As more people shift to tablets, the pioneer tablet maker, Apple, has seen its market share shrink in favour of the Android tablet. Blame it on the price, but due to the higher price tags on Apple's iPad, more consumers are shifting to ones that use the Android OS that 2013 would likely end up as the Year of Android Slates.

To help that become a reality, several tech Web sites gave their expert opinion on the top 5 Android tablets and their lists are almost identical, except for the ranking. Since the ranking is largely subjective, we are instead listing what these portals consider the best slates of the year, in no particular order, except for the top slate.

  • Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 - It currently holds 11.8 per cent of the market. The device sports a 7-inch screen with 1024x600 resolution display. While it may not be as powerful as the Nexus 7, it has offsetting features such as the micro SD card slots that allow the owner to boost storage from the stock of 8GB for just a few extra dollars. It is powered by a dual-core Texas Instrument OMAP processor, 3 megapixel rear-facing camera, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich which could be upgraded to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

  • Google Nexus 7 - It is the first device under the Nexus brand rolled out by Google. Specs include Vidia Tegra 3 quad-core process with a clock of 1.2 GHz, a choice of 16GB or 2GB storage, 7-inch screen with 1280x800 resolution screen, 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera and a battery that could run for 10 hours. It runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS. Market share, however, is relatively small at 3.8 per cent.

  • Google Nexus 10 - This tablet features a 10-inch screen with a 2560x1600 resolution display, a dual-core ARM Cortex A15 processor and quad-core Mali T604 graphics processor. Owners have the choice of buying a unit with 16GB or 32GB of storage. It has a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera and battery life of 11 hours.

  • Kindle Fire HD - It enjoys a 4.9 per cent market share, and has for its specs a dual-core processor with a clock speed of 1.5GHz, 8.9 inches of screen size, 32GB of internal memory and 7 hours battery life.

  • Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 - This is the flagship tablet of the South Korean tech giant, featuring a 10.1-inch screen with 1280x800 resolution display, 1.4GHz Exynos quad-core processor, 5 megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera, a choice of 16GH, 32GH or 64GB storage and 10 hours of battery life. It runs of 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS, but could be upgraded to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The device enjoys an 8.3 per cent market share.

MensXP.com explained the non-stop popularity of tables to their proficiency, portability and offer of better ergonomics. So far, there are 75 million Android tablets around the world in use, according to App publisher Animoca where the Galaxy Tab 2 had an 11.8 per cent market share as against Localytics which have the same Samsung slate the top market share at 18.3 per cent.

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