Best small tablets in 2024

In some ways, the Android tablet market is in a great place right now. If you’re looking for a 10-inch+ tablet and willing to spend several hundred dollars, there’s a slew of high-end Android slates to choose from. Even just a few hundred bucks can land you a surprisingly great midrange tablet with impressive specs and a quality display. And software developers on both the operating system and app sides constantly work to improve the big-screen Android experience.

But as Android Police Phones Editor Will Sattelberg recently decried, there’s a dearth of premium small tablets, with the most portable devices missing out on modern hardware and convenient features. Sure, you could opt for a tablet-style foldable, but their aspect ratio, price, and relative fragility make them a non-starter for most people. So, we dug deep and can confirm that there are some worthwhile smaller tablets to consider, and this list includes the best models.

Top compact Android tablets now

Apple’s iPad lineup has easily cornered the tablet market, and far be it from Android Police to argue. The 2021 Mini looks a lot like a miniature 2020 iPad Air in terms of style and makes just a few sacrifices to fit in a smaller package with a slightly lower price. The display’s high resolution and good peak brightness make it useful in most lighting conditions, although we were a bit bummed at the 60Hz TFT panel, considering plenty of phones half the price have way better screens.

Panel type notwithstanding, though, the iPad Mini sports the high performance we’ve come to expect from Apple’s in-house silicon, in this case, the A15 Bionic. The actively updated iPadOS runs smoothly without any hiccups, another common thing with Apple products. And at under 300g and less than 7 millimeters thick, this is just about the lightest and thinnest sub-9-inch slate out there. It definitely looks and feels more premium than the rest.

The only major drawback, as with some other Apple devices, is the cost. A $500 list price for a device with just 64GB of storage definitely qualifies as frustrating, given Apple’s longtime refusal to allow for microSD storage expansion. That said, it’s frequently discounted by $100 at various retailers, which makes it worth considering if you’re OK with learning the ins and outs of the operating system.

There aren’t many reliable tablets under the $100 mark, and the Lenovo Tab M8 usually sees discounts well below that. To be clear, you won’t be running 3D games at high frame rates on this minuscule device, but you won’t have a ton of slowdowns if you stick to things like social media and streaming apps. It’s a little lighter than other 8-inch tablets, too, and has slightly slimmer bezels. The small form factor also means it’s pretty durable.

As long as you temper your expectations, the Tab M8 is a perfectly passable device for simple media consumption and online communication. The selfie camera isn’t very good, the display doesn’t get super bright, and the speakers don’t sound the best. But at press time, it was readily available for $93, which is hard to pass up if you just need something basic.

It wouldn’t be a roundup of the best tablets without a showing from Samsung. The 2021 Galaxy Tab A7 Lite is the Korean tech giant’s only offering smaller than 9 inches, and it’s a decent one, despite its faults. Chief among those faults is the mediocre-at-best performance, which significantly limits what kinds of apps you can use.

On the bright side, you’ve got Android 14 and Samsung’s renowned One UI interface to look forward to, with all the customization, convenience, and efficiency they entail. If you plan to use your tablet for basic tasks like web browsing, organizing your schedule, and keeping up with it, the A7 Lite will serve fine.

It’s also one of the few in this class to come in a 4G LTE-enabled version, although that one’s a little harder to come by. You’ll probably have to opt for the international model, which lacks a U.S. warranty. Overall, if you’re looking for something basic for the essentials and decent software, the Tab A7 Lite is worth considering.

The Fire tablet series gets a little flak for its somewhat restrictive UI, which isn’t entirely unwarranted. But you can take a few simple steps to tweak your Fire tablet, like side-loading the Google Play Store to make it feel more like Android than Amazon ever intended. And don’t worry about breaking any functionality. While not all Android apps work perfectly, you can turn this normally locked-down device into something quite convenient.

Like other tablets in this size and price class, it doesn’t wow in terms of performance or display quality. But it’s absolutely fine for watching your favorite movies or TV shows or managing your email and other communications. The extra gig of RAM compared to the non-Plus version makes a difference, too, and the list price of $120 isn’t bad.

