The best Cyber Monday deals on tablets that we could find

If you’re looking to pick up a new tablet for the holidays, a number of slates we recommend are on sale for Cyber Monday. Most of the best discounts are holdovers from Black Friday, but that still means a range of iPads, Amazon Fire tablets and Microsoft Surface PCs are down to their lowest prices to date. To help you get a bargain, we’ve checked price histories, consulted our testing and rounded up the most worthwhile tablet deals of Cyber Monday below. 

Apple 10.2-inch iPad

Apple’s 10.2-inch iPad is still on sale for $270 this Cyber Monday, which comes within a dollar of the best price we’ve tracked and sits about $25 below the device’s typical street price. The 9th-gen iPad is the top budget pick in our guide to the best tablets: It has a more dated design and less processing power than Apple’s pricier models, but it remains an altogether pleasant experience for casual media consumption. We gave it a review score of 86 last year. 

Buy iPad 10.2-inch at Amazon – $270

Apple 11-inch iPad Pro

Apple

The latest 11-inch iPad Pro is currently available for a new low of $739, which is $60 off Apple’s MSRP. This isn’t a massive discount, but it’s notable given that the device only launched last month. We gave the 2022 iPad Pros a review score of 87: The iPad Air is a better value for most, but if you can afford to take a step up or need more than 64GB of storage, the 11-inch Pro gets you a faster M2 chip, better speakers and a brighter display with a faster 120 Hz refresh rate. Just don’t feel the need to upgrade if you own a recent iPad Pro already. 

Buy iPad Pro 11-inch at Amazon – $739
Buy iPad Pro 11-inch at B&H – $739

Apple 10.9-inch iPad

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

The Blue version of Apple’s 10th-generation iPad is on sale for $419, which is within $6 of the lowest price we’ve tracked and a $30 discount for another tablet that arrived just last month. This model is a bit tougher to recommend than most iPads — it’s got a newer design and chip than the 9th-gen iPad, but it costs a fair bit more, and it’s saddled with a worse screen and lesser accessory support than the iPad Air. Nevertheless, if you want a larger display than the 10.2-inch iPad, can’t afford the Air and don’t plan on using an Apple Pencil, this is still a fine tablet. We gave it a review score of 85 in October.

Buy iPad 10.9-inch at Amazon – $419
Buy iPad 10.9-inch at B&H – $419

Apple 12.9-inch iPad Pro

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

The new 12.9-inch iPad Pro, meanwhile, is currently on sale from $999. That’s $100 off Apple’s standard going rate and, again, the lowest price we’ve seen. All the perks of the new 11-inch Pro still apply here, but the larger model adds a noticeably more vibrant display thanks to its mini-LED backlighting. While it’s still tough to call the 12.9-inch Pro a comfortable laptop replacement for most people, this M2 model is still a fantastic tablet if you’ve got money to burn and just want the largest and most powerful iPad possible.

Buy iPad Pro 12.9-inch at Amazon – $999
Buy iPad Pro 12.9-inch at B&H – $999

Amazon Fire HD 10

Amazon

Amazon’s Fire HD tablets remain worth considering if all you want is a competent slate for streaming video, browsing the web and reading ebooks for as little money as possible. The Fire HD 10 is likely the best option for most people within the lineup — and it’s still on sale for $75, which matches its all-time low and rates about $50 below its average street price.

The Fire HD 10’s 10.1-inch 1080p display is bigger and sharper than what you get from Amazon’s other slates, while the eight-core processor and 3GB of RAM give the tablet a bit more performance. To be clear, all Fire tablets are a marked step down from Apple’s iPads in both design and speed. There’s still no Google Play Store, too, and Fire OS still heavily pushes you toward Amazon’s own apps. But if you’re a Prime user and don’t push your tablet all of the time, the Fire HD 10 is a good value at this deal price.

We’ll also note that the Fire HD 10 Plus, a variant that adds an extra gigabyte of RAM (4GB total) and wireless charging support, is on sale for $105, which matches its lowest price to date. Those upgrades might be nice if you want to buy a charging dock and use the tablet like an Echo Show-style smart display, but for most, they’re probably not worth the extra cost.  

