From the elementary school student who’ll be using their first tablet to the college student who needs a tablet that’s good for both work and play, below you’ll find our top picks for the best student tablet to buy right now. In terms of pricing, remember to never pay full price and always check our guides to the best tablet sales and iPad deals. Many of the tablets in our guide are currently on sale saving you anywhere from $50 to $100. Now that November is here we’ve begun rounding up the best Black Friday deals, too!
The best student tablets you can buy today
Students who want a tablet should probably get the iPad, as its design is standing still in a decision that appears to be made for the education sector. It’s still got a headphone jack and Lightning port, which help it fit into classrooms and your existing accessories. But on top of that, you get some great new updates in the 2021 iPad. Its 12MP webcam is a great update over the 1.2MP camera in the previous model, and Apple’s also added a new trick called Center Stage that helps you stay in the focus on group calls. And the upgraded A13 Bionic chip makes sure that the 2021 iPad is going to stay fast for a while. You’ll also be able to easily take notes with the first-gen Apple Pencil, with Scribble-based annotation. The iPad 2021 also has a great screen and battery life, solid audio and all the basics we’ve come to expect from Apple. Read our full iPad 2021 review. The Lenovo Duet 3 (or Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 3, depending on where you buy it) is a great Chrome tablet that can be yours for as low as $359. This is effectively a bigger, more expensive follow-up to the Chromebook Duet Lenovo released in 2020, a surprisingly capable and inexpensive Chrome tablet that’s still on this list. We loved the original Duet for its great battery life, solid performance and decent packed-in keyboard cover, all of which could be had for roughly $250. Lenovo’s new Duet 3 costs a bit more, but it also delivers a bigger, brighter display, more ports, and the added power of a beefier Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 chip. It’s one of the best Chrome tablets you can buy, and the fact that Lenovo includes the keyboard cover at no extra cost helps it double as a surprisingly effective 2-in-1 Chromebook. While the original Duet further down this list is a better buy if you’re short on cash, those who can afford it will be well-served by this excellent Chromebook. Read our full Lenovo Duet 3 Chromebook review. The Surface Go 2 is the best student tablet for those looking for an affordable Windows-powered slate. And this sequel makes a lot of welcome improvements over the first Surface Go. First, it has a larger 10.5-inch screen with thinner bezels. The new design makes it easier to immerse yourself in your work and it allows for a bigger screen, arguably the most important part of a tablet. The biggest upgrade is the Surface Go 2’s 11 hours and 39 minutes of battery life, which is over 5 hours longer than the original Surface Go. This can be especially useful if you need a tablet with all-day battery life. Meanwhile, the 5-megapixel 1080p camera in its top bezel is great for the era of remote learning, and its second front camera sensor adds Windows Hello biometric login. Finally, get the Surface Go 2 with the 8th Gen Intel Core m3 upgrade, it’s a little pricier at $629, but it’s definitely the model for multitasking students. Read our full Microsoft Surface Go 2 review. If you or your favorite student is a voracious reader, they’ll probably love the 8.3-inch iPad mini 6, which is light enough to use in just one hand. It’s also great for taking hand-written notes, as it supports the 2nd Gen Apple Pencil (and not the 1st Gen Apple Pencil that’s more awkward), which magnetically snaps onto the side and charges from that side. But don’t expect lesser performance from its size, as the A15 Bionic processor is super-fast and it’s got a lot of endurance with its excellent battery life. You may need a Bluetooth keyboard, though, if you want to use the iPad mini for typing. Apple doesn’t make a neat Magic Keyboard or Smart Keyboard for the iPad mini 6, but third-party models are perfect matches anyways. Students who spend a lot of time in video calls will appreciate the new upgraded 12MP webcam, which is super-sharp and offers Center Stage for keeping yourself in the center of the frame. Read our full Apple iPad mini 6 (2021) review. The Galaxy Tab S8 is good at a lot of things, but it’s best at being a premium Android tablet. On the couch its great for gaming or reading comics, and at school it’s nice to have as a note-keeping device. At home you can hook up an external keyboard to get light schoolwork done, or use it as a secondary display for bigger projects, especially if you go to the trouble of investing in the Galaxy ecosystem and making your desk DeX-friendly. If you absolutely must have the biggest, baddest Android slate possible you probably want the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, but if you just need a great premium Android tablet the Galaxy Tab S8 delivers — and in the process, sets a new standard for what we should expect from the category. Read our full Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 review. The iPad Air (2020) borrows a lot of what we like from the iPad Pro, at a more affordable price. It’s arguably Apple’s best iPad ever, although it’s higher price tag may not be for everyone. Overall, this is the best student tablet for college in our book. The current-gen iPad Air has the same super-thin bezels as the iPad Pro, as well as support for the Magic Keyboard, which makes it a true laptop competitor. On top of that, Apple’s blazing-fast A14 Bionic chip helps future-proof this tablet with enough speed for demanding apps and multitasking. Apple also managed to put Touch ID in the lock button. In terms of battery life, you can expect to get around 10.5 hours of juice, which should power you through an entire school day. When you’re not studying, its screen is bright and colorful enough to make your next Netflix binge-watch look brilliant. It’s also great for remote learning, thanks to its 7-megapixel webcam, which beat the Logitech C920 in head-to-head testing done for our review. Read our full iPad Air (2020) review. If you’re looking for the Android equivalent of the iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S6 Lite won’t disappoint. This excellent tablet has a ton of battery life — lasting over 12 hours on a single charge — and offers a sleek design with a bright screen and solid sound. If you need to jot down notes during class, this is the tablet for you. We love that it comes with Samsung’s S Pen. The stylus provides a fantastic note-taking experience with incredibly fast input recognition and nearly no lag at all. It’s on par with the Apple Pencil, except this stylus is included with the tablet. The Galaxy Tab S6 Lite’s thin bezels also help it stand out from the mid-range tablet crowd even further, making it look more like the iPad Pro than the iPad. Performance-wise, though, the Tab S6 Lite won’t be blowing people away if they try to multitask. There’s also the matter of Android tablet apps, which still could use more love and care from their developers. Read our full Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite review.
