Best tablet 2020: slim, stylish and powerful slates

If you're looking for the very best tablet of 2020 you don't want to cut corners: you want a tablet that's sleek, versatile, packed with power, and able to cope with everything you need it to do... and that's where T3 comes in. Here we'll guide you to the very best tablets available today. From the best cheap tablets to the best Android tablets, and onto the best iPads, this guide has you covered.

For a lot of people, a new Apple iPad Air is going to be the most appealing tablet, but the best tablet is actually going to be different for each person depending on their intended usage scenarios and budget. It really pays to take you time and properly evaluate exactly what you need from a tablet before pulling the trigger on a purchase.

Luckily there's currently a whole host of top-quality tablets on the market right now, able to meet every budget and desired spec sheet – so no matter what your requirements are, we're sure you'll be able to find the best tablet for you below.

To make this ideal tablet discovery as easy as possible, we've also included some valuable buying advice that is geared to explaining exactly what you should be looking out for in a top tablet, be that shopping at the high-end or for a tablet for a kid.

• Best tablets for kids
• The best Amazon Kindle

The best tablets 2020: get the best tablet for you now

This technically is the iPad Air 3, but is more like the second-gen 10.5-inch iPad Pro – it's that latter 2017 tablet that the 2019 version of the iPad Air is replacing in the Apple line-up. The dimensions and screen stay largely the same, but the internal processor gets a boost.

Apple Pencil support is here, but only for the first-gen stylus. There's smart connector for a keyboard too, so this is a slightly better proposition than the entry-level iPad for serious typists. It's also a little more expensive too, of course...

Price-wise and specs-wise this sits in the middle of the Apple iPad tablet range at the moment, and that should tell you all you need to know about whether it's the best tablet for you. It's a really good balance of price, performance and portability, made even better by iPadOS.

If you are looking for a fantastic all-round tablet experience the Apple iPad Air 2019 delivers, and does so at a firmly mid-tier price point.

The iPad Pro 12.9-inch is the largest, most powerful tablet we've ever seen from Apple. Indeed, its 12.9-inch, 2048 x 2732 pixel display is a thing of real beauty, while its incredibly powerful A12X Bionic processor is a technical marvel, rapidly crunching through any task you through at it.

Read the full review: Apple iPad Pro 12.9-inch review

There's a top-level supporting suite of tech and features, too, including a capacious and long-lasting 9720 mAh battery, 6GB of RAM and 1TB of internal storage space, as well as 4K video capture functionality and support for Apple's great new Apple Pencil, too. The tablet runs the latest iPadOS and comes installed with four powerful speakers behind the screen, which make consuming media a joy.

In our review of the all new 12.9-inch Apple iPad Pro, T3's own Matt Bolton concluded that it is "the best tablet on the market – it's slick, the design is class-leading, and it's insanely powerful, which means it's only going to get more capable with updates as time goes on." Enough said, we think.

The new entry-level 10.2-inch iPad really makes you wonder why you would pay more for a more expensive iPad – it's a little slower, sure, and doesn't have the ultra-thin bezels or the very best True Tone screen. But you still get a whole lot of Apple tablet for not much money.

And the ever-improving iPadOS runs just as well on the basic Apple iPad as it does on the iPad Pros. It's the perfect tablet for relaxing on the sofa, or giving to the kids, or doing just about everything you would want to do with a tablet – it has Apple Pencil support now, too, though only for the first-generation stylus.

"It's a really great tablet," we wrote in our review. "There's no obvious compromise on performance, it's a generous screen size, the battery life is good, and it's easy to expand with a keyboard cover or Apple Pencil.

As such, if you want top tablet performance but are shopping on a budget, then the Apple iPad 10.2 2019 is a fantastic choice.

If you prefer Android to iPadOS, and want the very best tablet that's powered by Google software, then the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 is it. It's beautifully designed, it's packed with power, and the S Pen continues to get more and more useful with each passing upgrade.

In our review we praised the slate's sleek looks, the software sophistication, the quality of the media playback (both audio and visuals), and the look of that high-resolution 10.5-inch screen. It may not be quite as good as the iPad, but it's close, and you can at least escape Apple's walled garden (and set a default web browser that isn't Safari – imagine that). 

Samsung has even managed to pack in a dual-lens rear camera on this device, so if you absolutely must take photos with your tablet, this won't let you down. As with the iPad, you're probably going to want the official keyboard accessory as well, which will cost you extra.

Overall, if you want an Android tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 is the best on the market today.

Maybe you don't have as much space in your backpack, or maybe you have smaller hands, or maybe you just don't have quite as much money to spend – those are some of the reasons you might pick the 11-inch iPad Pro over the 12.9-inch version.

Despite its smaller size, the internals of the iPad Pro 11 are the same as the bigger version: it's supremely powerful, it's incredibly versatile (if you're willing to fork out for extra cost for the keyboard cover folio)... in short, it's an absolute beast of a tablet.

