of the market, we have been largely restricted to seven-inch screens, and ones that use Wi-Fi rather than connecting via a phone network. But having weighed them up, we reckon the sub-£200 market will, for most people, come down to a choice of two. In the £120 price bracket, the one to go for – somewhat to our surprise is the Tesco Hudl. However, if you can find an extra £60 and we'd urge you to, if you can the Google Nexus 7 (from £180) is Money's top pick.

 

The fact they are always on  albeit in sleep mode and can be fired up in a second to end the dispute over which actor starred in a certain film, has helped make them indispensable. New voice recognition software is a boon to those who find typing difficult. A few swipes of the screen and you can dictate your email. It's not perfect but pretty damn good.