Amazon’s Alexa Tablet 12 Pro is expensive – in a good way. And it has an absolutely incredible matte display!
Cheap and cheerful Amazon Fire tablets are everywhere. Literally. Amazon has sold tens of millions of the things. But times are changing and Amazon has decided now is the time to ditch Fire OS tablets and go for a more standard version of Android 16 alongside full compatibility with the Google Play Store. A more open approach, then.
As with previous Amazon tabs, several models are available but the lineup is definitely aimed at a more premium level than Fire tablets have been.
There’s Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro (which goes against the iPad Air in terms of functionality), Amazon Alexa Tablet 11 which offers 15 hours of battery life, and Amazon Alexa Tablet 8 which is super light at 329g.
The latter two are available in a variety of colors. Kids versions are also available of the 8.7-inch and 11-inch sizes, again shipping with a kid-proof case and a one-year Amazon Kids+ subscription to give you age-appropriate apps, games, videos, and books.
The most noteworthy aspect of these devices is the 3:2 matte screen option on the 6.5mm-thick Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro. The Nanomatte display – as Amazon is calling it – has anti-glare tech developed alongside glass specialist Corning. It has a superb Pen-on-screen writing experience to go alongside the Kindle Scribe’s paper-like approach with twice the referesh rate of the iPad Air. I have seen it up close and it looks fantastic. Amazon says the display works well outside, but I haven’t tested this as yet.
Annotation tools from Kindle Scribe are also available, so you can highlight, underline, write notes, and markup pages directly with the Pro Pen. You can also sync annotations across Kindle apps on pen-supported devices and on Kindle Scribe.
Eric Saarnio is Amazon’s vice president of international devices and services and took me through the new tablets before my demo session. “Without a doubt, this is the biggest leap we’ve ever made in developing tablets in our history. I don’t think they necessarily will be a replacement for a laptop. But I do think they’re going to be very powerful tools to both entertain and help you be productive.”
“They’re incredibly versatile. They’ve got fast wake times, long battery life. They have access to all of the things we love to do: watch movies, read books, check our emails. I’m seeing this in my own home. What people are using tablets for is really starting to evolve.”
The new tablets are centred around Alexa+ as their name suggests. The assistant can be invoked in a bunch of ways including an Ask Alexa blob in the bottom right of the screen or by voice, of course. You can also ask Alexa to interact with what’s on the screen if you wish. This so-called ‘on-screen intelligence’ only activates when you ask for it.
There’s also a software feature called the Dynamic Tab, which is basically like the For You page on various services. So you’ll see recent photos, shows you’ve been watching on Prime Video and things like the weather.
There is a great Kindle experience on the tablet. When you go into Kindle mode, notifications go silent, blue light is reduced, and battery life stretches up to 20 hours.
The Amazon Alexa Tablets are available in a range of versions and you’ll see these on the Amazon order pages:
- The Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro starts at $499.99/£449.99, with the Nanomatte version starting at $549.99/£499.99, in Graphite, with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage.
- The Amazon Alexa Tablet 11 starts at $329.99/£289.99 in Graphite, Amethyst and Matcha, with 8GB RAM and 64GB storage.
- The Amazon Alexa Tablet 8 starts at $229.99/£199.99 in Graphite, Rosette and Teal, with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage.
- Accessories include the Amazon Alexa Tablet Pro Keyboard at $149.99/£129.99, the Amazon Alexa Tablet Pro Pen at $89.99/£79.99, and a range of protective folio covers. The Tablet Pro Pen is a USI 2.0 active pen with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity, tilt detection, magnetic docking, and wireless charging. The Pro Keyboard magnetically attaches to the 12 Pro with no Bluetooth pairing required
