A new lineup of Amazon tablets has been announced, and the devices are designed for both work and play. Amazon Alexa Tablets combine cloud-based device syncing functionality, onboard AI capabilities and the entirety of Amazon’s media catalog, making them something akin to on-the-go entertainment hubs.
Each of the three Alexa Tablet models has an aluminum chassis, which will protect what’ll be some of the thinnest devices Amazon has ever released. More importantly, Fire OS and the Amazon Appstore are going away. Instead of a custom, forked operating system, the Alexa Tablets will run Android 16 at launch, and will upgrade to Android 17 in early 2027. That means these devices will offer full Play Store functionality, giving users access to plenty of apps that haven’t previously been compatible with Amazon tablets.
But the software capabilities are what I suspect will be the real draw. If you use an Amazon account on your computer, phone, TV or other device, it will automatically sync up with the Alexa Tablets. A dynamic tab on the home screen allows you to quickly pick up movies, shows, books and games wherever you left off. There’s also an algorithmic “For You” layout that shows you other content you might enjoy based off of what you’re currently enjoying, like a streaming model that pulls together every form of media in one place.
Avid readers will be able to access their Audible and Kindle libraries in one place, and a new Kindle mode also silences notifications, turns down blue light and enhances battery life. I got a firsthand look at the e-ink and color paper modes at an in-person event in New York and was impressed with how the pages looked on-screen. The texture of the display is sufficiently papery, too. (TCL’s Nxtpaper devices may soon be given a run for their money.)
Each Alexa Tablet is deeply integrated with Alexa Plus AI, allowing you to converse with it and pull answers from Amazon’s Silk browser on the fly. Opting into on-screen intelligence allows the generative model to see what’s on the display. It can answer questions about images in a browser, locate listings for specific products shown in a social media video and more. During the product demonstration, Alexa Plus took upwards of half a minute to respond to complicated prompts, but the onboard model responded accurately to verbal requests about managing a personal calendar and finding nearby restaurants based on dietary restrictions.
Kevin Keith, vice president of Amazon’s devices team, told me that the new lineup of Amazon Alexa Tablets will supersede the Fire Tablets entirely. The company will wind down production of its old product and sell the remaining stock over the next few months. Once those Fire tablets sell out, Amazon has committed to providing at least four years of software support, including security and operating system updates.
The cloud syncing, Kindle mode and Alexa Plus on-screen intelligence features are packaged into every Alexa Tablet, but these devices aren’t all built the same. The three models have different hardware and peripheral capabilities. Here’s what you can expect from the first wave of Alexa Tablets.
Amazon’s new flagship tablet feels like a true jack of all trades. It’s an entertainment hub, an ereader and a personal AI assistant that can be converted into a work laptop using a few simple peripherals.
The most premium configuration has a whopping 16GB of memory, which will help with a more demanding workload for folks who routinely use the device’s multiwindowing capabilities or more complex Play Store applications.
This feels like the platonic ideal of a hybrid device. It’s more portable than a laptop, but has all your favorite mobile apps. It’s powerful enough for some light gaming but you can use it to read a new book, too. It’s not specialized for any particular task, but it can do a bit of everything. Its launch price is also cheaper than most budget laptops to boot.
This middle-of-the-road Alexa Tablet is likely for people who want the entertainment hub functionality of the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro but are willing to make some compromises to save some money.
The 11-inch model is still able to use a keyboard, but it doesn’t have a physical pogo pin connection. You can still use the stylus to draw on-screen, but there’s less space to do so. More importantly, you’re losing out on the higher storage options available on the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro.
This might not be a portable workstation, but it’s a solid entertainment hub nonetheless: You still get high resolution and all of Amazon’s media is in one place. If you’re looking for a better bargain on a “fun” tablet, the Alexa Tablet 11 could end up being the perfect middle-ground for you.
The diminutive Alexa Tablet 8 has the same built-in device cloud syncing and Alexa Plus capabilities as the rest of the lineup, but I wouldn’t expect this model to serve as an entertainment hub or work device.
Even though it has full Play Store access, it has less memory and storage space than the more expensive Alexa Tablets. I reckon most people will use this 8.7-inch tablet as a pocket-size ereader in the new and improved Kindle mode, with its additional capabilities serving as a bonus.
Just like the regular Fire Tablets, the Fire Kids lineup is going the way of the dodo. But it’s being replaced with two Alexa Tablets that are also built specifically for children. Keith told me the design philosophy for these tablets was to bring them more in line with devices for adults while maintaining safety features and parental controls.
“We know kids want a tablet, not a toy, so we add the same hardware as the Alexa Tablet,” he said. “We ship it with a bumper, a completely different UI and software built just for kids.”
Younger children will benefit from the new 8.7-inch tablet, which has a soft, foam cover around the chassis, while a sleeker 11-inch model will come with a more form-fitting, kid-proof case.
The devices come with the generative-AI Storybuilder tool, which lets kids verbalize stories and see custom visuals for them. This is paired off with its own set of parental controls and a parental dashboard that provides weekly insights on tablet usage. Every Amazon Kids tablet comes with a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids Plus.
The full lineup of Amazon Alexa Tablets is available for preorder now, and will begin shipping out across the US on Oct. 14.
