

(If you mainly plan on reading, keep in mind that the high-contrast, higher-resolution electronic-ink screen on Amazon’s Kindle models makes any of those a better choice as a reading device.) And the lower-resolution screen on the Fire HD 8 gives this tablet amazing battery life: This tablet can last three or four days on a charge with intermittent usage, and Amazon finally has USB-C on its Fire tablets instead of the older Micro-USB. Still, the screen is good enough for you to watch videos or get some reading done. The screen also shows more fingerprints and is harder to keep clean. The 8-inch screen’s 1280×800 resolution is a lot lower than that of either of the Galaxy Tab displays, which makes text and images visibly less sharp the brightness and the color reproduction rank far behind what Samsung’s models produce, as well. A microSD card slot is nice, as it lets you add storage, but not all apps take advantage of external storage, and microSD cards are slower than built-in storage. A tablet should have at least 32 GB of internal space to ensure that you have the breathing room to do so. Storage: Although streaming your media is convenient, at times you’re likely to want to download video, music, and documents to your tablet in advance-for example, if you’ll be on a plane without Wi-Fi access.A tablet’s large screen also makes it better for gaming than a phone, so it’s nice if the tablet has the horsepower to play the latest mobile titles. But a good tablet needs to be able to keep up with increasing app and OS requirements. Performance: Every tablet will feel slower over the course of two to three years as apps grow larger and demand even more power, and as the Android operating system adds useful but demanding features like split-screen multitasking.At this writing, we draw the line at Android 12-a tablet running anything older than that isn’t worth buying. Software: It’s important for a tablet to run a recent version of Android plus, tablets tend to get software updates less frequently than phones, so you shouldn’t start at a disadvantage.The tablet should also be able to last through at least a full day of heavy use-eight or more hours of browsing the web, streaming video, and running apps. If a tablet’s standby time can’t be measured in days, it’s not good enough.

The last thing you want when coming back to your tablet is a dead battery.


Watching video is one of the most common uses for a tablet, and no one wants to be staring at a dingy, low-res screen while they binge Netflix.
