When looking for a tablet for someone with dyslexia, there are a number of important factors that must be considered to make sure you get the features that are most important to the user, and get the best value for your needs. First, you want to consider what the tablet will be used for. Will it be used primarily for reading books and browsing the web, or will it be used to type documents, read email, and edit movies. Generally, for people with dyslexia, it is important that the tablet have built in text-to-speech with a high quality voice. All three of these tablets have text-to-speech, but the way text-to-speech is implemented is different from tablet to tablet. The iPad allows text-to-speech to be activated in a few taps when reading webpages and text in apps including Safari, Mail and many third party apps including The New York Times. The other tablets require a more time consuming process to activate text-to-speech in all apps.
Next, app quality and quantity is also an important consideration. Currently, the iPad is ahead in terms of app support, but the Nexus 7 is not too shabby in terms of third party app selection either. Apple's lead in terms of third party app selection continues to narrow. See the ecosystem and apps section below for more information about app selection. If the person with dyslexia uses Bookshare or Learning Ally, it is important to make sure that the tablet has apps to support those services. Bookshare is a service that provides accessible e-books for people with print disabilities and Learning Ally provides audio books – some with text - for people with print disabilities. Both the Nexus 7 and iPad mini have Bookshare and Learning Ally apps. The iPad does have better Bookshare support than the Nexus 7.
