It’s an article about tablet computing, so I’ll start with the iPad as always. No, seriously — despite its underwhelming name and many disappointments feature-wise, Apple’s newest device is still the standard to which newer tablets will always be compared to. So how does iiView’s own offering, the new Vpad, fare? You decide.

The Vpad isn’t too bad — it runs on the well-received Microsoft OS, Windows 7 starter platform and you can just as easily switch to a different OS if you really wanted to.

But it does fall short on the hardware side of things. It’s based on the Intel Atom N270, which makes watching videos — something most people get tablets for, anyway — difficult at best.

Sure, it can handle Hulu and YouTube videos as long as you watch them on a lower resolution and that you don’t watch them full-screen. Once you do, though, it can be hiccup-y enough to be annoying and this can be partly attributed to the absence of a HD accelerator.

So if you’re looking for a tablet device for your basic browsing, e-book reading, and other such needs, then the Vpad is worth a once-over. There are two versions to choose from — the 160GB version with 1GB RAM for $499, and the 320GB version with 2GB RAM and 3G for $699.

Via: Crunch Gear