The tablet market is rather stagnant in recent years, partly because laptops have fallen in price, but above all, because smartphones have grown and, mostly, they can do the same things that tablets do and be used effectively. also to work. A tablet is still a device that can have many practical applications, use at home to browse from the sofa, useful as an on-board computer in the car, convenient to carry around in your bag and great for watching movies or playing games while traveling. With the crisis in the sector, we can say that there are few companies that produce and sell good-quality tablets: Apple’s iPads are still the best sellers despite being the most expensive ones because they are fast, snappy and practical to use.
If instead, we want to bet on an Android tablet, today means choosing between the big producers: Samsung, Amazon, Huawei or Lenovo.
In this guide we will show you the best Android tablet available from these manufacturers, so you can actually choose the new tablet to use at home or at work.
READ ALSO: Best free apps for Android tablets
Tablet requirements
Since there are only a few tablets, we advise you to choose carefully based on the features shown below and avoid Chinese clones or tablets, which often do not offer the same quality that we can find on Chinese smartphones.
Technical features
The features to consider for an Android tablet I’m:
- Processor and RAM memory: The tablet processor and memory are important for determining application processing and processing speed; in this regard, I advise you not to buy a tablet with less than 3 GB of RAM. As for the processor, however, there are many names: Qualcomm, Cortex, Exinos, Intel, Mediatek MTK (which is the cheapest), the important thing is that it has at least 4 cores (even better if 8). If you don’t want to be behind the hardware details, in general, it is worth checking that the tablet is not already old and that, therefore, it has not been on sale for more than a year. This can be checked on Amazon, noting the “for sale by …” indication for each product.
- Android version and software: The Android system may look similar for all tablets, although each manufacturer has its own customizations to make it different from the others. The important thing is that Android is updated to the latest version, so as not to go and buy something already old. Many tablets still come out with older versions of Android, let’s just make sure they have at least Android 7 (the bare minimum to keep up with the times). In this regard, the company that takes care of the most updates of its tablets and smartphones is certainly Huawei, closely followed by Amazon with its line of Kindle tablets. Samsung keeps active updates especially of the top models ignoring the cheaper ones, while Lenovo is certainly the least efficient in this sense.
- Dimensions and proportions: The most important part of a tablet is still the screen and you need to choose based on your personal preferences. Available Android tablets can be 7 inches, 8 inches, 10 inches, 11 inches, and 13 inches. You could also find it with 4: 3 aspect ratios, plus square or 16: 9, plus widescreen, similar to the laptop monitor. There is no “ideal” dimension that is preferable in an objective sense, but we certainly must prefer a higher resolution, especially if you want to work and write on the tablet using it as if it were a computer or to watch movies. To really enjoy the difference with modern smartphones we recommend betting only on the 10-inch screen up and up models, so as to have a real device with a defined identity instead of a hybrid smartphone/tablet like a 7 or 8-inch tablet can be.
- Connectivity: nowadays we can easily choose a tablet with only the Wi-Fi module since it is possible to take advantage of the hotspot of our smartphones Android or iPhone to connect to the Internet even when we are away from home. If instead, we wanted to insert a data SIM directly into the tablet, just be aware that prices go up and can make choosing an Android tablet uneconomical.
- Internal memory: memory is certainly an important feature for tablets because it determines how many files and how many apps can be saved in it. The bare minimum for a modern tablet is 32 GB, the important thing is that it is expandable via a microSD card so you can save even more files. All new tablets should also support the connection OTG for USB sticks.
- Keyboards: the keyboard, intended as a physical keyboard that can eventually be added to the tablet, can be a very interesting device and it is thought to use the Android tablet as a mini laptop (heir to the deceased netbooks), to work and write documents on the fly. The Office app for Android they are not lacking, therefore it is possible to replace the laptop with the tablet buying a normal USB keyboard or a Bluetooth one.
- Price: the price is always decisive when you buy something in the electronics field and in the case of Android tablets you can really choose in a very wide range. Our advice is to always let the models that are too cheap lose and dI concentrate on those from € 150 upwards so as to always obtain a good balance between performance and autonomy. If we can spend over € 400, we should without a doubt focus on the iPad and buy one of the models available from Apple: too big a difference in performance and optimizations in these cases. The only tablets that are fairly inexpensive but well-made are the Amazon Fire, to be evaluated if we are looking for an inexpensive tablet to be exploited immediately without second thoughts.
Other useful information we can get from our Guide to buying a new tablet.
Best Android tablets
After this quick introduction to the features that a good modern Android tablet must have, let’s see what is the best Android tablet that you can buy at the moment with the most interesting prices.
Amazon Tablet Fire HD 8
If we want to save as much as possible and do not want to follow the directions shown above “to the letter”, we can buy a cheap but complete tablet-like Tablet Fire HD 8, produced by Amazon. With this tablet, we will have a fast Android device, with its personal store to download all the apps we need, including some very famous ones like Netflix, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and Skype. This tablet, without too many hardware demands, is the best way to enter the table world without spending a fortune.
We can view the tablet from here -> Amazon Tablet Fire HD 8 (€ 69, with active special offers).
Huawei Mediapad T5
If we want to bet on a mid-range tablet, we can consider the Huawei Mediapad T5, a truly complete tablet equipped with a 10.1 “HD display, 64 GB of internal memory expandable, 4 GB of RAM, octa-core processor, front camera, Wi-Fi module and Android 8.0 operating system with EMUI.
We can view the tablet from here -> Huawei Mediapad T5 (€ 179).
Lenovo TAB M10
A good mid-range tablet that we can view is the Lenovo TAB M10, equipped with a 10.1 “Full HD display with IPS technology, Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor, 32GB internal memory expandable up to 256GB, 3GB RAM, WIFI + LTE module, dual Speaker and Oreo Android operating system.
We can view the tablet from here -> Lenovo TAB M10 (€ 188).
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2019
The first medium-high end tablet that we recommend you to see is the Samsung Galaxy TAB A model 2019, a truly complete tablet with a 10.1 FullHD + display, an Exynos octa-core processor, a 3 GB RAM, an internal memory of 64 Expandable GB with microSD slot, 8 MP rear camera, 5 MP front camera, four AKG and Dolby Atmos speakers and 6,150 mAh battery.
We can view the tablet from here -> Samsung Galaxy TAB A 2019 (€ 229).
Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e 2019
If, on the other hand, we are looking for a high-end smartphone without necessarily having to bet on iPads, we recommend viewing the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e of 2019, which features a 10.1 SuperAMOLED FullHD + display, an Exynos octa-core processor, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB internal memory expandable with microSD slot, new One UI graphic interface, Android Pie operating system and 7040 mAh battery with fast charge.
We can view the tablet from here -> Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e 2019 (€ 336).
Conclusions
The tablet market is quite static, but this does not mean that we cannot buy tablets with the Android operating system: there are devices for all tastes, from Amazon’s Fire HD on sale for less than € 70 to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e which has nothing to envy of the iPad.
If we wish to use tablets with a built-in keyboard, we recommend that you continue reading on our article ai Best Tablet-PC 2 in 1 with a removable keyboard.
If instead, we want to focus on a more powerful and practical notebook, we can read our guide on How to choose the new Notebook.