It'll run apps and games without breaking a sweat (making it ideal for word processing on the go), and with iPadOS now on the scene it's a better laptop replacement than ever before. Expensive, but recommended.

The iPad mini is now a little powerhouse of a tablet, packing in an incredible fast Apple A12 processor (more powerful than in the entry-level 10.2-inch iPad, for example).

This turns the iPad mini into a fantastic creativity machine – with a wide-colour high-res display and Apple Pencil support, it's a beautiful little machine for drawing on or editing photos. It's capable of handling huge raw photography files, editing multiple 4K videos at once, creating music projects with loads of tracks… you name it, the iPad mini can power it.

Being such a small size and weighing barely anything, that makes it the ideal 'throw it in your bag every day' companion. It’s also great for games, of course, or entertainment (though the screen isn't OLED, which makes it weaker for movie viewing than, say, the Samsung Tab S6 above).

But while the iPad mini has all the strengths of iOS – including its huge collection of dedicated apps and stable performance even when multitasking – the smaller screen means it can’t always make the most of them. This isn’t suited to office-style productivity (spreadsheets, documents, etc), just due to the size of the screen and how that limits what you can see when multi-tasking. 

If it's a versatile productivity machine you want, the iPad Air is better. If it's a media-watching machine, the better speakers and OLED screen on the Samsung Tab S6 are maybe a better bet. But as a fun super-portable tablet you can do anything on, this is impossible to beat.

In our official Microsoft Surface Go review we concluded that:

"The Microsoft Surface Go is a pro-level tablet computer that successfully breaks into the market traditionally dominated by the Apple iPad Pro and Samsung Galaxy Tab ranges. It doesn't quite match the slickness of its rivals, but then again its rivals don't have the flexibility of Windows."

And that, simply put, is why this compact and stylish Windows 10 tablet has found its way into our best tablets guide – it offers something that the other tablets in this list don't, and it does so at an attractive price point, too. A well-made and stylish tablet, with solid internal hardware and screen, and running Windows 10, is a rare thing.

The best tablet on the market in 2020 for users who demand the Windows 10 OS and want to keep their purchase affordable.

This is Samsung's newest tablet, and while not quite as powerful as the Samsung Tab S6, it's probably better value for money – if your needs aren't that demanding and you want a well-built Android tablet with an excellent screen, the Samsung Tab S5e definitely stands out as one of the best tablets of 2020.

You don't get any official stylus with this, so you can't give your fingers a rest, but there is an official keyboard dock and cover (available as an optional extra) if you need to do a lot of typing.

Of course new Samsung tablets are always around the corner, no matter when you decide to buy, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e has enough for us to recommend it even if it is due to be replaced in the near future. A hard tablet to beat in terms of pure bang for buck.

The Surface Pro 7 is everything we know and love from the Surface series: the power of Windows 10 and the versatility of a tablet or 2-in-1 form factor.

It's undoubtedly one of the best tablets of 2020: Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 options (all 10th gen), up to 16GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, and of course that fantastic 12.3-inch PixelSense display. Despite all that power, it's still light enough to hold in one hand (just about) and chuck in a bag.

We should point out that, as normal, the Surface Pro Type Cover and Surface Pen are optional extras – so you're going to need to pay a bit more cash to make the very most of everything the Surface Pro 7 has to offer. As far as desktop experiences in tablet form factors go though, this is hard to beat.

As we mentioned above, Google seems to have given up on pushing out its own Android tablets, settling instead for Chrome OS tablets that can also run Android apps – and that's where the Pixel Slate comes in.

Easy to use as a tablet, it transforms into a makeshift Chromebook thanks to the official keyboard accessory you can pick up (it's an optional extra unfortunately, like the official Pixel stylus).

Read the full review: Google Pixel Slate

The combination of Chrome OS and Android actually works pretty well, because you get the full desktop web experience, plus everything from the Google Play Store as well. Those Android apps really help when you're offline, for example.

As far as specs go, you can pack this with some really impressive internal components – though of course you're going to have to pay for them. We'd advise going for the best spec you can afford.

• Also, why not read our guide to the best smartphones while you're here?

Best budget tablets 2020: cheap tablets, good performance

If you're looking for one of the best budget tablets of 2020, or one of the bet cheap tablets of 2020, then we've got exactly what you're looking for in this final list. We've reviewed and rated all the best tablets and curated this ultimate list of most affordable slates that still pack a quality punch.

And, unless you're crunching through some 4K video editing or wanting to run the most demanding mobile games out there, a tablet doesn't really have to do much – a bit of web browsing here, a spot of Netflix watching there, and that's about the extent of it.

That's why for many people a cheap, budget tablet is actually a perfect fit. It's just a question of which of these cheap tablets is the best one for you.

Kids too can benefit from a cheap and cheerful tablet, and don't necessarily need all the bells and whistles of an iPad Pro. With that in mind we present our picks for the best budget tablets that you can buy right now, complete with the pros and cons of each.

Newly revamped, the latest Samsung Galaxy Tab A follows on from its predecessors by offering some very decent specs for a very decent price. Okay, it's not going to come first in any performance benchmarks, but it'll do everything you need it to.