Nobody’s claiming the Fire 7 is anywhere near high performance, but its $60 MSRP doesn’t either. This is the kind of tablet you get when you need a device that won’t break (physically or in terms of software) but can provide entertainment during dull moments or digital connectivity on the fly. Will the display quality win any awards? No. Can you log into a 3D shooter and enjoy blistering frame rates? Absolutely not, but that’s not what it’s for.

The Fire 7 performs well at the simplest tasks, and not much else, but you can certainly rely on it for those. It’s made even better when you tweak it just like its slightly larger sibling, as mentioned above, particularly by side-loading the Google Play Store. The device’s poor performance will limit your app options, but you’ll still have plenty of useful widgets and other software to make this a worthwhile, small investment.

The Onyx Boox Tab Mini C, like other Onyx e-readers, is a legitimately interesting device. It fills a different niche than typical Android tablets, which normally sport bright, bold LED panels and put watching video at the forefront. In contrast, the E Ink display of the Mini C doesn’t do all that well with video — especially color video — but instead makes writing and drawing an absolute pleasure.

Part of this comes from the nature of the display itself. The non-backlit E Ink technology has a significantly different look than typical LED panels, and in this case, adds color output to the paper-like appearance we’ve come to expect from quality e-readers. But wait, there’s more: A stylus input layer from none other than industry leader Wacom makes this one of the most useful and novel drawing tablets we’ve seen in recent years. If you want to take notes or make sketches on a compact, portable device, few better options exist than this relatively small and light Onyx.

It has its drawbacks, but if you’re looking for a combination of a drawing tablet and an e-reader that fits easily in a purse or backpack, supports an extensive amount of Android apps, and can even reproduce video at passable quality, this is basically the only option. And that’s not a cop-out; it’s a truly unique device in terms of design, hardware, and software. While very noticeably different from a standard tablet, it still comes with the Google Play Store installed, so you can get tons of functionality out of it. Artists, students, and busy professionals alike will likely love the Tab Mini C — if they can handle the $400 price tag.

As weird as the term “phablet” is, that’s basically what we’d call the TCL Tab 8 LE, and it fills a pretty specific niche. If you want 4G LTE data connected to a device that’s bigger than a phone but smaller and less costly than a midrange tablet, this is one of just a couple of viable choices. You’ll need to pick up a good microSD card for any appreciable app installations, but those are pretty cheap, and so is the Tab 8 LE.

We won’t lie to you and say it’s the most versatile tablet, but it works, has an OK battery life, and can always keep you connected. If, for example, you want to add a 4G-connected tablet to your car travel experience while spending a minimum, it’s a great choice. It’ll keep you driving in the right direction, or your passengers engaged with mobile entertainment, anywhere you have a signal. And it comes with support for either Verizon or T-Mobile’s networks, and you can get it basically for free if you sign up for a new line.

So, while we wouldn’t recommend it for most people (and wouldn’t recommend the Wi-Fi-only version for anybody), it does have its uses.

Choosing an affordable, compact tablet

There are some extremely viable compact slates here, and the Lenovo Tab M8 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite both deserve some credit for their software and general performance. However, neither of these will win any awards.

The iPad Mini is hands-down one of the best options right now, especially when it’s on sale, and fortunately, it usually is. As long as you’re OK with adapting to iPadOS, you won’t find a better small tablet experience. And if you just want something simple and affordable, you can’t do better than the latest Lenovo Tab M8.

There is still hope for the future of compact Android tablets. The outlook might not be incredibly optimistic, but it’s not necessarily bleak, either. As generational upgrades to high-end devices get ever more incremental and software support lifespans longer, you can expect low-cost devices to slowly adopt better hardware and, therefore, more long-term usefulness. But for the moment, these mostly affordable (and in some cases novel and unique) small tablets offer plenty of usability, now and for at least a couple of years into the future.