Amazing Devices

Tablets and e-readers: screen, storage, battery hours, and the kids edition

A tablet is a screen with a battery and an app store; an e-reader is a screen you can read in the sun for weeks on a charge. Their specification sheets share most lines and differ on the two that matter: what kind of screen, and which store the apps come from.

What the category is

Fire tablets (7, HD 8, HD 10, Max 11) run Amazon’s store and are the cheapest tablets that work; their Kids editions add a case, a two-year replacement guarantee and a year of Kids+. iPads and Android tablets (Samsung, Lenovo and smaller brands) run the full stores. E-readers — Kindle, Kobo — use an e-ink screen that is readable outdoors, lasts weeks, and does nothing but books.

How to read the spec sheet

Screen: size in inches, resolution, and type. A 7-inch 1024 by 600 screen is a child’s video player; a 10-inch 1920 by 1200 is a reading and video tablet; e-ink at 300 ppi is a page. Brightness in nits, where stated, is the sunlight figure.

Store and OS: Amazon’s Appstore has no Google apps unless you sideload; Android and iPadOS have everything. This line decides what the tablet is for more than any other.

Storage and RAM: 16 or 32 GB with a microSD slot on Fire tablets; 64 GB and up without a slot on iPads. 2 GB of RAM is a one-app-at-a-time tablet; 4 GB and up multitasks.

Battery in hours of stated use — 10 to 13 for tablets, weeks for e-readers — and the charging port and speed.

Ports and wireless: USB-C, a headphone jack or not, Wi-Fi standard, and on e-readers whether it is waterproof (IPX8 on the better Kindles).

Kids editions: the case, the guarantee, the parental controls and the subscription’s length, all on the sheet, and the price difference against the same tablet bought plain.

Ads: Fire tablets and Kindles are cheaper “with ads” on the lock screen; the sheet says which version, and the difference is a one-time fee.

Who it suits

A Fire tablet for video, books and a child; a Kids edition for a child who will drop it; an iPad or Android tablet for apps, school and drawing; an e-reader for anyone who reads more than a book a month and wants to do it in daylight.

Who should skip it

Anyone expecting a Fire tablet to run the apps on their phone: without Google’s store it will not. Anyone buying a tablet mainly to watch a bigger screen at home, for whom a streaming device on the TV costs a fifth as much.

Where to start

Six of the 374 tablets & e-readers devices reviewed on this site, one per model, across manufacturers. Every review is written from the manufacturer’s published specifications — how, and what that leaves out.

All 374 tablets & e-readers device reviews

Newest first. Consumables, accessories and parts that were once filed here are excluded.