Amazon's new Alexa Tablet range comes in three sizes, the 12 Pro, 11 and 8, and each model runs Android with the Alexa+ assistant built in and the Google Play Store available. Prices start at $229.99.
Amazon says orders open today, with shipping from October 14 in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and from October 19 in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro starts at $499.99, or $549.99 for the anti-glare Nanomatte screen. The Alexa Tablet 11 costs $329.99 and the Alexa Tablet 8 costs $229.99.
The 12 Pro is the flagship. Its aluminum body is 6.5mm thick, and the 12-inch screen runs at 120Hz with a 3:2 shape that favors reading and documents. Amazon lists a 4nm eight-core chip, up to 16GB of memory, Wi-Fi 6E and four Dolby Atmos speakers. The company claims nearly triple the processing speed and nine times the graphics speed of any tablet it has shipped, a comparison against its own earlier hardware only. A Pro Pen ($89.99) and a magnetic Pro Keyboard ($149.99) work with this model alone.
The Alexa Tablet 11 is aimed at video and games, with a 2.5K 90Hz display, 8GB of memory and about 15 hours of playback. The Alexa Tablet 8 weighs 329g and has an 8.7-inch screen, 4GB of memory in its base version and a rated 14 hours of video.
Alexa+ is the part Amazon leans on hardest. Its On-Screen Intelligence feature lets the assistant read whatever is on the display and act on it, such as pulling dates from a schedule into a calendar. Live sessions drop the wake word for a continuous conversation. Amazon says every On-Screen Intelligence feature is off until a user opts in, with an indicator showing when Alexa can see the screen. That is a meaningful amount of access for an assistant to ask for, and the opt-in design will matter more than the feature list.
Opening the Kindle app switches a tablet into a reading mode that silences notifications and cuts blue light, with Amazon quoting up to 20 hours of battery. Amazon also announced Kids Tablets in 8.7-inch and 11-inch sizes, sold as bundles with a case and a year of Amazon Kids+. Those ship October 14 in the United States and Japan alike.
