Tablet Camera Tests: iPad 2 vs. Motorola Xoom vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab

Overall Video Quality Scores

1. Canon PowerShot S95 (73.2, Good)

2. Apple iPhone 4 (71.6, Good)

3. Motorola Xoom (64.4, Fair)

4. Apple iPad 2 (60.6, Fair)

5. Cisco Flip Video UltraHD (60.4, Fair)

6. Apple iPod Touch (58.8, Poor)

7. Samsung Galaxy Tab (58.0, Poor)

There were a few surprises in our subjective video tests. Apple's iPad 2 fared much better in our video tests--even producing video quality on par with Cisco's Flip Video UltraHD, according to our panel of judges--but it still trailed behind the Motorola Xoom in terms of an overall score. No tablet earned a score greater than "Fair" for video quality, but there were notable differences.

The Xoom completed a sweep of both still-image and video categories by turning in the highest overall score of the tablets in our testbed. The Xoom captures 720p high-definition video at 30 frames per second, and it bested the tablet competition in our bright-light, low-light, and audio-capture tests. It outscored every device other than the Canon PowerShot S95 and Apple iPhone 4 for overall video quality, but that was only good enough for a score of Fair.

The iPad 2 landed in second place among the tablets, and it also captures 720p high-definition video at 30 frames per second. It earned a better video rating than the Cisco Flip Video UltraHD in our bright-light tests, and it was on par with the Flip in low-light situations, but it captured the weakest-sounding audio of the devices in our testbed. The iPad 2 also earned an overall video rating of Fair.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab's 720p/30fps video trailed all the devices in our testbed in terms of video quality, placing last or second-to-last in each video category. The Galaxy Tab turned in an overall video-quality score of Poor.

Here are the sample videos we shot with each device for our video-quality tests. You can find the break-down of each video scoring category below the videos.

Bright-Light Video Quality Scores

1. Canon PowerShot S95 (81, Good)

2. Apple iPhone 4 (74, Good)

3. Motorola Xoom (72, Good)

4. Apple iPad 2 (65, Fair)

5. Cisco Flip Video UltraHD (60, Fair)

6. Samsung Galaxy Tab (59, Fair)

7. Apple iPod Touch (58, Fair)

Low-Light Video Quality Scores

1. Apple iPhone 4 (74, Fair)

2. Canon PowerShot S95 (67, Fair)

3. Motorola Xoom (58, Fair)

4. (tie) Cisco Flip Video UltraHD (57, Fair)

4. (tie) Apple iPod Touch (57, Fair)

6. Apple iPad 2 (56, Fair)

7. Samsung Galaxy Tab (55, Poor)

Audio Quality Scores

1. Canon PowerShot S95 (70, Good)

2. Cisco Flip Video UltraHD (68, Fair)

3. Apple iPod Touch (64, Fair)

4. (tie) Apple iPhone 4 (62, Fair)

4. (tie) Motorola Xoom (62, Fair)

4. (tie) Samsung Galaxy Tab (62, Fair)

7. Apple iPad 2 (61, Fair)