(Please note: this is not a comprehensive roundup of every tablet on the market, nor a detailed list of every specification of those tablets. It's my examination of what will actually suit my needs – which if you read on you'll discover.)

When I bought my iPad three years ago, the tablet market was brand new. If you wanted a tablet, there was the iPad. And, er, that was it. Three years later, my iPad has slowed down to the point where it's more annoying than useful. I've jailbroken it and stripped it back to the bare essentials, removing software and music, but it simply doesn't do what I want it to do any more.

So it's time for a new tablet. But in the past three years, the tablet scene has exploded: the iPad has evolved and has acquired a little brother, the mini; Google has unleashed its Nexus range of Android tablets; other manufacturers have joined the Android party; smartphones have got bigger and smarter; and most recently, Microsoft has joined the party with the touch-focused Windows 8.

There are so many to choose from that it's hard to know where to start. Do I want a small tablet? Do I want something that can do duty as a laptop? Which OS do I want?

In no particular order, what I want from a new tablet is that it's lightweight, so that I can hold it in one hand comfortably. I also want a decent onscreen keyboard, because I do some emailing/Facebooking/tweeting on it, though as I've got a small Bluetooth keyboard I'm not bothered about a supplementary physical keyboard. I'd like it to be able to interact with my network at home so that I can pull and push files on and off it to other networked locations, including to the cloud. I want to be able to use it with my TV, preferably via HDMI rather than fiddly software-based wireless methods. I'd rather it didn't have any proprietary connectors.

I want to travel with it, so it would be nice if it could handle rudimentary photo-editing, though I'm less bothered about video and I rarely use a tablet to take pictures. On connectivity, I'm not bothered about 3G (or 4G) as I'm rarely too far from a Wi-Fi connection.

As I'm in the privileged position of being able to borrow devices, I gathered a selection of tablets of various sizes and OSs, with no particular view on which I would end up choosing – though I thought I might go for a Windows device.

A bite of the Apple

I started with Apple, borrowing both an iPad 4 and an iPad mini. I rather like the size and weight of the iPad mini: it sits comfortably in one hand, and, like its bigger sibling, handles photo-editing magnificently with iPhoto. The 4:3 aspect ratio isn't so great for watching some video, but it does mean that the screen isn't too narrow – a niggle I have with the 16:9 Nexus 7. I also like the fact that the mini goes neatly into the smallish handbag I carry, and its "Smart Cover" (which rolls out to be a stand) is thoughtfully designed and implemented. But, like the iPad 4, it doesn't want to play nicely with other OSs: getting an iOS device to deal with networked shares, never mind send anything to a networked printer, is a world of pain that involves wading through third-party apps.

The iPad is also more complicated than I have patience for as a device to use with the TV, requiring an Apple TV for the connection. That joins you to the world of iTunes content, but doesn't connect you to the wider web. You could of course hack your Apple TV, but that is unnecessarily complicated. The other option is to mirror your iPad on to your TV via the Apple TV, which is a neat trick, but which I found in practice worked erratically. And the tiny Apple TV remote is begging to be lost.

Another demerit for the iPads is their proprietary connector – and that has changed from the old 30-pin connector to the new nine-pin Lightning cable, meaning that I'd have to buy adapters to get my old accessories to work with a new iPad.

The Retina screen on the iPad 4 is pin-sharp, but that had the negative effect of making the Mini's screen look sub-par, particularly when compared with the beautifully sharp Nexus 7.

In short, the verdict on the iPads was that they're great if you are comfortable in the warm embrace of the Apple ecosystem. But my requirements are wider. Which is a shame, as I was warmly disposed towards the delightfully portable iPad mini.

Opening up Windows

Next, I turned to the nascent Windows tablet ecosystem, in the form of a Microsoft Surface RT and a Samsung Ativ Smart PC 500T.

The Surface RT is a chunky piece of kit, which made it more difficult to hold in one hand than a thinner device, and – another black mark – it too has a proprietary power interface, a magnetic charger which is fiddly to connect. However, it is blessed with a comprehensive range of connectivity and expansion options: USB, MicroSD and micro HDMI out, which meant I could plug it directly into my TV: no faffing about with flaky wireless connections. The Touch Cover is beautifully implemented, but there aren't many occasions I want to attach a physical keyboard to a tablet, and at an additional £99, it's just a bit more than I want to spend.

Windows 8's Modern UI comes to life with touch, but the RT is too limited for my purposes: not being able to use desktop software was more annoying than I expected. You're stuck with IE10 – there are no other browsers for the platform. While using the RT I realised that I rely heavily on extensions to Chrome, and I missed them. It was pointed out to me when I moaned about this to a friend that I don't grumble about not being able to use extensions on other platforms, but perhaps it's because I expect a more customisable experience with Windows, and so a restricted Windows is surprisingly disappointing. Not being able to add the RT to my domain network was also a niggle, although that won't be a problem for most home users (it is, however, a reason why RT devices are unlikely to make inroads into enterprise).

The Samsung Ativ 500T runs an Intel Atom processor, and so is more of a fully featured Windows machine, and, undocked from its rather plasticky optional keyboard, feels more one-hand-friendly than its Microsoft counterpart. It boasts a comprehensive range of I/O ports, with micro HDMI (meaning it will plug straight into the telly), USB and a microSD slot. It also comes loaded – or burdened, depending on your take – with several Samsung-specific apps and a stylus, the S Pen. If you've used Samsung's Android-based Galaxy devices, you'll be familiar with Samsung's extras. I thought they were rather unintuitive, though the stylus is useful when working in desktop mode.

I wanted to love this: my home is mostly a Windows home, and I very nearly did. However, it's heavy even without the optional keyboard dock (which also adds further USB ports) at 744g, and as with the Surface, I never warmed to the onscreen keyboard. It also has a bulky power cable that ends in a tiny nipple connector. Unlike the Surface, which comes with Office (Word, Excel and Powerpoint), the Ativ doesn't have productivity software. If I want Office, that would be another additional cost on top of an already pricey device (at around £700, it is, perhaps unsurprisingly given the spec, in the laptop rather than the tablet zone).

Meet the Android

From there I moved into the Android ecosystem, with a Samsung Galaxy Note II and a Note 10.1, and a Google Nexus 7 and Nexus 10. User interfaces are a very personal preference, but I fail to see why people love their Galaxy kit so much: I thought the custom UI was ugly, and the additional Samsung apps got in the way of functions that vanilla Android does perfectly well unaided. Perhaps wanting to tempt Apple fans, many of the Samsung apps are skeuomorphic, which to my eyes look out of place on a sleek modern tablet.

Additionally, the Note 10.1 has a proprietary charger and both devices have no additional I/O ports. In their favour, the screens on both devices are lovely – very sharp and clear – and the stylus is useful, though plasticky and too easy to lose. But having spent time with Google's Nexus tablets and got used to the unadorned Android on those devices, the fussiness of the Samsung UI was offputting, to say the least.

And so to Google's devices. I started this search with a friend's cast-off Nexus 7, which has a lot going for it: it's lightweight, inexpensive and has a beautiful, pin-sharp screen: it's another device that makes the screen of the iPad Mini seem fuzzy and antediluvian by contrast. However, its only connector is the micro USB, through which it charges, so no plugging it into the TV. And the 16:9 aspect ratio means that the screen feels either not deep enough in landscape, and too deep in portrait mode.

The Nexus 10, however, seems to be the device that hits the sweet spot for me. It's slim and light enough to hold with one hand, and, like all Android devices, it offers keyboard swiping as a means of text input, which I love: I infinitely prefer it to hunt-and-peck with one finger. It has micro-HDMI, so I can hook it up to the telly.

The lack of a native file browser in Android is puzzling, but once I'd installed a third-party file browser, it connected to all my network shares without a murmur of protest. Combined with the lovely sharp screen and lack of fuss about performing all kinds of functions, from interacting with the network to connecting to my TV without insisting I stay within its walled garden, it's a very nice device indeed.

The results

So what am I going to choose to replace my iPad 1? In third place is the Samsung Ativ 500T. I would love a smaller, lighter but full-featured Windows 8 tablet, but until those appear, this comes in third. Having said that, I'm not going to buy one – it's too expensive. But I did think about it.

In second place, despite its limitations, is the iPad mini. It feels expensive, given that its screen is the least spectacular, and on paper it fails to tick many of my boxes. But I really liked its size, form factor and weight. If I were feeling rich, I would probably treat myself to one of these as well as the winner...

…which, hitting the sweet spot of size, weight, functionality, connectivity and price is the Nexus 10. Slim, light, keyboard swiping, and micro-HDMI.

And just to help you dither, here's a table with all that written up. Handbag sizes may vary, so do measure yours first.

Tablets: a few to choose from Tablet Screen

size Aspect

ratio Weight Proprietary

charger? Micro

USB Other s/w

keyboards? Screen

resolution TV

link? Fits in

handbag? Price Google Nexus 7 7in 16:9 340g N Y Y 1280x800 N Y From £159 Google Nexus 10 10in 16:10 603g N Y Y 2560x1600 Y via HDMI Bit too big From £319 Samsung Ativ 500T 11.6 16:9 748g Y N N, optional dock 1366x768 Y via HDMI Biggish one Around £700 Microsoft Surface RT 10.6in 16:9 681g Y Y N, optional docks (cost extra) 1366x768 Y via HDMI Only in bigger ones From £399 Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 10.1in 16:10 600g Y N Y 1280x800 N Big handbag, but light From £379 Samsung Galaxy Note II 5.5in 16:9 182.5g N Y Y 1280x720 N Pocket-friendly From ~£400 iPad Mini 7.9in 4:3 308g Y N N 1024x768 Only with Apple TV Great From £269 iPad 4 9.7in 4:3 652g Y N N 2048x1536 Only with Apple TV Chunky; OK for a big one From £399 iPad 1 9.7in 4:3 680g Y N N 1024x768 Only with Apple TV Heavy, ok for big one n/a

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