What is the best cheap tablet?
The Lenovo Smart Tab M10 Plus is the best cheap tablet you can get. It’s the most fun and engaging tablet I’ve ever had the experience of reviewing. It doubles as a smart display, which means you can turn on Google Assistant Ambient Mode. This means you can pop it up on a surface to display your favorite photos, upcoming calendar events, weather information and news updates. You can even control smart-home devices from the tablet. Another reason why the Lenovo Smart Tab M10 Plus is the best cheap tablet around is because it ships with a Lenovo Charging Dock, so you can prop it up on the Charging Dock for a hands-free experience, and your tablet is getting charged up along the way. The Lenovo Smart Tab M10 Plus is the best cheap tablet because of its vivid, colorful display. It also has a nice variety of ports for a cheap tablet, including USB Type-C, a microSD card slot and a headset jack. You’ll also find yourself playing a lot of fun games on this tablet, whether it’s PUBG Mobile or Fortnite. The Lenovo Smart Tab M10 Plus has a starting price of $169.99, and the unit I reviewed cost $229.99 as it has more RAM and storage. See our full Lenovo Smart Tab M10 Plus review. The Xiaomi Pad 5 is a significant upgrade from its 2018 predecessor: the Mi Pad 4. It comes with a host of improvements, including an 11-inch, 120Hz display, an upgraded Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 chip, and a refined Mobile Internet UI (MIUI). What’s an MIUI, you ask? It’s another variant of Android OS developed by Xiaomi, which we really enjoy on the Pad 5. We loved its long battery life. It lasted a whopping 14 hours and 11 minutes before tapping out and giving up on us. We also gave the Xiaomi Pad 5 a thumbs up fro its brilliant display, excellent audio setup, and fluid, adaptable OS. The Pad 5 provides an even more seamless experience when paired with the Xiaomi Smart Pen and compatible keyboard, but unfortunately, those accessories are sold separately (hey, it’s one way Xiaomi helps to keep the Pad 5’s cost down). Overall, the Xiaomi Pad 5 is a fantastic option for those in need of a quality (but affordable) tablet. See our full Xiaomi Pad 5 review. The Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 has a pretty sweet design, from its half-fabric, half-aluminum chassis to its sleek, lightweight footprint. We also can’t forget its unique, built-in kickstand. The kickstand even doubles as a hanger, allowing users to hang the slate on a wall for hands-free movie watching. We also loved the 11-inch, 2K display’s sharp, vivid, well-balanced colors. The Yoga Tab 11’s loud, crisp speakers are also a big selling point for the Lenovo tablet. Its battery life is also pretty darn good, lasting nearly 12 hours. Of course, because it’s priced at around $200, the Yoga Tab 11 does cut some corners, and users may see that with its average, so-so cameras. Overall, the Yoga Tab 11 earned a 4.5-star review because it gives users a lot of bang for their buck. See our full Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 review. The Lenovo Tab 4 Plus is the successor to the Lenovo Tab 4. See our review of the full 10-inch Lenovo Tab 4 Plus. If you’re a Samsung fan, whether you enjoy their phones, TVs or monitors, you’ll likely also be impressed with the Galaxy Tab A7 tablet. It’s particularly ideal if you need a tablet that can be easily paired with a Galaxy device. The Galaxy Tab A7 can receive your phone’s notifications and texts. You can even make calls and send messages with it. If you have a Samsung TV, you can use the Galaxy Tab A7 to control and manage it. The Galaxy Tab A7 also wow-ed us with its excellent battery life, lasting more than 13 hours. It also has sweet-sounding, Dolby Atmos quad-speaker system, and a colorful, vivid 10.4-inch, 2000 x 1200-pixel display. One downside we discovered is that it doesn’t have the brightest display. It also has middling performance, but to be fair, you can’t expect too much from a sub-$250 tablet. Overall, it’s a great buy. See our full Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 review (opens in new tab).
How to choose the best cheap tablet for you
Perhaps you’ll prefer having access to the Google Play store so that you can download all of your favorite Android apps and games. In that case, perhaps you’ll want to opt for the 10-inch Lenovo Tab 4 Plus, which has an impressive 13 hours of battery life. You’ll get all the features similar to any other Android-based phone, but on a bigger, more interactive screen.
How we test the best cheap tablets
To offer our readers a thorough and exhaustive review of the tablets that come through our labs, we dive into testing battery life, display quality, performance, audio quality and more. If there is a camera or two, we give it a whirl through real-world testing to give our readers the best description of what they can expect from our tablet review unit. For performance, for example, we use the Geekbench benchmark to test the tablet’s processing power. We also measure tablets’ graphics capabilities using the 3DMark benchmark. We sift through the tablets’ software to see what pre-installed apps and programs you’ll get to play around with – or delete – once you get the best cheap tablet for yourself. We also compare tablets with other competitors, such as MediaPad M5 Lite vs. iPad: Why Huawei Almost Beats Apple, to give our readers a better perspective on which tablet would be the best slate for their needs.
