The screen quality is key for this size of tablet. Ten-inch tablets are often media consumption devices, so movies and photos need to look crisp and vivid. They're also being bought as a replacement for laptops, so this monitor needs to be good enough to work and play on.

The Nexus 10 delivers with a killer screen. The 2560-by-1600 screen packs in 300 pixels per inch (compared to the newer iPad's 264 pixels per inch). Movies and TV shows are rendered in full 1080p.

A beautiful screen is no good without speedy graphics, and luckily the Nexus 10 has a powerful dual-core A15 processor.

Cameras

Taking a photo with a tablet is odd, but as the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you. If all you have is an unwieldy rectangle with which to capture a moment, the Nexus 10's back camera is a fine pick. It has a flash and can capture 5-megapixel images and shoot 1080p videos.

Tablets are fantastic tools for video chatting, but the front camera always gets cheated on specs. The Nexus 10 is no exception. Its front-facing camera has no flash and captures 1.9 megapixel images and 720p videos.

The camera hardware is average, but there are some nice touches in the software. The view is clutter free when you're composing a shot, but tap anywhere on the screen and a nifty control dial appears that lets you adjust settings such as exposure compensation, scene mode, white balance and flash.

In the gallery view, you can do detailed edits, including the option to instantly Instagram-ize your images by adding filters and borders.

The final touch is the panorama mode. There's the regular rectangular pano mode, which can capture and stitch together 360-degree images. But the winner is the photo sphere mode, which can go in all directions to capture a complete, street view-esque image of your surroundings.