The best tablets that aren't the Apple iPad

If tablets were the Brady Bunch, the Apple iPad would be Marcia and, well, everything else would be Jan.

But that's not fair, right? Those other tablets have great qualities, too. (Just like Jan.) And just because they're not the most popular doesn't mean they're not worthy of your attention. (Just like Jan!)

Here are the best tablets that aren't the iPad, because they exist, too.

Cambridge Sound Management Nightingale

Most people can relate to the frustration of a bad night's sleep -- waking up groggy, wishing you could stay in bed for another hour... or three. Sadly, busy schedules often keep us from hitting the snooze button for too long.

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Massachusetts-based company Cambridge Sound Management (CSM) wants to end this cycle with Nightingale.

 

The Sure Shot HD brings arcade shooting games into your home

The new Sure Shot HD Android game console is all about bringing the fun of arcade games into the comfort of your living room.

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The actual console is quite small.

Photo by Patrick Holland/CNET

The Sure Shot HD console is tiny -- about the size of a thick smartphone. It has infrared lights on the front and connects to your television via HDMI and the internet via Wi-Fi. There is an arcade style wireless gun controller, which works similar to the way the NES Zapper did with Duck Hunt.

 

A fitness watch that holds all your music? Misfit Vapor wants to be that watch

Big, bright, round screen? Check. GPS? Check. Water resistant for swimming? Heart rate? Check, check. Misfit's newest fitness watch looks like it's going for all the features. But yet, after seeing it, I'm not even sure it'll exist in the form I saw.

Called Misfit Vapor, the round watch looks sharp and promises a mix of phone-connected and fully stand-alone functions. It also has Wi-Fi, and according to Misfit, it'll check email and even play music away from a phone.

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Misfit Vapor's weather report.

Scott Stein/CNET

But music playback is limited to MP3s, loaded via a computer over USB or Wi-Fi. The Vapor can't connect to a phone to transfer music because it can't hook into services like Google Play or Apple Music, and doesn't have its own on-phone app store. According to Misift, the goal is to head to streaming music services eventually: maybe Spotify, or Amazon Music. Even the MP3 function didn't work during my demo.