iPads dominate the tablet market, but there are plenty of great, affordable Android options to choose from, too

By Thomas Germain
Updated June 24, 2022
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Photo: Consumer Reports
A lot of people just think “iPad” when they’re shopping for a new tablet, but there are plenty of reasons to look at an Android model instead.

“Since Android is an open-source platform, developers have a lot of flexibility,” says Antonette Asedillo, who oversees tablet and computer testing for Consumer Reports. And that means more choices for consumers—in price, features, and design. These tablets are also appealing to people with Android phones. When your tablet uses the same operating system as your smartphone, it makes it easier to sync apps and files between your devices.
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CR's Tablet Ratings & Buying Guide
Best Tablets of the Year
Best Tablets for $300 or Less
What's the Best iPad for You?
Best Amazon Fire Tablets
Scan our ratings (available to CR members) and you’ll find solid options from Lenovo, Samsung, and Walmart’s in-house brand Onn, including one model priced as low as $90. By comparison, the lowest-priced Apple iPad sells for $330.

If you really want the cheapest option, you can also consider an Amazon Fire tablet, which uses a highly customized version of the Android operating system known as Fire OS and Amazon’s somewhat limited app store. On the plus side, Amazon models provide access to lots of kid-friendly content and feature a robust selection of parental controls.

All the tablets in our ratings are graded on almost 240 data points, covering everything from the device’s predicted reliability to its performance to the quality of the display. As we do with every product we test, from mesh routers to mattresses, we bought the models listed below at retail to ensure that manufacturers don’t try to influence our testing.
Best Android Tablet for Most People
You can spend more for a faster tablet with an even more beautiful screen, but the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite should be a perfect fit for a majority of people. It gets above-average ratings for performance and display quality, and the best part may be the price. Retailing for around $330 (the same as the entry-level iPad), the S6 Lite may be the best value for an Android tablet right now.

The S6 has a 10.4-inch screen, which is just north of medium-sized without verging into the unwieldy territory you’ll get with bigger models. It lasted 12.2 hours in our web-browsing battery test and comes with 128GB of built-in storage. If you need additional storage, you can throw in a microSD card. For a bit more money, you could instead pick up the regular Galaxy Tab S6, which scores a little higher for performance but sacrifices some battery life in exchange.