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Tablets can be productivity boosters, time wasters, or both. You can put one in your bag, take notes, review documents, binge on the latest Netflix show, play some games, and more. Black Friday sales are usually a good time to pick up a new gadget at a discounted price. USA and Germany bring you the best deals.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+ is the most powerful Android version on this list – it’s not as premium as the Ultra, but with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and a 12.4-inch 120Hz AMOLED display, it can handle anything you throw at it. This display supports Samsung’s S Pen; actually comes with a slate.
It’s great for brainstorming and taking notes and can be enhanced with the Note View Cover. The cover is transparent and has a papery texture, so the tablet feels like a notebook. It also protects the screen from scratches, of course, and has a place to store the stylus. You can also take notes with the Galaxy Tab S8+ Tablet Keyboard Cover.
A cheaper option is the Galaxy Tab S8. It’s also powerful (same chipset), but switches to an 11-inch LCD (120Hz) screen. We’ve linked the 128GB model below, but you might want to go for the 256GB model, which is only $30 more (or not, with a microSD slot). There is a built-in S Pen stylus, unfortunately the covers above do not fit this model.
The Galaxy Tab S7 FE is bigger than the vanilla S8 – it has a 12.4-inch display, but it’s a 60Hz LCD. This particular one uses the Snapdragon 778G chipset, so it’s in a slightly higher performance class than the S8 models, but it serves as a middle ground (in terms of price and performance) for the A-series slates.
The Tab S7 FE also comes with an included S Pen, and you can get a protective book cover. It’s not designed for photography, but it’s just for protection.
The FE is significantly cheaper than the S8 Slate, but it’s still higher, while the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite is also cheaper. Regardless of the model number, this is actually a new 2022 model. It has less power (Snapdragon 720G), but a good quality 10.4-inch display (S Pen included) and AKG stereo speakers.
The cheapest option here is the Galaxy Tab A8 10.5. It’s from 2021, and while its Unisoc Tiger T618 chipset is slower than the 720G, the 10.2-inch 1,920 x 1,200px display and four speakers still make it a solid Netflix machine.
Now, if you’re looking for a bottom-of-the-barrel price, the Amazon Fire 7 is down to $40. It’s not powerful, the 7-inch HD display is nothing special, but the 10-hour battery life is good. And did we mention $40? $55/€55 if you don’t want ads on the lock screen.
You’ll probably want the Fire 7 Kids edition, as it comes with a thick, padded case that’s perfect for living in the hands of a young child. It’s still $55, so it’s not a huge loss, even if you end up smashing the little tablet. Even better, this version is ad-free.
For older kids (and adults, too) content consumption and light gaming, the Fire HD 8 tablet offers a better quality screen and a faster chipset. Note that this is the 2022 version with six 2.0 GHz CPU cores (up from four). There’s also a Plus version that boosts RAM from 2GB to 3GB and costs an extra $10. It’s not that important for streaming, but games will definitely feel the difference. Note that these slates will display ads on their lock screens unless you pay the extra $15/€15.
The Fire HD 10 costs a little extra; however, the 10.1-inch 1,920 x 1,200px display is worth it not only for its size, but also for its improved resolution. You also get two additional CPU cores and 3GB of RAM as standard. There’s also a Plus model (with 4GB), but that’s $30 extra, and it’s not as easy an upgrade as the HD 8 Plus.
Amazon also offers the Fire HD 10 Productivity Bundle – for $145 (basically double the price) you get a Bluetooth keyboard, a free Microsoft 365 Personal subscription for a year, which you can use on 5 devices (which would normally cost you $70). Note that this is set as an auto-renewing subscription, so if you don’t want to use it after the initial year, you’ll need to cancel it.
This was the Android side of things; Now let’s look at Windows. The Microsoft Surface Pro 8 is a premium 13-inch tablet, equipped with an Intel Core i7 11th gen (i7-1185G7) and equipped with 16 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD. It also supports a stylus and keyboard (sold separately). Also, since it runs Windows 11, you can also run Android apps on it.
The Microsoft Surface Pro 7+ is an update from last year (the original 7 series in 2019). It’s a 12.3-inch slate with an 11th-gen Intel Core i5 (i5-1135G7), 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. It comes with a black type cover included.
If you’re short on Android and don’t want to spend the money on a Surface Pro, the Surface Go 2 is an affordable Windows 10 tablet (upgradable to 11 for free). This 10.5-inch slate isn’t powerful, but it’s affordable, with a Pentium Gold 4425Y, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of eMMC storage.
There’s a new Surface Go 3 that uses a 10th generation processor (up from 8), the Pentium Gold 6500Y. It’s much faster by some benchmarks (up to twice the performance); however, for $400 it’s dangerously close to the actual laptop category. It’s not a laptop, though; it’s a small, portable tablet that has its advantages. Still, if it’s between the Go 2 and Go 3, we might go for the older model ($150 savings will speed things up).
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