The first consideration would be whether or not a keyboard would be required. The basic question that pops into my mind is how much typing would they do? Does the person take a large volume of notes in a meeting, whether formal or not. If so, can they type very well? Yes, I mean do they type well because lets face it, there are a large number of adults who just cannot type at all. The common method I think of when illustrating how a person cannot type is the find and peck method, which is constantly utilized by my father. He can type about 10 words a minute as he stares at the keyboard and uses one figure to input a single letter at a time which typing. If person is an ineffective typer, the next question would be can they use Swype effectively, if so, then a large number of tablet options would be available. If a keyboard or Swype are not effective input methods, then a stylus input would be required. There are few available tablets that offer that requirement. Those tablets are: the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet, the Asus Transfomer Prime (coming early December), and the HTC Flyer. Of those three tablets, I would recommend not purchasing the Flyer as it only has a 7" screen versus the 10" offered by the Prime and the Thinkpad Tablet.
If the person can type, then any tablet will do as you can purchase a Bluetooth keyboard and type to your hearts content. However, there are a few really impressive options other than just getting a Bluetooth keyboard. Many of my favorite options come from Asus. They have the Eee Pad Slider, which has a keyboard that slides out from the bottom of the tablet to provide a keyboard. There are a couple of drawbacks as the keyboard is a little small and the tablet is a little bulky. Other Asus products with interesting keyboard features are the Transformer and Transformer Prime. These products can attach to a keyboard dock, which comes with a touch pad, a full size USB port, and an added battery in the keyboard dock that almost doubles the battery life of the tablet. There is a downside to the dock for the transformers as they have MSRPs of $150, though the street prices are significantly lower (Best Buy will be selling both the Transformer and the dock at a significantly lower price on Black Friday). Another option is the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet, which has an optional keyboard folio with a optical trackpoint, this folio is extremely popular in the review community.
A second consideration would be whether or not a USB drive would be required. Many people like to exchange data using thumb drives, the USB memory sticks that are extremely portable. It is very likely that if you go paperless in an office environment, you are going to have to easily transmit data from one device to another and the thumb drive is an easy alternative to emailing everything. In fact, if you are working with outside people and/or businesses, email may not be reliable or you may be in an environment that does not have wifi available. Surprisingly, very few of the tablets available actually have a full size USB port. The iPad and Samsung Galaxy are the first to come to mind. Tablet offerings with a USB port are: The Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet, Toshiba Thrive, Acer Iconia, Motorola Xoom, Asus Slider, and both the Asus Transfomer and the the Transformer Prime have USB ports on their keyboard docks only.
Maybe, a USB is not a requirement as there are alternatives that could be utilized instead to share digital information. Obviously, the first option is if there is a cloud system that tablet is connected to that is accessible to desktop and laptop computers, your problem is solved and you can just place items in the drop box. Lenovo, Asus, and Apple offer the cloud systems for their tablets and you will have to determine whether or not the cloud will work for you. One serious consideration is whether the cloud will allow you to interface with clients, co-workers, and contractors effectively. Additionally, if you work in an industry that will require additional security, you may not be able to use a cloud system.
Another option for portable data sharing is the use of an SD or Micro SD card. This is a great option for those of you who may not have a USB port but do have one of these ports as you can just carry a USB card reader that will accept the data. Additionally, this allows a tablet user to augment their data storage, utilizing the card as an extra drive. The iPad do not have this option, while the Toshiba Thrive and Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet have a full sized SD card slots and the Samsung Galaxy, Asus Slider, Transformer, Transformer Prime, Motorola Xoom, and Acer Iconia have Micro SD card slots.
Another requirement you may want to consider is whether you require a HDMI port or not. Why would you want a HDMI port? Well if you want to give presentations with your tablet, just plug it in and there you go. Obviously, you could email the presentation to another computer or put it on the thumb drive (assuming that the tablet has a USB port) but that is not nearly as convenient as just plugging your tablet in and going.
There is one last requirement that you may not have thought of but may actually be essential. I am talking about the resolution of the rear camera. Now I am not advocating you use your tablet to take pictures of things or create videos for You tube (unless that is your business). No, the reason I mention camera resolution is because of scanning ability. There may be documents you want to scan and there are applications that facilitate that but image quality may be important. If you have a low resolution camera, you will have low resolution scans.
