Up until now the tablet market has been pretty much Apple's lonely playground. But while the company is not likely to lose its throne anytime soon, its dominance could face some challenges ahead with the arrival of Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire and the introduction of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

We've compiled a comparative table with what we consider are the hottest tablets either currently available or announced so far. You should know that specs only paint part of the picture, so we've also included metascores from our Product Finder engine and review links to help you dig deeper and narrow down your next purchase.

The iPad was able to outclass virtually every other tablet computer experience before it, and it's not going too far in saying that it created a market that didn't even exist. Fast forward to the present, everybody wants in, and most are taking advantage of the Android OS.

The Eee Pad Transformer goes beyond what most tablets are capable of by doubling as a Honeycomb-based netbook. Based on that premise and an attractive price since launch, it quickly became one of the most attractive Android tablets around.