Tablets are great for working and playing on the go, and the market has become more diverse over the last few years. Having a variety of options to suit your needs and your budget is always good news.
However, with so many options available, it can be hard to know where to start. Below, we give you a full run-down of the Best tablet for taking handwritten notes
for whatever your needs are. From heavy-duty workhorses to tablets for kids, and the 2020 iPad, which is the best overall buy that’s good at everything. This list will help you find the right tablet for you.
The iPad isn’t as cheap as the entry-level iPad, which remains our pick for the best value tablet, but if you can stretch the budget, it’s absolutely worth buying instead. It’s more powerful, more modern-looking, supports better first-party accessories, and so on.
The single-sentence review is this: The iPad Air takes almost everything that was great about the flagship-tier iPad Pro, but comes. That starts with the nice big screen which may sit in at a slightly smaller 10.9-inches, and may not support 120Hz, but still looks fantastic. It’s a perfect screen for movie-watching and gaming.
The iPad is no slouch under the hood either. The device offers Apple’s latest-and-greatest A14 Bionic chip, which will easily handle everything you can throw at it. It’s slightly different than the iPad Pro in that the A12Z in the Pro has more cores, but ultimately, the performance experience is pretty much matched. Powering it all is a battery that will last longer than laptops in most use.
Because the iPad Air has the same overall design and footprint as the iPad Pro, it supports the iPad Pro’s accessories too. That means you can use the highly expensive but still awesome Magic Keyboard, and the second-generation Apple Pencil.
The only real downsides to the iPad Air are the aforementioned lack of 120Hz, which you can probably live without, and the fact that it doesn’t have as good of a camera system as the iPad Pro but honestly, how many photos are you taking with your iPad anyway? Other than that, while cheaper than the Pro, it’s still not a cheap device. Again, however, if you can afford it, it’s well worth the cash.
Apple iPad Pro (2020) 11”
With slimmed-down bezels and flat edges, Apple’s redesigned iPad Pro is a beautiful device that manages to pack in maximum screen real estate without being too unwieldy. The home button is gone, replaced by Face ID, and Apple’s proprietary Lightning port has finally given way to USB-C, which gives you far more accessory and peripheral options. Although both models feature the same internal components, the iPad Pro comes in two sizes, offering an 11-inch or 12.9-inch display.
Apple recently released a 2020 iPad Pro. It has a slight bump in graphics power, a better camera with improved AR capability, and Wi-Fi 6 support, among other small tweaks. The 2020 model isn’t a huge upgrade over the 2018 model, so the older model is still worth your money if you can find it at a discount.
Our pick is the 11-inch model, which is enough screen to get things done, but not so much that the tablet becomes hard to handle. The 11-inch model packs 2388 x 1668 pixels and benefits greatly from Apple’s ProMotion technology, which boosts the refresh rate to a buttery-smooth 120Hz.
If you need a lot of raw power, then the iPad Pro is the tablet for you. Featuring Apple’s A12Z Bionic processor, there are eight cores here and a neural engine for speedy machine learning. The result is unparalleled speed, whether you’re editing images in Photoshop or commanding armies in Civilization VI. Storage goes from 128GB all the way up to 1TB, but the price rises steeply with it.
Just like previous models, Apple suggests you’ll get 10 hours of mixed-use from a charge, or 9 hours if you opt for the model with cellular connectivity. The Apple Pencil attaches magnetically and charges wirelessly now, but it will cost you an extra. That’s on top of an inflated price tag for the iPad Pro itself. The Smart Keyboard has also gone up in price this year, to for the 11-inch model.
Beyond the steep price and the limitations of iOS for people seeking a desktop replacement, we’re disappointed Apple removed the headphone jack. But even with all that considered, the Apple iPad Pro (11-inch)‘s aesthetics, raw power, and long-lasting battery life earn it a place in the pantheon of high-performance tablets. There’s very little that this tablet can’t do, and you simply won’t find anything better. We’ve even found some iPad deals to peruse if the price is too high.
Why should you buy this? The Samsung
Galaxy Tab S7 is the closest an Android tablet comes to replicating the iPad Pro, and it boasts an absolutely gorgeous display.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S7
The Galaxy Tab S7 is the best Android tablet available in 2020, with an absolutely gorgeous display. There are few tablets in the world with a screen capable of rivaling the S7’s 11-inch display, though the larger Tab S7+ switches the LCD display for OLED, so it’s even better. It also supports HDR content (which companies like Netflix and YouTube are making increasingly available these days). Even viewing non-HDR content on the S7’s 2560 x 1600-pixel display is an absolute joy.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor (the same chip that powers popular flagship smartphones like Samsung’s Galaxy S20) is fast, and 6GB or 8GB of RAM is more than enough to keep this tablet humming happily. It comes with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB of internal storage, but it can be expanded via MicroSD card if you’re looking to download lots of stuff.
The tablet’s four speakers are respectably loud, and it has cameras on both the front and back the rear-facing, dual-lens 13-megapixel and 5-megapixel main camera are capable of recording 4K video at 30 frames per second, while the 8-megapixel front camera is good enough for selfies and video chat.
Perhaps the main downside to the tablet is its software experience. While the One UI paired with Android 10 will be fine for most, many Android apps simply don’t really support the big-screen experience. The tablet somewhat gets around that with the Samsung DeX desktop interface, however not all apps support DeX at all.
The 8,000mAh battery will easily get you through a busy day and beyond, and it can be charged up pretty quickly if you get a 45W charger. The included S Pen stylus interacts smoothly with the tablet’s screen and will please note-takers and artists; it also attaches magnetically and recharges wirelessly. The downside here is the high price if you’re primarily after a laptop experience, then Samsung’s Chromebook Pro or Microsoft’s Surface Go are both cheaper and might suit you better.
If you’re devoted to Android devices, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 is a good choice. It’s a solid step up from the Tab A 8.0, but that high price might give you pause.
