Colorful and bright display
Comfortable backlit keyboard with touchpad
Faster than most economical Windows laptops
Windows Hello for facial recognition connections
Short battery life
Thick glasses
Microsoft’s Surface Go gives you a ton of Surface Pro benefits, but at a much more affordable price. Starting at $ 399, it offers a bright and colorful screen, a comfortable keyboard and a robust magnesium design. It also includes support for Windows Hello for biometric logins.
You shouldn’t expect faster performance from its Pentium Gold 4415Y processor, but it should provide enough power for everyday tasks. If you can’t buy a tablet today, you might want to wait for the long-awaited Surface Go 2.
Read our full Microsoft Surface Go Review.
10. Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Best Samsung Tablet Overall
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CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 | Display: 10.5 inch, 2560 x 1600 | Storage room: 128 GB | Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 0.2 inches | Weight: 0.95 pounds | Ports: USB-C, microSD
Fast performance
Charging the integrated S Pen
BookCover Keyboard has a touchpad
Powerful speakers
No headphone jack
Narrow keyboard
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 ($ 649) has a gorgeous 10.5-inch screen, fast performance and an included S Pen that charges on the back of the tablet. We also like the touchpad on the new BookCover keyboard accessory and the DeX desktop interface making the Galaxy Tab S6 a viable replacement for laptops.
Android tablets are more difficult to find, but the Galaxy Tab S6 makes a case for the rare breed. If you can find a good deal, the Galaxy Tab S6 could be better value than any Surface iPad or tablet on the market.
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How to choose the best tablet for you
Choosing the right tablet requires the same thought process as buying a laptop. As with any product, the first thing you need to decide is your primary use of a tablet. Whether it’s surfing the web on the couch or watching Netflix in bed, you don’t need to spend $ 1,000 on the iPad Pro. You’re probably better off with the $ 329 iPad or even the $ 400 Surface Go – both of which have great screens. You can even sit on the Amazon Fire HD 8 for $ 80, a tablet designed only for multimedia viewing.
If you need a tablet that can be used as a laptop, your best options are the iPad Pro or Surface Pro 6 – tablets that can be paired with a removable keyboard and support trackpad / mouse input. These two devices provide a lot of power, even to the most demanding users.
Another consideration is the size of the tablet. While it may not look like that, a 12.9-inch tablet looks massive in the hand. If you want something lighter, consider a tablet with a screen less than 10 inches. Almost all tablets are thin and light, but few have good connectivity options. The Surface tablet stands out in this respect, offering a USB-A input.
How we test the best tablets
Our tablets undergo rigorous benchmark tests before they even land in the hands of our critics. Our test varies slightly depending on the tablet’s operating system, but the overall performance and graphics of almost all tablets are measured by the Geekbench 5 benchmark.
We also use a sophisticated colorimeter to quantify the display quality. The device can measure the range of sRGB colors that a screen captures and the average brightness on the panel.
Our battery test gives an accurate measure of daily run times. To test the endurance of a tablet, we set the display to 150 nits, then performed a continuous loop consisting of web browsing and video playback until the device turns off.
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