Best Android tablets to buy in 2024
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Android tablets have sort of, kind of made a return to form. Spearheaded by Samsung and its excellent Galaxy Tab S series — now up to Galaxy Tab S9. But Google also came out with an interesting offering in the form of the Pixel Tablet — half tablet, half smarthome hub. There are plenty of cool slates to pick from, be it for actual work, or just short bursts of entertainment. And they do cover a wide range of budgets, so we'd best get to sorting through them!
So, what are the best Android tablets to buy right now?
Here's our concise list, pick your winner:
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra
Mostly a repeat of the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra — this notched tablet has a huge, 14.6-inch display, a thin bezel, beautiful AMOLED panel, and comes with an S Pen. But really, the Tab S9 Ultra should also be used with a keyboard or stand, so plan ahead — either for the Samsung-made Keyboard Folio or for a 3rd party solution.
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Made for Galaxy, and comes with a special head dissipation solution, as well as water- and dust-resistance. With its pretty screen, fast hardware, quad speakers in stereo setup, DeX interface, and accessory support, it's a tablet for everything — work and play. Though, we wouldn't call it the most portable solution.
It was released in August of 2023 and a successor hasn't been announced yet. Samsung typically takes about 18 months to refresh its top-line tablets, so it's possible that we might see a Galaxy Tab S10 in early 2025, but for the time being — this is the top dog.
Read more: Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra review
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 and Tab S9+
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is cool and all, but it's absolutely overkill, plus it's a bit pricey. The regular Galaxy Tab S9 is plenty good for much less money. Plus, with an 11-inch screen, it's much more manageable. It still has stereo speakers, DeX mode, an S Pen, and a 120 Hz refresh rate. And it now comes with an AMOLED panel, too — just like its big brothers!
The Galaxy Tab S9+ is for those that want more screen than what the regular S9 has to offer, but don't want to go as far as the Ultra. The Tab S9+ has a rather big 12.4-inch display, which still feels a bit more manageable than the Ultra. The thicker bezels do help with that, as they give your thumb space to rest and grip on to. It's a big enough canvas for S Pen drawings, gaming, spreadsheets, splitscreen, and DeX usage.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 series
The Galaxy Tab S8 series are still around, and they are more or less the same products as their Tab S9 counterparts — but with their prices lowered by $100 or more. OK, so the S8 variants don't have the ingress protection rating or fancy cooling solution, but nobody felt like these things were glaring omissions back in 2022. If you can score a Tab S8 at a deal — we'd say go for it, just don't take it to the pool.
Google Pixel Tablet
The Pixel Tablet comes with a dedicated Speaker Charger dock in the box. It's meant to "live" on that charger, transforming into a stationary media machine or smart home hub with a screen. Need a tablet? Simply pull it off the dock. The Speaker sound quality is akin to that of a Google Nest mini, so don't expect earth-shattering sounds. But it's definitely useful, and is one solution to the problem that tablets face — being left unused for long periods.
OnePlus Pad
Released in April of 2023, the OnePlus Pad is a pretty decent tablet, even at flagship levels. The MediaTek Dimensity 9000 is getting kind of long in the tooth by flagship standards, but it's still quite a powerful chip. The OnePlus Pad is also compatible with its own set of keyboard and stylus, so it can play with the big boys in the market. On its own, it's a tablet with an 11.6-inch LCD screen with a 144 Hz refresh rate and 2800 x 2000 resolution (296 PPI). It has four speakers in stereo setup for full blast sound.
The OnePlus Pad is getting a bit long in the tooth now, so we may see a refresh this October or November — OnePlus should announce a new OnePlus Openfoldable phone then, and may use the time to also launch a new tablet. If it doesn't, we may speculate that the OnePlus Pad wasn't very successful.
Xiaomi Pad 6
Xiaomi Pad 6 is a rather compact tablet featuring an 11-inch WQHD+ (2880 x 1800 pixels) display with 144Hz refresh rate, Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection, and Dolby Vision support. Thanks to the aluminum alloy body, the slate weighs just 490g and features a 6.51mm ultra slim bezel.
It's teetering on the midrange side of things, with a Snapdragon 870 processor, but for most people — that'll be good enough. The 870 series is supposed to be the "gaming oriented" chipset.
The Xiaomi Pad 6 launched globally in July of 2023. Currently, faint murmurs of a Xiaomi Pad 7 family are suggesting a launch of two new tablets "soon", but we can't give you anything concrete at this point.
Amazon Fire HD 10
"Best" can mean a lot of things and while Amazon's Fire HD 10 can't keep up with the rest of the tablets on this list when it comes to specs, it has them all beat in one department: the price. Costing between 2 and 5 times less than the rest, the Fire HD 10 offers incredible value. So, it can easily be the best Android tablet to buy on a budget, especially since it has a keyboard accessory (sold in a bundle or separately) for that hybrid experience.
While the Fire HD 10 is technically an Android tablet, it's running on a heavily modified Amazon-centered software and doesn't come with Google's Play Store (there are ways to install it, if you insist). Still, Amazon's own app store offers enough variety to fit the relatively narrow focus of this tablet, so for most people this won't be an issue. The new Fire HD 10 tablet comes with 12 months of Microsoft 365, too, as to underline its new aim at productivity features.
Keep in mind that the Amazon Fire HD tablets have historically not had the best performance. They are great as simple slates to enjoy some media on, but don't expect a laptop replacement unit here.
Samsung Galaxy Tab A8
Until the Galaxy Tab A9 officially becomes available in more markets, the Tab A8 is still the go-do for affordable Samsung tablets.
If you simply want a tablet for media consumption and you don’t care about S Pen shenanigans or productivity — the Galaxy Tab A8 offers just that. A quad-speaker system provides full stereo sound in any orientation and a 10.5-inch screen gives you plenty of real estate to watch movies or browse the Internet on. It’s easily the best Android tablet for Netflix binging or to satisfy your kid’s gaming cravings.
You can still slap a Bluetooth keyboard case on it, but there’s no DeX on this one.
You can still slap a Bluetooth keyboard case on it, but there’s no DeX on this one.
Conclusion
Whether you are after a budget device or a productivity machine, you’ve got a few options laid out here. And yeah, Samsung is definitely dominating the best Android tablet field right now, but who knows — maybe someone will try to step up in the months to come. We will certainly be keeping an ear to the ground, our eye on the market, and our fingers on a fresh touchscreen, hunting out those devices for you!
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