ROUND 4

Performance

Again, this is a topic that depends on the precise hardware; each category has its low and very high-end devices. If you’re spending $60 on a dinky Amazon Fire tablet, you can expect some awful performance and sluggish response times. If you drop upward of $1,000 on an iPad Pro, you’ll get a far more sprightly interface. Cheaper phones and cheaper Chromebooks have the same problem; they’re underpowered, built to hit a mark, and look nice in pictures. Lower-resolution screens, lesser processors, and skimping on RAM makes a big difference.

So, let’s look at the higher end. Benchmarks don’t help, as we’re breaking down three separate worlds, making this more a holistic assessment. There is no blowaway Chromebook. The Pixel Slate, for all its bravado, is not a blowaway tablet, and even flagship Android phones have their niggles. The latest-generation iOS devices are—however you feel about their creators or their philosophy—by far the most responsive and pleasing slabs of mobile hardware, and for all the tightness of the iPhone, the A12X Bionic inside the 2018 iPad Pro is the processor to beat. Winner:

Tablet