Buy Fire HD 10 at Amazon – $75

Amazon Fire HD 8

Amazon

Just about all of Amazon’s other Fire tablets are on sale beyond that. We don’t recommend the cheapo Fire 7, but if you want a smaller or more affordable alternative to the Fire HD 10, the 8-inch Fire HD 8 is worth a shout at $55. It’s more prone to sluggishness and its display isn’t as sharp, but it still lets you read Kindle books and stream Prime Video without too much frustration, and its battery lasts more than 10 hours per charge. This deal matches the latest model’s lowest-ever price. Again, if you want an extra gig of RAM (3GB total) and wireless charging, the “Plus” model is also on sale for $10 more.

Buy Fire HD 8 at Amazon – $55

Amazon Fire HD Kids tablet sale

Amazon

If you’re shopping for a child, meanwhile, all of Amazon’s Fire Kids slates are also discounted to their respective all-time lows. These devices use the same hardware as their non-Kids counterparts, but they come with protective bumper cases, no lock screen ads, two-year warranties, a year of Amazon’s Kids+ content service and a more kid-friendly UI turned on by default. (You can create a kids profile with deep parental controls on a standard Fire tablet, too, but you don’t get the other perks.) The “Kids Pro” models use a slim hard plastic case built for older kids, while the base “Kids” tablets use a large rubbery case that’s designed to take a beating from littler ones. 

We named the Fire HD 10 Kids Pro the top option for kids in our best tablets guide. Again, the performance and app support of all Amazon tablets is lacking compared to an iPad, but if you only need something for casual entertainment — or if you just don’t want to spend more than $250 on a device your kid will break in a week — these are solid alternatives.

Shop Fire Kids tablet sale at Amazon

Microsoft Surface Pro 9

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Microsoft is taking $100 to $200 off the Intel-powered versions of its new Surface Pro 9, with prices starting at $900 for a model with a 12th-gen Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. (As usual, a keyboard costs extra.) That’s still not cheap, but this is another device that only launched last month. 

At this point, you probably know where you stand on the Surface Pro series — its kickstand design isn’t especially comfortable to use on your lap, but it remains the standard-bearer among tablets designed to replace a laptop. While this new model isn’t a major departure from the Surface Pro 8, its CPU performance is a little bit better, and it represents a nice upgrade if you’re coming from a three- to five-year-old model. There’s no 3.5mm jack, though.

Note that we’re recommending the Intel models specifically. Microsoft sells a variant of the Surface Pro 9 that uses an ARM-based processor, but our review found that model to have too many performance and app compatibility issues for us to comfortably recommend.

Buy Surface Pro 9 at Microsoft – $900
Buy Surface Pro 9 at Amazon – $984

Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 series

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

For those partial to Android, a 128GB version of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S8 is on sale for $539. We’ve seen this model go for only $10 or so more for much of the past two months, but this deal technically matches its all-time low. The 256GB model, meanwhile, is down to $579, which is another all-time low but a more notable $30 or so off the usual street price. If you want a bigger display, the 12.4-inch Galaxy Tab S8+ is down to $679 for 128GB of storage. That is not the lowest price we’ve seen, but it’s still about $70 off its typical going rate. Finally, the giant 14.6-inch Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra is back at a joint-low of $900.

The Galaxy Tab S8 line is the top Android pick in our guide to the best tablets, and we gave the Galaxy Tab S8+ a review score of 85 this past March. Android is still a step behind Windows and iPadOS when it comes to productivity and general optimizing for bigger displays, but features like Samsung’s Dex mode help make multitasking here more convenient than usual. All three models come with impressively thin hardware and nice displays — plus an S Pen stylus in the box — but note that the Tab S8+ and Tab S8 Ultra have OLED panels that are more vibrant than the standard Tab S8’s LCD screen. 

Buy Galaxy Tab S8 at Amazon – $539
Buy Galaxy Tab S8+ at Amazon – $679
Buy Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra at Samsung – $900

Your Cyber Week Shopping Guide: Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter. Also, shop the top Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals on Yahoo Life. Learn about Black Friday trends on In the Know, and our car experts at Autoblog are covering must-shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday auto deals.