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[pullquote style=”left” quote=”dark”]Bottom Line: As a flood of tablet options hit the market, make sure to weigh the benefits to see which features fit your best needs.[/pullquote] Almost every device manufacturer is producing a tablet these days. In March, the research firm IDC reported that 10.1 million tablets were shipped in the fourth quarter of 2010. According to IDC, this was more than double the 4.5 million shipped in the third quarter. IDC estimates that newcomers to the tablet arena will drive shipments to roughly 50 million in 2011. Among the recent crop are offerings from ASUS, HP, Motorola, RIM, Samsung and Toshiba. Some, including the Motorola Xoom, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, and the Toshiba Tablet AT100, are Android-based and use the latest 3.0 Honeycomb operating system.

But what does this all mean? Well if your’re considering buying a tablet for business use make sure you weigh up the options and consider what you’ll be using it for. Consider ruggedness and networking options such as Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity. Businesses that used web-based applications and have business-wide Wi-Fi on premise will find more choices, better prices and easier adoption of tablet technology. Also take into account the type of environment in which the tablet will be used when estimating return on investment. For instance, if the tablets are going to be used around construction sites or other areas where they could easily be damaged, then the IT department will either have to factor in the cost of “ruggedizing” the tablets with sturdy casings or the cost of repairs or replacements if they are damaged.

The end result is that there’s going to be a tablet option for everyone, but you have to map them to your applications and other requirements. To help we’ve done a quick run-down on a few of the latest tablet offerings.

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[accordion_toggle title=”Apple iPad2″][custom_list style=”list-2″]

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[accordion_toggle title=”ASUS Eee Pad Transformer”]

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[accordion_toggle title=”HP TouchPad”]

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[accordion_toggle title=”Motorola Xoom”]

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[accordion_toggle title=”RIM Blackberry Playbook”]

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[accordion_toggle title=”Toshiba Tablet AT100″]

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