Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, Alexa Tablet 11, Alexa Tablet 8: Specs, Features, Price
Wired · LC · trust 53/100
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story The era of Amazon's Fire tablets —cheap slate computers ranging from $60 to $280—is over.
All of the Fire tablets are being replaced by the all-aluminum Amazon Alexa Tablet. These tablets will, in a first for Amazon, run official Android and have full access to the Google Play Store. The lack of proper app support was always a sticking point for the Fire tablets, which ran a custom version of Android and had a much more limited app library .
The new Alexa Tablet series comes in three models: the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro ($500) , Alexa Tablet 11 ($330) , and Alexa Tablet 8 ($230) , with the numbers corresponding to the display size. Amazon is also offering kids' editions of the latter two devices at the same prices. These include bumper cases for extra protection, a one-year, worry-free guarantee to replace the device if it breaks, and a year of Amazon Kids+ service to fill the tablet with age-appropriate content .
As for Fire tablets, Amazon says it will stop shipping the devices in the next month or two. It will support them for four years from the last ship date. Amazon is committing to at least four years of software updates for the new Alexa tablets, which will launch with Android 16 and will receive Android 17 early in 2027. Preorders for the new Alexa Tablets are open now, and they'll begin shipping on October 14.
From left to right: The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, the Alexa Tablet 11, and the Alexa Tablet 8.
The experience is largely the same on all three tablets, with aluminum builds designed to mimic the new aluminum Kindles . The MediaTek Dimensity 8189 chip powers the two smaller tablets, whereas the 12-inch device gets a little more power from the MediaTek Dimensity 8400.
The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro is the outlier of the trio, as it's the only one with two display variants: a standard 12-inch LCD screen or a 12-inch Nanomatte display with anti-glare and anti-reflective properties. Upgrade to the Nanomatte—starting at $550—for a matte, paperlike look and feel. With a peak brightness of 500 nits, it should still be bright enough to view in sunlight.
Amazon says it developed this screen in partnership with Corning (the company that makes most of the glass that protects smartphone displays). It's similar to the matte displays found on devices like TCL's Nxtpaper series , though Amazon's vice president of devices, Kevin Keith, says the hexagon-shaped imprint on the Nanomatte display can push out vivid colors and crisp blacks while still retaining those matte properties.
The screen also offers a “really good” writing experience, according to Keith. He says the same engineers who worked on the Kindle Scribe worked with Corning to get that paperlike feel. The screen works with Amazon's new Alexa Tablet Pro Pen ($90), which has 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity, plus tilt detection. The pen can magnetically dock to the top of the slate for charging and pairing. Amazon also sells a Pro Keyboard ($150) for the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, which attaches to the device via the pogo pins on the bottom edge—no Bluetooth needed.
Arrow Now that Android has recently gained multiwindowing features , attaching the keyboard turns the largest Alexa tablet into a productivity machine: split apps across the screen, resize them into various windows, and “save” several desktop arrangements so you can pick up where you left off.
For the kids’ versions of the Alexa Tablet 11 and Alexa Tablet 8 , Amazon says the software is still Android with a heavily customized interface for kid-friendly content and built-in parental controls. Keith says one in five kids in the US has an Amazon tablet, so it'll be interesting to see how that changes now that these devices start at a higher price .
It may look and feel like Android, but Amazon has tweaked the interface to make these Alexa Tablets feel like Amazon hardware.
The Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro is on the top left, with its Nanomatte display. The Alexa Tablet 11 sits below in Kindle mode, and the Alexa Tablet 8 is on the right.
The top-left corner of the home screen features a persistent widget called the Dynamic Tab. This scrollable widget lets you dive into Amazon content you may have been consuming on another device—say, if you were reading on your Kindle, watching a movie on Prime Video on your iPhone, or snapped some photos and you want to view them on Amazon Photos.
Swipe right, and instead of Google's Discover feed, you're instead greeted with Amazon's For You experience. Amazon's Fire tablets were a vehicle to put Amazon content in front of your eyeballs, and that hasn't changed with the Alexa Tablets. Again, you can continue consuming content here, with tabs for movies and TV, games, and Kindle. There's also a news feed, and you can tap Alexa prompts for more information on a story.
Uniquely, opening the Kindle app triggers “Kindle mode,” which disables all notifications, turns on the blue light filter, and extends battery life to 20 hours (less on the smaller tablets). You can also choose one of three display treatments in this mode: subtle warmth with natural color, a softened paper tone, or monochrome. There's even a fun page-turn effect that mimics turning a page in a book. As soon as you exit the app, notifications turn back on, and the screen returns to normal. Annotations you make with the stylus will sync with Kindle apps on pen-supported devices, like the Kindle Scribe.
Arrow As the tablets’ names suggests, Alexa+ is front and center. So far, Amazon has restricted Alexa+ access to paid subscribers or Amazon Prime customers, but Keith says you don't need to subscribe to anything to use Alexa+ on these devices.
In the bottom-right corner, a persistent “Ask Alexa” chat box lets you call up the virtual assistant immediately. You can also trigger it by saying, “Alexa,” just like an Echo device . It can control your smart home devices, but…
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