Amazon Launches the Alexa Tablets

[tubemonkey]

Introducing all-new Amazon Alexa Tablets—powerful tablets with Alexa+ built in

We’re excited to introduce Amazon Alexa Tablets—an all-new lineup of tablets that combine powerful hardware, the intelligence of Alexa+, and built-in access to all your favorite apps with Google Play Store. The all-new lineup includes three models: Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, Amazon Alexa Tablet 11, and Amazon Alexa Tablet 8.

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We’re also introducing all-new Amazon Kids Tablets. Ready-to-go bundles come with a device, a kid-proof case, and a year of Amazon Kids+, with 8.7-inch and 11-inch sizes both available.

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The new Amazon Alexa Tablets are available in a range of configurations. Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro starts at $499.99 (Nanomatte starts at $549.99) in Graphite, with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. Amazon Alexa Tablet 11 starts at $329.99 in Graphite, Amethyst, and Matcha, with 8GB RAM and 64GB storage. Amazon Alexa Tablet 8 starts at $229.99 in Graphite, Rosette, and Teal, with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. Accessories include the Amazon Alexa Tablet Pro Keyboard ($149.99), Amazon Alexa Tablet Pro Pen ($89.99), and a range of protective folios.

All three Amazon Alexa Tablets as well as Amazon Kids Tablets will be available for purchase today and will ship on October 14, 2026, in the United States, Mexico and Canada.

[dandaman]

Probably only because Fire Tablets have a bad reputation...

[Sundae]

I only skimmed when I saw it on the Amazon page, but the thing that stood out in the picture was the Play store on the home page. So are these just official android tablets?

I still have an old kids tablet in my household, but really don't like all the junk apps on it. It was horrible during the period kiddo had a year or Kids Plus or whatever it's called. And it was pretty buggy. For instance, it has been a couple years at least since I could successfully add a book from my library to the kid's profile.

But it does run the hoopla app for books and Disney, so it gets used sometimes.

I'll be mildly interested to see if how these new ones develop, but in no hurry to get one.

[Josieb1]

We have two echoes and two dots in this house and the only thing I use Alexa for is asking her to play my current audiobook.

[Gormagon]

The one with the matte screen is rather expensive (and you have to pay extra for a stylus), but I like that after TCL, Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi and maybe other manufactures matte screens finally reach the mass market.

On amazon.com it says "Seamless and personalized: Amazon apps—Prime Video, Kindle, Audible, Amazon Music, Amazon Luna—are built-in and sync across devices with single sign-on and personalized content." (amazon.com/dp/B0FMS8C99W)

Built-in apps like you can't uninstall them if you're not interested?
I'm also not interested in Alexa shenanigans, so I guess I'm not part of the target group.

[John F]

For non-prime members, is there an extra monthly charge for alexa+?

[JSWolf]

Two more articles on the tablets.

https://www.techradar.com/tablets/am...-tablet-12-pro

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026...roid-than-ever

[Cactus Chef]

Seems expensive. Wasn't the whole purpose of the Fire tablets that you got a dirt-cheap tablet to give the kids?

[mrmikey]

.....Fire Tablets have a bad reputation...

An understatement.
Wasn't too bad when you used the Fire Tools to de-scamazon it and allowed you to use regular Android apps and blocked the useless stuff you could'nt remove. They, scamazon, screwed it up by updating the system so you couldn't block updates and every time it updated, it reinstalled all the useless scamazon apps making it unusably slow. Mine is now mounted to the wall showing a constant weather app and nothing else, it's all its good for now.
It's a shame because it wasn't a bad tablet, nice display, relatively fast and didn't work too bad.
Would I buy anything scamazon branded....not a chance in ....

[Frogm4n]

Originally Posted by Sundae

I only skimmed when I saw it on the Amazon page, but the thing that stood out in the picture was the Play store on the home page. So are these just official android tablets?

Yes, they run regular Android 16 with the Google Play Store as the source of apps. They do have customizations to integrate Alexa but they don't have the deep customization that they did for Fire OS.

[The Old Man]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

The one with the matte screen is rather expensive (and you have to pay extra for a stylus), but I like that after TCL, Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi and maybe other manufactures matte screens finally reach the mass

The 8” screen is described as “vivid” whatever that is. Is this a matte screen with little or no reflection?

[haertig]

I used an HD10 Fire tablet for a long time. It was fine for watching movies, doing Zoom calls, and reading email. But not much else. Even basic web surfing was a poor experience. You can run Alexa on a basic HD10 tablet too, if you want. I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ tablet a little over a year ago. That's a low-end Samsung model. But it absolutely blows away the Fire HD10. Not even in the same ballpark. And the A9+ only cost $179 with 8Gb ram and 256Gb storage (256Gb was a rare find in this tablet back then, and the $179 was an excellent sale price that I just randomly stumbled into). Consider that an HD10 currently costs $155 with 4Gb ram, 32Gb storage, a much lesser CPU, and lower resolution screen.

As far as Alexa+, we have used regular Alexa on Echo Dots for years. Works fine. We tried the Alexa+ when it came out. We struggled with it for about two months, trying to give it every chance possible. But we finally gave up and went back to regular Alexa, which works much better for us. I can't think of one thing that Alexa+ did better than Alexa. At best, it kept even on some features. But most were a downgrade. And it was much slower. And got more things wrong. I would say that Amazon's venture into AI with Alexa+ was a total flop. Maybe they have improved it over the last year since we abandoned it. But it was not good. And they replaced the familiar voice with a bratty snobby sounding teenager. There were other voices available, but those were - believe it or not - even worse than the bratty teenager voice.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by haertig

I used an HD10 Fire tablet for a long time. It was fine for watching movies, doing Zoom calls, and reading email. But not much else. Even basic web surfing was a poor experience. You can run Alexa on a basic HD10 tablet too, if you want. I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ tablet a little over a year ago. That's a low-end Samsung model. But it absolutely blows away the Fire HD10. Not even in the same ballpark. And the A9+ only cost $179 with 8Gb ram and 256Gb storage (256Gb was a rare find in this tablet back then, and the $179 was an excellent sale price that I just randomly stumbled into). Consider that an HD10 currently costs $155 with 4Gb ram, 32Gb storage, a much lesser CPU, and lower resolution screen.

I'm getting a new tablet this Black Friday to replace a very old Fire 7 tab (2019) 1GB RAM & 16GB storage. I was quite happy with how it handled the things I did with it. But now it's too sluggish and struggles with some apps, so it's time to upgrade.

My first choice was just to get another Fire Tab. I liked the 7-inch size, but Amazon killed it. So bumping up led me to the Fire HD 8 (2022) 2GB RAM & 32GB storage for $55. But then Amazon pulls a surprise and kills the entire Fire Tab line. The new Alexa Tabs are too expensive for my needs, so they're completely out of the question. Amazon promises to support the Fire Tabs for another four years, but I don't trust them after what they did to older Kindles and their history of abruptly pulling the plug on previous devices (I'm looking at you Fire Phone).

So now, I'm looking at the Lenovo Tab One (2025) 4GB RAM & 64GB storage for $100. So with that huge upgrade in specs (OS, CPU, RAM, storage), I could start using it for other things instead of using my Chromebook.

In its early days, Amazon used to be nice to deal with. But those days are long gone.