Amazon launches three Alexa tablets, including a 12 inch Pro with an anti glare Nanomatte screen

[Scarlet Annie]

Amazon has launched three new Alexa branded tablets in 12, 11 and 8 inch sizes, Engadget reports. All three have an aluminium unibody, Alexa+ built in, the Kindle and Amazon apps preinstalled and full access to the Google Play Store. That last part is a big change from the old Fire tablets, which were stuck with Amazon's own app store. Amazon says Alexa+ is built into their core

The flagship is the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro. It has a 4nm eight core chip, up to 16GB of RAM, quad Dolby Atmos speakers, Wi-Fi 6E and a 280 PPI 120Hz display in a 3:2 shape. Amazon claims three times faster processing and nine times faster graphics than any tablet it has shipped before. There is also an optional Nanomatte screen, which uses a Corning process to etch a pixel aligned texture into the glass at the sub pixel level to cut glare

Pricing is aimed squarely at the mid range. The 12 Pro starts at $500 for 8GB and 128GB, or $550 with Nanomatte, and the Pro Pen is $90 while the magnetic Pro Keyboard is $150. The Alexa Tablet 11 starts at $330 with a 2.5K 90Hz screen and 8GB of RAM. The Alexa Tablet 8 starts at $230 and is 7.95mm thick, weighing 329g

A new feature called On Screen Intelligence lets Alexa+ answer questions about whatever is on the screen. Amazon has left it off by default, which is the right call for anything that reads your display. The tablets go on sale on 14 October in the US, Mexico and Canada, and on 19 October in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. UK prices were not in the article, so we will have to wait and see how the conversion lands

This feels like Amazon finally deciding to make a proper tablet rather than a cheap content window. Full Play Store access removes the biggest complaint people had about Fire tablets. The anti glare screen is a nice touch for reading, which fits with the Kindle connection. The question is whether people will pay iPad Air money for an Amazon device

Would you buy an Amazon tablet now it has the full Play Store? And is the Nanomatte screen worth the extra $50?

Amazonwww.engadget.com