Add to that a very nice-looking, very spacious 10.1-inch screen, and the latest version of Android, and you can see why this is definitely worth a place on our list of best budget tablets – you don't often get a screen this good at this price.

This being Samsung, you can rely on a certain level of build quality and software finesse even at this price, and as long as you don't need the latest and greatest components under the hood, this tablet will do you very well indeed.

Amazon makes some of the best budget tablets around, offering decent hardware at compelling prices, but there's a big caveat: no Google Play Store access, so not as wide a choice of apps as you might be used to, with major absentees including Gmail and YouTube.

If you can live with that (you still get apps like Netflix, Plex and Facebook), then the Fire 10 HD has a good size screen, plenty of storage, and up to 10 hours of battery life. These Fire tablets tend to be better built than other budget slates too, and are going to last you.

You know you're going to get well-built, well-designed hardware from Huawei, and so it is with the 10-inch MediaPad T3. There's that capacious screen, plus internal specs that won't set the world alight but will handle all of the basic tasks you'll want to do on it.

Huawei's take on Android isn't the best-looking or intuitive out there, but you can easily customise the interface, and you do get access to all the big name apps you're going to want. If you don't need a tablet that's blazingly fast, the MediaPad T3 is fantastic value.

Find the Amazon Fire HD 10 (above) a bit too big and expensive? We present to you the Fire HD 8 instead, offering a little less screen space for quite a lot less money. With Alexa, Netflix, Facebook, Spotify, Amazon Video and so on, you can do a lot with this tablet.

As with all the Fire tablets, its design and build makes it look more expensive than it is, though as we mentioned with the Fire HD 10, you don't have access to the Google Play Store – that means you can't get Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and other Google apps.

Lenovo's Android tablet line-up is a little confusing, but here we're talking about the 8-inch version of the Tab 4 (there are four Tab 4s in total – keep up at the back). It's the cheapest of the bunch, but still offers enough build quality and performance to keep most satisfied.

At this price and with these specs you're going to be sticking to the basics, but the Tab 4 is fine for media consumption and a little light web work. What's more, the tablet is well put together, and can give you a whopping 12 hours of total battery life if you use it carefully.

Lastly in our pick of Amazon Fire tablets (see above for the others), we have the cheapest and the smallest of the lot – at this price it's almost a no-brainer. You've got four sharp colours to pick from, Alexa on board, and up to eight hours of battery life.

Be under no illusions though, with the specs inside, you're only going to be able to stick to the basics (think media consumption and web browsing). Plus, as with the other Fire tablets, you're limited to the Amazon App Store, so you can't install any Google apps.

We mentioned the Huawei MediaPad T3 above, and the M3 variant gives you some better specs for a bit more money, so it depends what matters to you most – as with the T3, you get the same quality craftsmanship and same slightly wonky software from Huawei.

You get a slightly better processor and camera, and improved RAM and storage options, and so on. The 8-inch model we've selected here means it's smaller than the 10-inch T3, but the resolution makes it sharper, and the tablet does come in a choice of screen sizes.

With a design that's better than many budget tablets, the Iconia One is a perfectly fine choice for anyone wanting to pick up a tablet on the cheap. It does all the basics well, and according to Acer should give you around 10 hours of battery life with a mix of usage.

The dual microUSB ports are one of the more unusual touches on this tablet, for all your peripheral (or charging) needs, and the audio is another of the features where you get better performance than you might expect at this price – so perfect for movie watching.

Chinese firm Chuwi might not be the most instantly recognisable brand name in this list, but don't let its relative obscurity put you off – it's pushing out some fine budget tablets running Windows 10, though the specs are of course more modest than on rival slates.

While Windows 10 is in theory more capable than Android, bear in mind that those low-end specs will make running the likes of Photoshop and iTunes difficult. If you want to go Microsoft though, and just need a tablet for basic tasks, then the Hi10 Pro fits the bill.

How to choose the best tablet for you in 2020

More than ever before, choosing a tablet is about choosing an ecosystem. If you plump for a Kindle Fire you're electing to join Amazon’s ecosystem, which is based on Android but does its own proprietary thing with its own proprietary App Store. 

Go for Android and you're betting on Google, even though Google's enthusiasm for tablets is tepid t the moment – it seems to prefer Chromebooks that also double as tablets. If you go for an iPad you're embracing Apple, and if you buy a Windows tablet you're going down the Microsoft road.

There are pros and cons of each. Apple and Amazon are the safest for kids, and Apple the most secure. Android has arguably the worst user experience, and Windows fewer really good tablet apps. But it really comes down to what you want to do, and what apps you intend to do it with.

As far as the hardware goes, screen size is perhaps the most important factor. Right now 7 inches seems too small when smartphones are just a fraction smaller, while anything over 11 inches is difficult to carry around. On-board storage can be paltry too, so look out for expansion options and/or good cloud storage services.

• The best iPad: every iPad Apple currently sells, ranked