CES 2015: 10 Tablets That Were A Notch Above The Rest

Talking About Tablets

CES 2015 brought all sorts of new innovations including ones in the tablet space. This year in Las Vegas, tablets of all different shapes and sizes including the thinnest tablet in the world and tablets that are likely bigger than your TV at home were on display.

Many well-established tablet vendors brought some new 2-in-1 devices to the show floor, while others really pushed the limits on competitive pricing for good hardware.

Here are 10 tablets that caught our eye at CES 2015.

Dell Venue 8 7000

At just 6mm thin, the Dell Venue 8 7000 is the thinnest tablet in the world, even thinner than some of the most popular new smartphones on the market. The tablet has a durable aluminum casing, so the thin measurements don’t add concern about drops or bumps. The screen is a durable 8.4-inch 2,560 x 1,600 edge-to-edge OLED infinity display. The new Dell tablet is also the first consumer device to feature the Intel RealSense Snapshot Depth Camera, which incorporates a depth map to every picture taken.

Samsung Galaxy Tab Active

The Samsung Galaxy Tab Active is a ruggedized, business-focused tablet that Samsung unveiled just last month. It comes with a bundle of Samsung-made enterprise apps and Samsung Knox, the company's mobile security platform. The Galaxy Tab Active features an 8-inch LCD screen and a large, easy-to-replace battery as the back panel easily slides right off. The Samsung tablet features the C-Pen, allowing users to write with the device and take notes.

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 With AnyPen

Lenovo unveiled three Yoga tablets that support its new AnyPen technology, which allows users to use virtually anything as a stylus for the specific tablet models. Here at CES, Lenovo demonstrated the AnyPen technology using a range of things ranging from a pencil to fountain pen to even a carrot.

The 8-inch Yoga Tablet 2 with Windows, featuring Lenovo AnyPen Technology, will be available beginning this month with models starting at $300. The tablet itself has a 1.86GHz Intel Atom processor, 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage running Windows 8.1. It also features an 8-inch LED LCD display.

Toshiba Encore 2 Write

Budget tablets have suffered in the productivity department because many of the entry-level tablets have lacked advanced hardware and software features that allow users to do more with them. Toshiba is hoping to change expectations by juicing its entry-level tablet line with premium pen technology in partnership with Wacom.

Toshiba introduced two Encore 2 Write Windows-based tablets at CES that come with a Wacom digitizer pen. The pen corresponds to Toshiba apps such as TruNote that supports note-taking, archiving and searching along with handwriting recognition.

The tablets come in 10.1-inch and 8-inch models with Intel Atom processors, 2 GB of RAM, 11 hours of battery life and Windows 8.1.

Asus Transformer Book T300 Chi

At CES, Asus rolled out what it says is the world’s thinnest 12.5-inch detachable 2-in-1 device. The tablet is 7.6mm thin and has a nice 12.5-inch WQHD (2,560 x 1,440) IPS display. The Windows 8.1 device runs on the latest Intel Core M processor and gets up to eight hours of battery life. At $800, many are applauding Asus for this device, calling it a less expensive rival to the Windows Surface Pro 3.

Fuhu Nabi Big Tab XL

No that’s not a smart TV, that’s a 65-inch tablet. Fuhu rolled out the biggest tablets in the industry coming in 32-, 43- and 55 inchesl. The two bigger models of the massive Android tablet come with 4K resolution for a large display that also looks sharp.

The company says the Nabi Big Tab XL also features 4 GB of RAM, an octa-core Nvidia Tegra X1 chip, NFC technology and a 2-megapixel camera for videoconferencing. As the tablet is obviously not as mobile as your typical tablet, Fuhu aims to go after the smart home with its biggest product.

Lenovo Tab 2 A7-10

Lenovo is pushing the envelope on competitively priced tablets with the release of the Tab 2 A7-10. The device has a 7-inch 1,024 x 600-pixel resolution display and runs on a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek processor. The device is priced at just less than $100 and has 8 GB of internal storage.

Lenovo also rolled out the Tab 2 A7-30 at CES for $130, and has similar specs to the A7-10, except it offers a slightly better processor, a 2-megapixel camera and 16 GB of storage.

Toshiba Portege Z20t

Toshiba came out with its own 2-in-1 device at CES to compete with the Surface Pro 3 in the new Portege Z20t.

The tablet has a 12.5-inch LED display (1,920 x 1,080) and runs on an Intel Core M processor. One of its best features, however, is its battery life as the convertible gets more than nine hours in tablet mode and more than 17 hours when docked to a keyboard. The Portege Z20t also gets 128 GB of SSD storage and up to 8 GB of memory. Users will also enjoy the digitizer stylus pen for jotting notes. The stand-alone tablet starts at $899 or $1,399 with the keyboard.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S

Not all the tablets at CES were brand spanking new, but Samsung still had its Galaxy Tab S out on display on the show floor as it is still considered to be on a short list of top tablets from 2014.

The Samsung device launched in June, and many referred to it as ’an iPad killer’ at the time. The Galaxy Tab S features a 10.5-inch Super AMOLED display (2,560 x 1,600) and is considered the top rival to Apple’s iPad Air. The device gets more than nine hours of battery life, has 3 GB of RAM and the tablet itself is just 6.6mm thin.

Hisense Sero 8 Pro

Here is a tablet that launched last fall in Europe, but U.S. consumers got a chance to get their hands on it for the first time at CES.

The Android tablet features a 1.8GHz Quad-Core ARM processor and 16 GB of storage in addition to all metal framing. It also has a 7.9-inch 2K display and measures just 6.35mm thin.