While students need a wide variety of applications to complete their education, a tablet can bring an extra level of versatility to read ebooks, take notes and multitask during long study sessions. The best tablets for students can be a great supplementary piece to a companion laptop, or in the case of our top pick—the Apple iPad Pro M4—it can be a computer all its own.
The best tablets for students can be used alongside a laptop or on their own.
Illustration: Forbes / Photos: Retailers
But we’ve also got great options from Android, Chrome and Windows, too. The best Android tablet for students, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, can keep you fully integrated into the Samsung ecosystem. For those that want a powerful machine with Copilot, the Microsoft Surface 11 ticks those boxes. There are more options, too. Here are the best tablets for students in 2024.
Best Tablet For Students Overall: Apple iPad Pro M4 Best Budget Tablet For Students: Amazon Fire Max 11 Best Apple Tablet For Students: Apple iPad Air Best Android Tablet For Students: Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra Best Windows Tablet For Students: Microsoft Surface Pro Copilot+ PC (11th Edition) Best E-Ink Tablet For Students: Amazon Kindle ScribeDisplay size: 13-inch | Resolution: 2,064 x 2,752 | Storage: Up to 2TB | Operating system: iPadOS | Size: 11.1 x 8.5 x 0.2 inches | Cellular option: Yes | Weight: 582 grams
Best for: Enjoying a fully integrated ecosystem
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Apple has long dominated the tablet space since the introduction of the original iPad. Since then, the company has been pushing the boundaries of what a tablet can do and what a tablet can be. It offers a 13-inch Tandem OLED display, which is essentially two layers of OLED pixels stacked on top of one another, which solves two problems tablets have with OLED—brightness and burn-in. The dual-layer of OLED pixels allows for greater brightness and more power efficiency with less chance of burn-in during normal use.
Moreover, the iPad Pro gives you a huge screen with a fully integrated app ecosystem that allows you to do basically anything you might need during your studies, from writing to research. You can even start typing on your favorite MacBook and seamlessly transfer to the iPad to streamline your study session. Plus, Apple supports the iPad for a very long time. The longevity of iPads means that this tablet will stay with your student long after graduation. Just keep in mind that you'll need to add the Apple Pencil (2nd Gen) to take notes and the Magic Keyboard to make it function as a laptop.
Display size: 11-inch | Resolution: 2,000 x 1,200 | Storage: Up to 128GB | Operating system: FireOS | Size: 10.2 x 6.4 x 0.3 inches | Cellular option: No | Weight: 490 grams
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Amazon tablets are a close second to iPad when it comes to tablet market share. Generally they’re pretty respectable devices for content consumption and some light gaming. Recently, Amazon decided to make a push into productivity, and its first steps into that arena come with this Amazon Fire Max 11. You can get the tablet on its own or you can get the Amazon Fire Max 11 bundle that includes a keyboard and stylus for typing and note taking. Amazon also partnered with Microsoft to bundle in a three-month trial of Office 365, meaning you get Word, Excel and Powerpoint for your classes and presentations at a discount for a short time. Bringing one of the most popular productivity suites to the Amazon Appstore was a great move because the rest of that app store is decidedly not great.
Specifically, the Amazon Appstore is something of a wasteland of broken and forgotten apps beyond the typical content streamers and Microsoft apps. You can get the main apps like Netflix and Hulu (and, of course, the Kindle app), but most simply aren’t available. Maybe that’s a good thing to send with your student to keep them from getting distracted. But mostly, this is a light and portable writing and streaming machine which should get your student through a day of studying and a night of relaxing.
Display size: 11-inch | Resolution: 1,640 x 2,360 | Storage: Up to 1TB | Operating system: iPadOS | Size: 9.8 x 7.0 x 0.2 inches | Cellular option: Yes | Weight: 462 grams
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If you want a great Apple tablet, but you don’t want to shell out for the best of the best, the iPad Air is a great alternative that will offer a similar experience at a significantly more affordable price. You still have the same disadvantages as the iPad Pro—notably the lack of included keyboard and stylus. Not only are they not included, but the cost of those accessories alone almost equal to the cost of the tablet by itself, effectively doubling your investment.
