D&H Distributing asked VARs attending its recent New England Technology Show to rank tablet PCs in six categories: most stylish, most economical, most innovative, most versatile, most enjoyable and most user friendly. More than 100 VARs participated and the results follow. The results are limited to tablets that D&H sells and showcased at the show.

1. Acer ICONIA
2. Samsung Galaxy Tab
3. Lenovo IdeaPad K1

The Acer Iconia tablet was chosen most stylish by attendees. "It is light and easy to use and a great value," said Jeff Davis, senior vice president of sales at D&H.

1. Acer ICONIA
2. ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, Samsung Galaxy Tab (tie)
3. Lenovo IdeaPad K1

The Iconia also was chosen most economical, the only tablet to win two categories. "At the time, it was $399. Most everyone else was $399 to $499. When you look at the piece and compare the value of it at $399, it's a very good device for that price," said D&H's Davis.

1. Asus Eee Pad Transformer
2. Toshiba Thrive
3. Lenovo IdeaPad K1

VARs chose the Asus Eee Pad Transformer as being the most innovative tablet.

"A lot of that came into play because of the great features that gives it an advantage. It's got a little more, like you can plug a keyboard in. It also had the ability to connect HDMI out and takes a Micro SD card," Davis said.

1. Lenovo IdeaPad K1
2. Acer ICONIA, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (tie)
3. Toshiba Thrive

Lenovo captured the most versatile tablet, perhaps because of its Micro SD and HDMI output features too, said Davis. "It also has a nice grippy feel on the back of it. A lot of tablets are very smooth and slippery. This one has a more versatile grip to the back of it," he added.

1. Samsung Galaxy Tab
2. Toshiba Thrive
3. Lenovo IdeaPad K1

Samsung's Galaxy Tab doesn't have USB or SD card support, but it was chosen as the most enjoyable tablet that D&H showcased at the New England show.

"They really liked the overlay on the Android interface," said D&H's Davis.

1. Toshiba Thrive
2. ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, Lenovo IdeaPad K1, Samsung Galaxy Tab (tie)
3. Acer ICONIA

"I think [VARs] chose Toshiba for a couple reasons," said Davis. "It has full HDMI and a full SD card in it. And it has a removable battery. It's very user friendly. You can take a lot of photographs and plug it right into the TV with an HDMI cable," he said.

One product was showcased at the show but removed from the final results: Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad, which HP announced it would stop making.

Davis said the TouchPad held up fairly well against the competition. "It didn't do well in the most economical category. Back then it was $399 to $499. That was before they cut it to $99. I think it would have done better at $99," Davis said. "It ranked pretty high in most enjoyable. I think [VARs] clearly liked the WebOS."

However, according to HP, the TouchPad tablet will see another run of production to fulfill what it's calling "unfulfilled demand."