The Tablet 600 is one of two Windows 8 tablets unveiled at this year’s Computex trade show

Intel’s low cost Classmate PC has a new friend: the Studybook, a rugged Android tablet that’s intended for the education market. That means it’s been designed to be simple, reliable, cheap and very tough

Gadget fans were thrilled by leaked news of the Courier tablet. Microsoft’s e-reader-come-tablet boasted drop-dead gorgeous looks, an innovative user interface and the cool factor Microsoft’s Windows-powered tablets lacked, and it rocketed to the top of many users’ wish lists. Last month, more news finally emerged – but it wasn’t good. Microsoft isn’t going to make it.

Microsoft’s been showing off the next, tablet-friendly version of Windows: Windows 8. The good news is that it’s looking very impressive; the bad news is that it won’t be out until next year. If it’s as good as it looks, Windows 8 could make a dent in Apple’s iPad empire.

Acer has not one, not two but three tablets it hopes will excite and delight you: the seven-inch A100, the ten-inch A500 and the ten-inch, Windows powered W500.

Tablets, we’re told, are the future: desktops and laptops have had their day in the sun and it’s time for tablets to take over. Here’s the questions you should be asking before you buy one.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) is a very big deal – especially now that smartphones are outselling PCs. As more and more of us do our computing on tablet devices, MWC is a kind of crystal ball showing what we’ll be using in the months and years to come. So what were the stars of MWC 2011?

Dell has two tablets to choose from: the 5-inch Streak 5 and the forthcoming seven-inch Streak 7. A third tablet, the Streak 10, is due later this year, although that one’s aimed at business users and will run Windows. So what do Dell’s current tablets have to offer?

The Viewpad promises the best of both worlds: all the horsepower of a Windows tablet for work, and the fun of Android for touch-related tomfoolery. When it’s good it’s very, very good, but it has a couple of serious flaws – not least that you can’t actually buy it yet.

Tablets will be everywhere this year. Where 2010 was largely about tech firms promising tablets that didn’t turn up, 2011 is when the big hitters will actually ship. So what’s worth getting excited about?