But if you’re carrying an iPhone and/or MacBook, the iPad Air is a wonderful companion serving as a second monitor for the MacBook, or syncing with the Wi-Fi hotspot from the iPhone for 5G connectivity. You can also use the devices almost interchangeably, snapping a photo with your iPhone and importing it directly into a PowerPoint slide on the iPad.
iPadOS has come a long way in terms of being a great tablet interface, but there’s still some work to do. It’s not the greatest multitasking experience, lacking the taskbar for easily switching apps. Other apps don’t work very well with multitasking in general, so don’t expect to get a full PC-like experience. Overall though, you still get a ton of power in a thin package that can almost completely replace a laptop in a pinch.
Display size: 14.6-inch | Resolution: 1,848 x 2,960 | Storage: Up to 1TB | Operating system: Android | Size: 12.9 x 8.2 x 0.2 inches | Cellular option: No | Weight: 732 grams
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Samsung is one of a couple of tablet makers still pushing the envelope when it comes to the devices. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is loaded with the best processor, RAM and storage space in an effort to draw in the productivity crowd. One of Samsung’s signatures is in the gorgeous display. The 14.6-inch AMOLED 2x display gives you that large canvas to work on with a high contrast ratio and super deep blacks. You also get the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, which was the flagship processor at the time when this tablet debuted in the summer of 2023. At the time, I tested this tablet, and you can read the full Samsung Tab S9 Ultra review for plenty of more insight.
Samsung adds DeX, its multitasking platform that imitates a desktop operating system, complete with floating windows and a task bar for fast app switching. If you’re looking for a desktop experience with Android’s extensive catalog of apps, look no further. But the tablet is expensive, and doesn’t include the keyboard (though the stylus comes in the box), so it doesn’t come cheaply. But it has all the power and more than you'll need for your studies, and some gaming afterward.
Display size: 13-inch | Resolution: 2,880 x 1,920 | Storage: Up to 1TB | Operating system: Windows | Size: 11.3 x 8.2 x 0.4 inches | Cellular option: Yes | Weight: 895 grams
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If you want a combination laptop/tablet, the Surface Pro is about as close as you’ll get. The Surface Pro Flex Keyboard completes this package as a laptop replacement, but it isn’t shipped in the box, which means you’ll need to shell out extra for it. The Surface Pro certainly isn’t the only tablet that sells the keyboard separately, but it feels extra egregious when you consider that this is, for all intents and purposes, a Windows laptop.
The Surface comes with lovely industrial design that has become a trademark of the brand pretty much since its inception. The device has an all metal chassis with a tight hinge that can pose the tablet at any angle you might need. This year’s Surface also comes with Microsoft’s all-new Copilot button, which summons the AI engine when you press it—if one were so inclined.
The Surface also runs on Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite processor, which is the next generation in ARM-based processing. Essentially, it’s a hard pivot away from the likes of Intel and AMD, who have ruled this space for years. By all reports, the processor seems to hold up well compared to its x86 compatriots, but as of this writing, it’s still very new, so it’s hard to see how it’ll hold up long-term. Of course, the fact that Microsoft used the chip for its flagship hardware speaks to Microsoft’s confidence in the architecture.
Display size: 10.2 | Resolution: 300ppi | Storage: Up to 64GB | Operating system: Kindle OS | Size: 7.7 x 9.0 x 0.2 inches | Cellular option: Yes | Weight: 1.0 pounds
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The Amazon Kindle is something of a staple in reading habits these days. Though people still appreciate the physical book, digital e readers are more often the norm when it comes to reading books. But one thing that e-readers have traditionally lacked was the ability to markup texts like what one might do if studying. To that end, the Kindle Scribe might have been made just for your student headed off to college.
The Scribe gives you a much larger canvas for reading and battery life that is measured in months, not weeks. That’s no small thing. It’s no good showing up to class with a dead tablet, especially if that tablet is your primary study device. The battery life on the Kindle Scribe should ensure that basically never happens.
The only problem is, that's about all this tablet does. The E Ink screen is not suitable for displaying anything except books—even web pages are a challenge. So while the Kindle Scribe can be great for reading and taking notes, it falls short when it comes to general research. Put simply, there is zero chance this is the only large-screened computing device you’ll use at college.
What our editors say: Consumer tech editor Rebecca Isaacs says in her full review, “One of my favorite things about the Scribe is the notebook feature and the writing experience itself. The notebook comes with complete customizability. If I wanted to swap between a large rule-lined page or a dotted grid, I could open the settings and change it with a couple of taps. Additionally, writing on the page felt smooth and fluid. One of my great concerns when I test out E Ink tablets is that my script can sometimes appear pixelated. The Kindle Scribe keeps my handwriting looking natural and like I actually used a pen to write.”