š Review score: 4.5/5
š
Editorās Choice Award
ā
Pros
š·ļø Attractively priced at $499 to start
ā« Nanomatte display eliminates glare
šŗ Pixel-matched finish maintains deep black levels and vibrant colors
š Color Paper and Ink Paper modes for reading
āļø Great everyday performance and solid 12-14 hour battery life
ā Cons
š Accessory prices are steep
š± Paper-like reading modes donāt extend beyond the Kindle app
š¾ Graphics are weak for anything beyond casual gaming
š« Nanomatte finish is a fingerprint magnet
The Shortcut Review
The Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro has easily become the Android tablet I would recommend above all others. It starts at a fantastically attractive $499, and the optional Nanomatte screen is an essential upgrade that bumps the price to $549 for a glare-free display with almost OLED-quality blacks like the iPad Pro, but at a much more affordable price.
Easily the most captivating thing about the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro is its Nanomatte display, which essentially eliminates glare and gives the screen a more paper-like feel. The screen is stunning in its own right with a 12.3-inch size, 3:2 aspect ratio, 2,800 x 1,840 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and 500 nits of brightness ā this is a flagship-grade display that makes watching movies and reading books a joy. Amazon, of course, added some Kindle-ness with the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro by giving it Color and Ink Paper modes that emulate the blue-light-free, paper-like feel of reading on an e-ink device.
Everyday performance is great, with a solid 12-14 hours of battery life, and it has enough graphical power to play games like Honkai: Star Rail and Wuthering Waves. While itās not as powerful as an iPad Air M4 or Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra, if you just want a tablet for reading and watching movies that youāll download Amazonās apps for anyway, this is a far more affordable option. Itās also a great device that can be a portal for all your artistic needs, work multitasking, and agentic AI needs.
Full Review
ā« Nanomatte display. Amazonās new Nanomatte display offers an amazing level of glare reduction, so I can take the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro anywhere outside, even on the sunniest days, and still clearly see whatās on the screen. The only thing that makes the tabletās screen impossible to see is direct sunlight hitting the display, which peaks at 500 nits. Otherwise, indoor spotlights pointed directly at the screen or really any indoor lighting situations, cause bothersome reflections on the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro. And best of all, I can use any old microfiber cloth to wipe the screen, unlike the iPad Pro.
š¾ Pixel-matched finish. The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro doesnāt use a simple sandblasted matte finish to achieve its anti-glare properties. Amazon co-developed this new matte display with Corning, using a photolithography process to etch a precise, pixel-aligned texture onto the glass. In short, the matte display was custom-molded to the Alexa Tablet 12 Proās specific display. This allows the display to maintain deeper blacks and richer colors. It also lets this Amazon tablet create faux Soft White and Colorsoft Kindle modes that look fairly similar to an actual e-reader.
š Kindle mode. The Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro makes tablet reading a little easier with Color Paper and Ink Paper modes. Although itās not a real Kindle, reading in this mode is a little softer on the eyes as it cuts out most of the blue light emanating from the display.
Color Paper mode looks less saturated than the displayās standard color mode, but it renders images and comic books with a surprisingly paper-like quality. It also offers more saturation and color accuracy than even Amazonās latest Colorsoft Kindles, thanks to its real underlying LCD screen. Meanwhile, Ink Paper makes reading books on the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro a joy compared to the eye strain youāll develop from staring at an iPad. That said, holding a 12-inch tablet to read books is still a lot heavier than a Kindle, so Iāll stick to an e-reader for long reading sessions.
Amazon isnāt the first to introduce a paper-like reading tablet; TCL has been working on NXTPaper devices for five years. I would like to see Amazon expand its Kindle mode to the Silk browser for reading webpages, even if it wonāt let me use the device in āpaper modeā throughout the whole interface as TCL does.
ā” Fast enough. The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro feels snappy and much faster than previous Amazon Fire tablets. Admittedly, the aging MediaTek Dimensity 8400 processor from 2024 isnāt nearly as quick as the latest iPad Air M4 or Samsung Galaxy S12 Ultraās MediaTek Dimensity 9500, but for this hardware the CPU offers more than enough oomph. I could even game at a decent frame rate in Honkai: Star Rail and Wuthering Waves on the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro.
ā¶ļø Down to play. I have to commend Amazon for peeling back the layers of control and switching from Fire OS to Android 16. Amazonās brand presence on the tablet is very visible in the corners with the āAsk Alexaā widget and the dynamic tab in the top-left corner of the screen. However, granting users full access to the Play Store to download any app is a great step for these new tablets.
š¤ Alexa+ everywhere. The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, unsurprisingly, offers plenty of ways to access Alexa+. You can, of course, summon it with your voice, and the dual-array microphones let you call it from another room. The on-screen shortcut gives you ready access, but one of the most useful new interactions is having Alexa+ summarize webpages in Amazonās Silk web browser with a few shortcut clicks. Itās contextual enough to see what youāre looking at and offer search and shopping suggestions. You can also use Alexa+ to create an OpenTable reservation or generate a calendar reminder from an email. Itās all pretty basic stuff, but you can also easily download any more complex AI Agent like ChatGPT and Perplexity thanks to full access to the Google Play Store.
šļø Bundle up. Amazon has made a fantastic set of accessories for the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro that turn it into a road-warrior work machine and digital art palette, but theyāre pretty expensive for a $549 tablet. The $149 Pro Keyboard and $89 Pro Pen together cost 40% of the tabletās price. The good news is that if youāre planning to get both accessories from the jump, bundling the device and accessories together for $699 is cheaper, which essentially nets you the whole package with a free pen.
Kevin Lee is The Shortcutās Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam