Hardware companies are showing off a wide range of their devices starting this month. Will Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and ASUS Pad Infinity give Apple a run for its money?

IDC reported that Apple dominated the tablet market on the second quarter of 2012, with the iPad grabbing 68 per cent of global sales. The preliminary report released on Thursday in the US by IDC showed global tablet sales of 25 million - up 33.6 per cent from the first quarter and 66.1 per cent year-over-year.

Apple got a boost from the March release of its newest version of the iPad, and sold 17 million tablets in the second quarter. Samsung jumped into second place with sales of nearly 2.4 million, up 117 per cent from a year earlier.

However, Apple should watch its back as top competitors are making its way this month. These are Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity. Samsung made headlines last quarter with the success of Samsung Galaxy S3. ASUS, on the other hand, is carving its way in the hardware market when it made the Nexus 7 tablet of Google.

Below is the comparison of Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity and new iPad.

Screen Display

Apple's new iPad has a 9.7 inches LED-backlit multi-touch, high-resolution Retina Display screen with In Plane Switching (IPS) technology and a resolution of 1536x2048 pixels. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, on the other hand, has 10.1 inch screen with a 1200x800 pixel resolution. Lastly, Asus Pad Infinity has a 10.1 inch screen and 1920x1200 pixel resolution.

Processor

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has 1.4GHz Exynos quad core processor and 2GB of RAM. The new iPad is powered by Apple's A5X dual core custom designed processor with quad-core graphics and 1GB of RAM. ASUS Pad Infinity has NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 4-Plus-1TM Quad-core CPU clocked at 1.6Ghz.

Operating System

Apple's new iPad will run with iOS 5 and will soon be upgraded to iOS 6. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and ASUS Pad Infinity both run with Android version 4.0Ice Cream Sandwich.

Camera

The new iPad has 5 MP camera at the back and VGA-quality front camera. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has 5 MP and 1.9MP shooters at the back at front of the device, respectively. ASUS Pad Infinity has 8MP rear auto-focus camera with LED flash and a 2MP front camera.

Battery Life

Samsung's device runs on a 7000mAh Li-ion battery. The new iPad is powered by a built-in 42.5 watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery that Apple claims can provide 10 hours of Internet browsing (on Wi-Fi), watching video or listening to music. ASUS Pad Infinity claimed that it has 14 hours of battery life.

It seems that the two other devices are strong contenders against the new iPad. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and ASUS Pad Inifinity will be both released on August 29 in New Zealand.