The iPad was the obvious choice for first place in the Best Tablets page for a variety of reasons. It also won the Tom's Guide Award for the top tablet available for purchase for the first time in the spring of 2020, despite the fact that the tablet sector is more competitive than it has been in years, with Microsoft and Lenovo introducing strong tablets.

And this is because Apple's strength in the tablet field makes it difficult for other challengers to attack. While other slates can reach or slightly surpass the iPad's long battery life, the iPad continues to win because it offers the best interface and best apps as a pure tablet device.

We award this prize to the 7th generation iPad (2019) specifically because Apple continues to tweak the iPad every year to make it better. Its 10.2-inch screen is a welcome upgrade from the previous 9.7-inch panel, and its durability in battery tests jumped almost two full hours.

Meanwhile, Apple is improving the quality of life on the iPad with the changes seen in the iPadOS last year. While the name of its new OS may not seem like much more than a rebranding, multitasking on the iPad has never been easier thanks to touchpad support, and third-party keyboard makers such as Logitech are making the iPad more like a laptop by to take advantage of it.

That said, the iPad gets the best tablet award because the iPad OS is built on iOS, the perfect platform for a touch-and-tap tablet experience. while Windows 10 may be more powerful for many, its design still attempts to achieve a desktop and tablet interface at the same time, and is simply not as easy to use. As for Android tablets, even prominent third-party developers treat Android apps like second-class citizens compared to their iPad counterparts when it comes to design.

Nevertheless, the iPad has strong challengers, and with the 8th generation iPad expected to arrive later this year or next, the iPad has room for improvement. Microsoft's Surface Go 2 and Samsung's Galaxy Tab S6 Lite both have thinner bezels and longer battery life; the Lenovo Chromebook Duet is cheaper than the iPad outright and comes with a keyboard.

Nevertheless, the iPad's design hasn't aged well, and its excellent library of tablet-optimized apps has kept it at the top of the charts (for now). So Apple deserves its first Tom's Guide Top Tablet award.