Amazon Alexa Tablets

Alexa+ is not a separate app you open and close. On an Alexa+ tablet, say the wake word or tap Ask Alexa and the assistant appears over whatever is running, answers a question, and disappears without losing your place. The home screen also uses your activity to fill a For You feed and a Dynamic Tab with the book, show, or game you left unfinished.

On-Screen Intelligence lets Alexa read the current screen and answer questions about it. Pull up a hiking list and ask which trail suits you, or open a game schedule and tell her to add every date to your calendar; she works from the page and flags conflicts. A live session keeps the conversation open after the first question, with no wake word between turns. Both features are opt-in, and a visual indicator stays on while Alexa can see the screen.

This is the change Fire tablet owners asked for. The Play Store brings millions of Android apps, including the ones Amazon's own store never carried or carried late. Google Docs, Chrome, Slack, and mobile games install normally. Amazon's apps come preinstalled, so the tablet opens with Prime Video, Kindle, Audible, Amazon Music, and Luna already in place.

Open a book in the Kindle app and the tablet turns into an e-reader. Notifications go silent, blue light drops, and battery life stretches to about 20 hours. Three display themes set the tone, from a warm color page to a soft paper tone to plain grayscale. On the 12 Pro, the Pro Pen handles highlights, underlines, and margin notes, and those annotations sync across Kindle apps on supported devices.

The lineup covers a $229.99 reader and a $499.99 work tablet without changing the basic design. The 12 Pro has a 12-inch, 280 PPI screen at 120Hz with a 3:2 shape that leaves more room for documents. The 11 uses a 2.5K panel at 276 PPI with a 90Hz refresh rate and a 16:10 frame built for video. The 8.7-inch model weighs 329g at 7.95mm thick and runs up to 14 hours of video on a charge.

The $549.99 Nanomatte version of the 12 Pro etches an anti-glare texture into the glass at the pixel level instead of sandblasting the surface. Text stays sharp, colors hold up in bright rooms, and reflections drop enough to read outdoors. The finish also gives the Pro Pen some friction, so writing feels closer to paper than glass.

The 12 Pro is the only model with accessory support, and both add-ons cost extra. The Pro Pen is a USI 2.0 stylus with 4,096 pressure levels, tilt detection, magnetic charging, and a $89.99 price. The Pro Keyboard attaches through pogo pins with no Bluetooth pairing and turns the tablet into a small laptop with a trackpad for $149.99.