Amazon is done with the ‘cheap but good enough’ era. The new Alexa Tablet lineup — the 12 Pro, 11, and 8 — replaces the Fire tablet philosophy with fully-featured Android slates that ship with the Google Play Store out of the box. No more sideloading, no more Amazon Appstore lock-in.
The lineup
- Alexa Tablet 12 Pro ($500): Dimensity 8400 — 3x faster CPU, 9x faster GPU than the Fire Max 11. 12-inch 3:2 display at 120Hz, quad Dolby Atmos speakers, aluminum unibody at 6.5mm and 550g. Up to 16 hours of video, or 20 hours in a dedicated reading mode that silences notifications and cuts blue light. A $550 Nanomatte version adds Corning’s glare-resistant etched glass (also available as 16GB/256GB for $680). USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 hits 5Gbps and supports DisplayPort video out.
- Alexa Tablet 11 ($330/$380): 11-inch 16:10 90Hz panel, MediaTek MT8189 (an 8-core Chromebook chip at up to 2GHz), 8GB RAM, 64 or 128GB storage, dual speakers, 15-hour battery. No video output — USB-C 2.0 only.
- Alexa Tablet 8 ($230–$300): 8.7-inch 1340×800 display, same MT8189, 4 or 8GB RAM, 64/128GB storage, 14-hour battery, 329g.
The fine print
Only the Pro escapes lockscreen ads — the smaller two carry them unless you pay $20 extra. Accessories are separate: the Pro Keyboard ($150, direct connection) and the USI 2.0 Pro Pen ($90, magnetic charging, 4,096 pressure levels). All three ship with Alexa+ and its natural conversation mode. Sales start October 14 in the US and October 19 in the UK.