The tablet has now joined the ranks of the technology elite. Alongside its smartphone brethren, it has become the must have gadget this year. Plenty entered the arena of tablet battle and few have emerged victorious. 

With the 8th Pocket-lint awards coming up soon we need you to get voting in this battle of the slates. It is no easy task with such great stuff on offer, so why no take a peek at this handy round up of this year's nominees. Who knows, might make deciding just that little bit easier. 

Apple iPad 2

Price

£499

Released

March 2011

PL review score

4.5 stars

The King has returned. A phrase not only applicable to Mufasa in the Lion King, but also Apple's iPad 2, at least at launch. The lighter, thinner sequel to what was the tablet to beat, managed to steal the crown from its older brother and run a mile with it. With a dual-core processor, front and back facing cameras and a redesigned cover, this was the tablet that everyone hoped the first generation would be. 

Since launch it has become the Apple fanboy's favourite, its design oozing everything that Apple is about, brushed aluminium and all. A definite hot product in the tablet domain if there ever was one. 

Motorola XOOM

Price

£450

Released

March 2011

PL review score

4.5 stars

The Motorola XOOM, despite breaking a few punctuation rules with its name and shipping with hardware that Honeycomb couldn't support, still impressed massively. With all issues fixed,  the result is a tablet that was not only first to the Honeycomb game, but remains one of the best available.

First up was the build quality, which was of Moto's usual high standards and did justice to the tablet being the first Honeycomb release. Second was the more than adequate hardware, which included things like front and back cameras and 32GB of interal storage. 

Asus EeePad Transformer

Price

£342

Released

March 2011

PL review score

4.5 stars

The Transformer proved that just because a product was cheaper than the competition, didn't mean it couldn't perform. For the first time ever the tablet and keyboard dock combo felt right, Honeycomb ran smoothly and the device itself looked great.

Tablets are all about being stylish and the Asus definitely didn't disappoint. They are also about being powerful, again this was true of the Asus, helped along by a Tegra 2 chipset. A decent screen and even a good preloaded apps suite ensured this was a tablet we wouldn't forget. 

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Price

£499

Released

July 2011

PL review score

4.5 stars

It didn't take long for Samsung to join in the tablet game. This came in the form of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. A gargantuan in power terms it was enough to tempt a few fans away from camp Apple

Highlights included a display that boasted all the same tech as the Galaxy S II smartphone, which meant it looked incredible. It also had a decent battery life and impressive photo and video capabilities. The build quality was also something to be jealous about. Great stuff from Samsung as per usual. 

BlackBerry PlayBook

Price

£220

Released

April 2011

PL review score

4.5 stars

BlackBerry tried to do something different with the PlayBook, creating a tablet that was smaller than the competition at 7 inch, but still immensely powerful. It didn't use Android, instead a specially developed QNX OS, which managed things like multitasking very well.

Inside was all the power you would ever want from a tablet. On the front and back was a pair of impressive cameras. All this was wrapped up in a nicely designed tablet package, which still proves decent now. All the boxes were ticked; screen quality, memory, power and battery life. 

What is your favourite? Let us know in the comments below ...