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When the Ellipsis 7 tablet from Verizon Wireless arrived in my hands, I had a feeling that it could be a keeper. This is Verizon’s home-bred, in-house, call-it-their-own device and I could hardly wait to take it for a spin. The first thing I did was to see if it would fit the inside pocket of my business jacket. Bingo, it did. So finally I had found a tablet that I could carry around without having to hold it my hands or place in a brief case. Just tuck it in my inside coat pocket and go. The Ellipsis 7 is a 4G Android device running the 4.2.2 operating system, also known as Jelly Bean. It has a seven-inch display and front-facing speakers along the bottom that sound really good. Along the top of the device you'll find the headset port, which is where I think all headset ports should be located – hint, hint to the iPhone 5 designers. Along the bottom is the USB mini port for charging, while the right side holds a MicroSD card slot, microphone, power and volume keys, along with the...

Now that the iPad Mini has finally been unveiled, the real question is how it will fare among all the other small tablets on the market. Apple has given us a mini version of previous iPads, with an A5 dual-core chip, a 7.9-inch display, and a starting price of $329 for the 16 GB version. For the 32 GB and 64 GB models, you’ll need $429 and $529 for the latter. It also has a 10-hour battery life, LTE network capability, updated Wi-Fi performance, and as expected, the new Lightning connector that made a debut on the iPhone 5 and the new iPods announced on Sept. 12. It’s also around 24 percent less in depth than the most recent iPad. All of these features will certainly attract some attention, especially Apple fans, but the mini Apple wonder does have a few shortcomings. The resolution, which is 1024 x 768, doesn’t stack up with competing tablets and the A5 dual-core processor is from older hardware, being last used in the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S Another area of concern is as...

The Google tablet is no longer a rumor. Now we'll have the Google Nexus 7 by mid-July, or you can pre-order right now on Google's website for $199. According to Google, pre-ordered tablets will ship in two-three weeks and for a limited time, you'll get $25 to spend in Google's Play store on apps, games, books and movies. Google is also throwing in a free copy of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The Nexus 7 will have a 7-inch display and weigh about 0.75 pounds, which is right in line with other tablets of this size. It'll use Android's latest operating system, which is Jelly Bean, or Android 4.1, if you keep track of the version numbers. Google on their website has the battery rated for 10 hours of web browsing or 10 hours of e-reading, as well as over 8 hours of HD video playback. The Nexus 7 was built to work with Google Play, or Google's app store, where they're pitching over 600,000 apps and games and over four million books. Online storage a...