Best Tablets in various price ranges?

[Roland00Address]

So it is Christmas Time Again and I am curious what this forum thinks are the best tablets in various price ranges in this year of our lord 2018.

Feel free to suggest both tiers and which tablets fit in these tiers. For simplicity stake I will set my own internal head as these tiers of price ranges.


$50 and under

$100 and under

$200 and under

$350 and under

$300 to $600

$600 and above (aka pro computers even if they are in tablet form factors.)

 

[thilanliyan]

I have both an original Samsung Tab S 8.4 and 10.5, bought in Nov 2014 and Nov 2015, respectively and they are both going strong although the battery life on the 8.4 has degraded a bit. That's expected though as it has got nearly daily use for those 4 years.

Samsung OLED screens are the best screens you can get on tablets IMO, especially for media consumption. For productivity I'm really not sure.

The Tab S4 is pretty good from what I've read, but it's expensive. You can get the S2 or S3 for cheaper, but personally I don't like the 4:3 screen aspect ratio.

 

[you2]

I wish I knew but i havent' seen a good 8 inch tablet in years; I'm currently using a leveno which falls into the under $200 but that's only because I can't find a good one from asus or samsung that is new model. The 8.4 still sells but they are fairly old now.

 

[Roland00Address]

I wish I knew but i havent' seen a good 8 inch tablet in years; I'm currently using a leveno which falls into the under $200 but that's only because I can't find a good one from asus or samsung that is new model. The 8.4 still sells but they are fairly old now.

Yeah a good 8.4" simply does not exist in a way I can quantify "good" inside my head. Honestly the Apple iPad mini from 2015, which uses an a8 / ipad 6 hardware is about the best you can get in the 8" class size.

Now this is not quite true for there are some android tablets that are slightly better than the 2015 iPad Mini (which is the most recent version of the mini), but when I say slightly better I am saying they trade blows with it and do not really surpass it. And such 8" tablets have some other ridiculous downside that makes them not worth it, or their price is so high you might as well get a 10" tablet with better hardware for the same price even if you prefer the 7.9 to 8.4" size and weight of this class of tablet.

Sigh (breathes out and lets the frustration leave him) whatever.

I have given up on the 8" class size being Great and merely hope it to be good enought that I do not get super frustrated in it. A new hope emerges that maybe we will see good enough 7 to 8 phones and while I do not want a phone that size if they get cheap enough for good enough I may just get a 2nd phone that works kind of like a tablet even though this is not my heart's desire.

Sigh (breathes out and lets the frustration leave him)...why don't people make my heart desire possible? Well... Cest La Vie.

 

[paperfist]

I don’t know much about them technically, but I was playing around with a Surface at BestBuy and it seemed pretty nice. If I get one more crack in my iPad a Surface will replace it.

 

[you2]

Yea the surace pro 6 for $800 seems like an ok alternative just prefer andriod for tablet than windows 10.

 

[IronWing]

My wife picked up the new 11" iPad Pro (wifi only) and I have to say, I'm impressed. This iteration of screen/pencil achieves the promise of what a stylus should be like. It's fast, responsive, nice looking screen. If you're already in the Apple universe, the syncing among iThings is amazing. She turned on the tablet and the first prompt was, "There is an iPhone nearby. Would you like to copy login info from that phone?" Easy peazy. The Apple keyboard cover is okay, nothing great, but certainly better than typing on the on-screen keyboard. Sound is good, for a tablet.

She got the SD card reader as she uses an SLR quite a bit. The iPad is far faster at reading and copying photos than my desktop is.

We bought the FileBrowser app to access directories on my desktop (Win 10) and it works very well, integrates into other apps like the Photos app. Apparently, if one signs up for a VPN service, one can use the FileBrowser app to access files seamlessly from anywhere.

The only real downside is that it is stupid expensive.

When I went back to my $40 7" Fire tablet, I sort of pouted.

 

[paperfist]

Yea the surace pro 6 for $800 seems like an ok alternative just prefer andriod for tablet than windows 10.

Dunno what model I was looking at but it was $350 with keyboard. Could’ve been Black Friday pricing.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I was shopping for a 10" tablet in the $100 - $500 range earlier this year, and after reading a bunch of website and owner reviews I picked up the Lenovo Tab 4 - 10" version from Amazon (currently $180 new).

I've been using it for several months as an ebook reader, browser (including Seattle Times print replica PDFs) , and for Android games. It's a nice tablet, and the microSD slot means you can add an extra 128 GB of storage for $20-30.

It's my pick for the best Android tablet under $500.

 

[you2]

an apple 8 inch tablet wouold be ok IFF it has an sd slot.

i dont use samsung tabs but Apple tab is really a good choice

 

[DaveSimmons]

an apple 8 inch tablet wouold be ok IFF it has an sd slot.

Yes, no SD card slot and very high cost for extra storage kept me from considering apple. I wanted to be able to fit my 100 GB of MP3s on the tablet for listening without streaming.

 

[Andrey Bailey]

The best android tablet is Samsung Galaxy Tab 4.