Tablets are compact and sleek devices that you can bring with you anywhere to get some work done on the road or use at home to watch a movie or read an e-book while sitting on the sofa. Tablets are wonderful if you need something a little more advanced than a smartphone, but smaller and more compact than a laptop.

However, with so many different types of tablets out there, it’s difficult to find the perfect one for you.

Do you want an Android tablet? Perhaps an iPad? Windows 10? Maybe an Amazon Fire tablet would be a good fit? We took the time and pored through countless reviews and articles from various sources to find the best tablet for just about anyone.

What is the best cheap tablet?

If you’re on a budget, the Fire HD 10 is going to be your best option. It’s durable, has excellent battery life, is kid-friendly, and is significantly less expensive than many of the other tablets on this list. It also doesn’t sacrifice size for the price – it’s comparable to iPads in terms of screen size (though the iPad is superior when it comes to functionality).

What is the best tablet to buy used?

Shopping for renewed or refurbished products is a great way to save money, especially if you’re making a purchase for your kids or are prone to destroying gadgets yourself. We really love Apple’s iPad (we know, you’re not surprised), which is pretty easy to source great used options. Other tablets on this list tend to be a bit more challenging when it comes to finding used devices.

How do you choose the right tablet for your kid?

Most tablets made specifically for kids will already be equipped with built-in parental accounts, timers, and pre-selected websites or apps that are strictly for kids. Easy enough.

General-purpose tablets aren’t a bad choice at all — many sites name the iPad as one of the best tablets for kids even though it’s technically for everyone. These won’t have the same built-in parental controls as tablets specifically for kids, though, so you’ll need to get creative if you’d rather your kid not have unlimited access to the internet. Apple and Android have features that can filter or block content and prevent purchases, but the closest thing you’ll be able to get to close monitoring is by installing parental control software. Opting for a tablet that’s not kid-specific might not be the best for parental controls, but it can save you money down the line because you won’t have to buy a whole new device when your child ages out of their kid tablet.

If you’d prefer to just make the family tablet more kid-friendly instead of purchasing a new one, Osmo is a super neat iPad and Fire Tablet add-on. The Osmo Genius Kit connects to your tablet for hands-on exercises that coincide with physical pieces that move on-screen when your kid moves them in real life. Subjects include numbers, words, tangram, Newton, and art, plus extra packs for more advanced stuff like STEM and coding.

Things to keep in mind when shopping for a tablet for kids: Screen resolution (depending on the amount of movie watching and gaming they’ll be doing), storage (they’ll probably have more apps than you do), the intensity of parental controls (for obvious reasons), and rugged-ness (because kids are basically adorable destruction machines).

What is the best tablet?

At this point you should know a little more about tablets, and feel ready to start shopping. To make your purchase process even easier, we have lined up a selection of the best tablets according to online reviews.

There is something for everyone and every budget in this list, with popular models from top brands like Apple and Samsung making the cut. You just need to consider all of these options and select the device that meets your requirements.

These are the best tablets in 2021.