With the year now drawing to a close, it’s the perfect opportunity to reflect on some of the great product releases of 2014, and with numerous big-named companies having rolled out some exceptional tablets over the past twelve months, we’ve compiled a list of our top five.

Samsung has a humongous marketing budget. Time and again, we see the Korean company spend lavishly on strange, interesting, and simply grandiose PR campaigns, but when it isn’t renaming terminals at London’s Heathrow Airport, the Galaxy maker does occasionally keep things nice and simple. Given that the Apple iPad Air is a direct competitor to the Galaxy Tab S, Samsung thought it would be a good idea to take both to the streets of NYC and record the reactions of consumers asked to compare the two.

It’s a well-known fact that Samsung spends copious amounts of money on advertising and marketing, and a good deal of that budget is commanded by adverts bashing rival Apple in one way or another. Two of the most influential outfits in mobile space, it’s not uncommon for each company to deliver several ads a year taking shots at the other’s products and services, and as such, it should come as little surprise that Samsung’s efforts to plug its Galaxy Tab S line includes a few not-so-subtle digs at the Apple iPad.

Even with everyone currently seemingly obsessed with wearable technology, companies are still banging out new tablets like there’s no tomorrow. Apple isn’t due to refresh its iPad lineup until later this year, but Samsung has today rolled out two new flagship tablets that it hopes will take the iPad Pro to task – if indeed that’s something that ever exists.

One of the marquee features of Apple’s iPhone 5s back in September was the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, and Samsung duly followed suit with a similar implementation to the Galaxy S5 released early last month. Now, reports suggest that the Korean outfit is planning to broaden the reach of the fingerprint-sensing tech. by also including it with a fleet of upcoming tablets.