📣 Amazon’s new, sleeker Alexa tablets ditch Fire OS for Android
📱 Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro is a flagship tablet that starts at $499
➕ The optional $150 Nanomatte screen feels like a mandatory upgrade
📖 Nanomatte finish crushes glare while delivering a faux Soft White and Colorsoft for Kindle reading
🐇 Major speed boosts from the tablet’s MediaTek Dimensity 8400 processor
🎥 Amazon Alexa Tablet 11 is a slightly smaller, but more video-focused and affordable $329 option
💸 $229 Alexa Tablet 8 is a very affordable single-handed Amazon tablet
📦 All Amazon Alexa tablets are now available for preorder and begin shipping on October 14
Amazon has introduced a new line of sleeker Alexa tablets that now simply run on Android instead of Fire OS.
The new lineup includes two affordable tablets, including the $229 Amazon Alexa Tablet 8 and the $329 Amazon Alexa Tablet 11. The most interesting device is the $499 Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, a flagship slate designed for both work and play with split-screen multitasking – though it’s best with the new Nanomatte screen that bumps up the price to $549. They’re available for preorder starting today and arrive in stores on October 14.
Amazon’s Alexa tablets feel more premium than the Fire tablets of the last 15 years. They’re all built with stamped aluminum chassis just like Amazon’s new Kindles. The Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro is particularly well balanced, so it feels the same no matter which way you hold it.
Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro also stands out with its excellent 12-inch display, 280 ppi resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and optional Nanomatte screen. This new Nanomatte finish comes at a $150 premium that’s exclusive to the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, but it truly eliminates glare while delivering OLED-quality blacks very much like the iPad Pro but at a much more affordable price.
I was thoroughly impressed when Amazon’s Panos Panay confidently demoed the device in a fully sunlit hotel room. The new matte display was co-developed with Corning, and it uses a photolithography process to etch a precise, pixel-aligned texture onto the glass.
Creating a matte display custom-molded to the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro’s specific display also allows Amazon to implement faux Soft White and Colorsoft Kindle modes that look virtually identical to an actual e-reader. The tablet even switches modes with a delightful animation that drains color from the screen as it launches the Kindle app.
In these modes, text looks crisp, and the display’s lower brightness makes reading easier on your eyes. The Colorsoft, unsurprisingly, renders color images and comic books even better than Amazon’s latest Kindles thanks to its real underlying LCD screen. Of course, you can turn off these Kindle modes and read in full color.
Internally, the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 8400 processor with 16GB of memory and 256GB of storage. That new chip gives the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro double the processing power and graphics that are nine times faster, according to Amazon. This tablet also comes with four Dolby Atmos speakers, Wi-Fi 6E, and a battery that lasts through 16 hours of video playback.
Goodbye Fire OS
Past Amazon Fire tablets may have been built on an Android foundation, but the company’s Fire OS user interface and semi-closed access to the Play Store always obscured it. The new Alexa tablets push Amazon’s customizations to the corners while granting users full access to the Play Store to download any app.
Now, the most visible Amazon customization on these new Android tablets is an ‘Ask Alexa’ widget and the dynamic tab in the top-left corner of the screen, which suggests things to continue reading or watching, or buying from the Amazon Prime app. These tablets, of course, still come with all the Amazon apps preloaded, including Prime Video, Kindle, Audible, Amazon Music, Amazon Quick, and Amazon Luna.
You can also access Alexa+ from anywhere in the interface by summoning it with your voice. The dual-array microphones will even let you call Amazon Alexa+ from another room. One new use case for Alexa+ is summarizing webpages in Amazon’s Silk web browser with a few shortcut clicks.
Amazon Alexa Tablet 11
If you’re looking for a tablet primarily for watching video content, the Amazon Alexa Tablet 11 features a slightly smaller 11-inch, widescreen 2.5K display. That 16:10 cinematic aspect ratio keeps letterboxed black bars at bay while still presenting a Dolby Atmos audio experience with just two speakers. This tablet is also more affordable at $329, but it has a weaker 8-core CPU, a shorter 15-hour battery life, and lacks the Nano Matte display, at least for now, as Amazon says it’s in active development for the smaller tablets. The Amazon Alexa Tablet 11 is available in Graphite, Amethyst, and Matcha, with preorders starting today and units shipping October 14.
Amazon Alexa Tablet 8
The Alexa Tablet 8 is Amazon’s latest one-handed tablet featuring an 8.7-inch screen. It shares the same specs as the Alexa Tablet 11, but with an even slightly shorter 14-hour battery life. Amazon has also told us it’s actively looking into also giving the Alexa Tablet 8 a Nanomatte display finish in the future. Still, for $229, the Amazon Alexa Tablet 8 looks tantalizing, especially in Graphite, Rosette, and Teal.
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam