Amazon announced three new Alexa Tablets on October 8 — the 12 Pro, the 11 and the 8, plus new kids models — ending a fifteen-year run for the Fire brand. Where Fire tablets were built from the cheapest plastics to keep prices down, the new line uses stamped aluminum bodies, faster silicon and better panels. The lineup spans $229.99 to $679.99.
The 12 Pro leads with its display: 12.3 inches, a 3:2 aspect ratio, 2800 x 1840 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, 500 nits of brightness and 280 pixels per inch. The pricier configuration adds "Nanomatte," an etched anti-glare coating developed with Corning that mimics Apple's nano-texture glass. The Verge called the screen the first thing you notice and possibly the only thing that matters. TrustedReviews said it kills glare without wrecking contrast. Engadget scored the tablet 8.4 out of 10 largely on the strength of that screen in varied lighting. The body is 6.5 millimeters thick. The one catch: it is not OLED.
Amazon says the 12 Pro is nearly three times faster in CPU work and nine times faster in graphics than any tablet it has shipped. Under the hood sits a 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 8400 eight-core chip, 8GB of RAM at the base and up to 16GB, Wi-Fi 6E, quad Dolby Atmos speakers and a fingerprint reader in the power button. Amazon rates battery life at up to 16 hours of video playback, stretched to 20 hours in reading mode.
The base 12 Pro is $499.99 with 128GB of storage; the Nanomatte version starts at $549.99, and a 256GB/16GB model reaches $679.99. The Pro Keyboard costs $149.99 and the Pro Pen $89.99, with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity, tilt detection and magnetic charging. GeekWire did the math: a Nanomatte unit with both accessories lands near $790 — still less than half an iPad Pro. In Europe the tablet starts at £449.99 / €499.99.
For the first time, these tablets run full Android rather than Amazon's homegrown fork, with the Google Play Store and apps like YouTube, Netflix and Gmail — and the option to set Google's Gemini as the default assistant. The Verge argued that single change makes them the most functional Amazon tablets ever, and several outlets read the move as Amazon finally competing in the premium tablet category rather than at its edges.
Amazon layered its own services on top: a browser, photos and music apps, plus two homescreen widgets that are effectively unhideable ads — one of them, offering to "cook with premium ingredients," opens an Alexa chat window that cannot be dismissed. Reviewers found Alexa+ slow, prone to losing the thread of longer conversations, and eager to push shopping for whatever is on screen. The Verge recommended switching the default assistant and gave the tablet a score of 6.
The Verge's reviewer measured roughly eight hours of screen time, calling it less than advertised. Engadget's tester also landed near eight hours across work tasks and said the 16-hour claim had not yet been benchmarked. The Shortcut reported 12 to 14 hours. On top of that, Android's large-screen problem persists: the on-screen keyboard feels cramped in landscape, the tablet feels too tall in portrait, and plenty of popular Android apps still have not been redesigned for a bigger canvas.
The tablets went on sale and began shipping on October 14 in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Buyers in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain have to wait until October 19. The review embargo landed on October 14 and 15, right at launch.
The pressure lands on the $300-to-$700 Android tablet segment and on Microsoft's Surface Pro template of a tablet with a snap-on keyboard and pen. Amazon is not really chasing iPad Pro buyers; it is chasing people who want a genuinely good screen for half the money and can tolerate ads baked into the system. For Kindle readers, the paper-like reading modes are a bonus rather than a compromise.
First, whether Amazon dials back the homescreen advertising and the forced Alexa+ exposure, which was the most consistent deduction across reviews. Second, whether Android's tablet ecosystem catches up — Engadget explicitly said it does not expect that to change. The hardware has cleared the bar; the software and the ecosystem now decide whether this tablet lasts.