When it comes to tablets, the display’s the thing, as the old saying goes. Now that there are a few significant Android-based rivals to the iPad throne, Dr. Raymond Soneira, President of DisplayMate Technologies, decided to get his hands on four such tablets and see how their display stacks up against the better selling iPad 2.

Dr. Soneira released his latest Display Technology Shoot-Out, this time aiming his focus at tablets -- specifically the iPad 2, along with four of its Android 3.1 Honeycomb-based rivals: Motorola Xoom, Asus Transformer, Acer Iconia A500 and the latest challenger to the throne, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

“For Tablets the display is the single most expensive and important hardware component because it determines the quality of the visual experience for every application,” Dr. Soneira elaborates in the introduction to their latest report. “In this very hot ultra-competitive category an outstanding display is the single best way for manufacturers to make their Tablets stand out from the competition -- particularly for Android based devices that have nearly identical OS. On the flip side, cutting corners, costs and quality for the display is a serious mistake because it results in sub-standard image and picture quality for everything that runs on the Tablet.”

Among the highlights of the report at DisplayMate: Both the Motorola Xoom and Acer Iconia feature a lower performance LCD screen than their rivals, making the less expensive Asus Transformer the better choice for budget-minded buyers. Dr. Soneira claims that all of the tablets suffer from having “large, mirror-like screens” that require “higher screen brightness and more battery power to offset the reflected light, and it also causes eye strain.”

So which tablet performed the best? Surprisingly, it was a close call.

“While the iPad 2 display easily outperformed all of the previous Android Tablets, with the new Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung has delivered the first Android Tablet with an impressive, potentially outstanding display, but then ruined it by turning up the color level to obnoxious levels,” Dr. Soneira reveals. “As a result the iPad 2 still delivers the best color picture quality and accuracy of all of the Tablets, even though its colors are somewhat subdued.

“As things stand, based on all of the display tests, the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 are reasonably close in performance in most categories, so it’s almost a tie, but the Galaxy Tab is ahead more often than the iPad 2, so the Galaxy Tab is the Winner, by a nose,” Dr. Soneira concludes.

That leaves the $399 Asus Transformer in third place, which Dr. Soneira claims “delivers very good display performance across the board, all the more impressive because it is $100 less expensive than the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab, and $200 less than the Motorola Xoom.” Speaking of which, the Xoom came in dead last, with the Acer Iconia rounding out the report in fourth place -- proving yet again that the most expensive option is not necessarily the best one.

Tablet fans are encouraged to read the full Tablet Display Technology Shoot-Out, which is now live on the DisplayMate website.

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