Amazon just fixed the one thing that always kept its tablets off my list. The new Alexa Tablet lineup, three models starting at $229.99, finally ships with full Google Play Store access. YouTube, Netflix, Gmail, Google Docs, all of it, sitting alongside the usual Prime Video, Kindle, and Audible.
The lineup breaks down clean: the 8.7-inch Alexa Tablet 8 at $229.99, the 11-inch model at $329.99 with a 2.5K 90Hz display, and the 12 Pro from $499.99 with a 120Hz screen, up to 16GB of RAM, and an anti-glare Nanomatte option. All three get aluminum unibody builds, Alexa+ baked in, and a Kindle reading mode that silences notifications and stretches battery to 20 hours.
They ship October 14 in the US, Mexico, and Canada, and they’ll also be at Best Buy and Target. The Google Play news is the whole story here. Amazon tablets were always good hardware trapped in a walled garden. That wall just came down.
