Top 7+ Best Budget Tablets For Drawing, Gaming, Note Taking & Watching Movies (2021 Reviews)

best budget tablets

Many people supposed that to have the best tablet, they must pay an incredibly high price, often more than 300$. If not, cheap tablets are thought to be low quality. 

However, that is not true in many cases. For example, as soon as you only use a tablet to read the e-book, play games, online study class, watch movies, maybe a tablet less than 100$ is a good option. 

There have been many tablets in the market nowadays, which are dynamic from color, design to specs. However, compared to a smartphone, the number of cheap tablets is smaller, which is mostly because the second one is not as popular as the first one. 

For this reason, the article below will give you the Top 7 best budget tablet to buy in 2021 and some tips to help you choose the best budget tablet.

Top 7+ Best Budget Tablets For Students & Kids 2021

#1 Best Overall: Apple iPad 10.2

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Apple iPad 10.2 is a tablet that has a robust configuration, made by the Apple brand. This product is the bestseller in affordable tablets because a globally famous brand produces it. It is also reasonably priced compared to the values it has.

The tablet is well-equipped with a Retina LCD, and its resolution is 2160 by 1620 pixels, which gives high-quality images. Besides, a 10.2-inch screen promises to meet either entertaining or study demands. 

Concerning the configuration, the device has an Apple A10 Fusion chipset, uses the iPad OS 13 operating system, making sure that the tablet runs smoothly and fast.

Also, the tablet’s battery life can continuously run more than 10 hours without charging, which is much better than its predecessor.

Pros

  • Bigger screen for multitasking 
  • Relatively cheap
  • A long-lasting battery life
  • Excellent resolution

Cons

  • Mediocre camera

Although the camera is not as good as the expensive tablets, Apple iPad 10.2 is the best budget tablet for its incredible functions. A big screen, a good battery, and an excellent resolution are plus marks besides its efficiently working capability with a reasonable price.

#2 Best Budget Tablet For Students: iPad Air

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iPad Air is the best budget tablet for college students, also made by Apple. There is a Bluetooth keyboard associated with the tablet to be used as a small laptop.

Concerning the specs, iPad Air uses an A8X chipset, making the tablet run smoothly and efficiently. The tablet’s display is 9.7 inches, using IPS technology, and its dimension is 2048 by 1536 pixels. Besides, its battery can run in 10 hours, which is suitable for both working and entertaining. Furthermore, the tablet’s hardware is a 128GB processor and 2GB RAM.

As a result, this tablet best suits students who have to study for long hours, with a potent configuration.

Pros

  • Additional Bluetooth keyboard 
  • Huge storage space
  • Long-lasting battery life

Cons

  • A less impressive design

iPad Air is an intelligent choice for colleges looking for a tablet to study and entertain. Its remarkable features are a separate keyboard, many spaces for storing data, and a strong battery.

#3 Best Budget Tablet For Gaming: Amazon Fire HD 8

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A tablet with a big screen is better than a small-screen smartphone and much more portable than a vast computer when it comes to playing games. However, there are not many tablets that can be both cheap and high-quality to play games.

Fortunately, Amazon Fire HD 8 is the best one among the minority. This is an excellent 8-inch gaming tablet under 100$ that is worth considering. 

Although the tablet does not have such a powerful processor, it can work more stably and durably than other items, with many games. Besides, the battery can run continuously for 10 hours, and the display is vibrant plus marks of this tablet.

Pros

  • A lot of games available
  • Vibrant images
  • Long battery life
  • Unexpensive

Cons

  • Not good cameras 

Amazon Fire HD 8 can meet many needs of a gamer. It is both small enough to pick up everywhere and portable. Besides, there are many games provided with good pictures.

#4 Best Budget Tablet For Drawing: Huion H610 Pro Graphic Drawing Tablet

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As artists, designers, and creatives, a tablet that can carry out our works daily is quite essential. In this list, Huion H610 Pro Graphic Drawing Tablet is considered one of the best options to have beautiful pictures without inquiring about high prices.

Its performances and features are way beyond what most customers can expect from an affordable tablet. The most impressive feature is that it has a stylus pen with a pen pressure of 8192 pressure sensitivity levels. Other are its paper-like surface, faster workflow, and 10×6.25-inch areas.

Pros

  • Price-wise
  • Excellent pressure sensitivity
  • Left-handed supports

Cons

  • Some customers reported the stylus is too basic.
  • Lacking a wireless connection

Huion H610 Pro Graphic Drawing Tablet is relatively cheap but still works well, mainly produced for drawing. Despite some of its drawbacks, its extraordinary features seem to convince many customers.

#5 Best Budget Tablet For Kids: Samsung Galaxy Tab A

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Samsung Galaxy Tab A is renowned for its low price, less than 100$, and the completion of in-time activities. For the reasons, it is the best choice for kids who often play games or do simple tasks at home. Besides, its 8-inch display with minimum bezel and dual speakers promises to give children an excellent experience. Plus, a premium metallic material and lightweight design make the device easy to carry anywhere.

Pros

  • Easy access to google store
  • Metallic finish
  • Long-lasting battery life
  • Simply using

Cons

  • The camera is not perfect.

As long as you are looking for a suitable and inexpensive device for your kids, Samsung Galaxy Tab A will meet all your needs. This is because it has a simple user interface, durable material, and extended using a battery.

#6 Best Budget Tablet For Watching Movie: Dragon Touch K10 Tablet

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Watching movies has become a rising trend recently. If watching on the phone can not give the user a great experience, a tablet perhaps can meet your demand. Dragon Touch K10 Tablet is a tablet famous for its striking features to watch movies.

The tablet has a mini HDMI support to connect your tablet directly to your TV. Although it offers only 16GB storage, the 126GB is seamlessly expandable.

The machine has 178-degree video angles for the touch screen and other connection options such as USG port, Bluetooth, and wifi.

Pros

  • The view angle is 178-degree
  • The connectivity is extensive.
  • Mini-HDMI port
  • HD display

Cons

  • Low battery life

Although the tablet only can use in a shorter time than others in this list, it is the best option to watch movies for many unique features. An impressive display, many connectivity options, and an additional port are advantages for a movie person.

#7 Best Budget Tablet For Photo Editing: Microsoft Surface Go

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It is highly recommended to use a tablet such as Microsoft Surface Go to edit your photos. This is a standard product made by Microsoft, with a dual-core Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y CPU and an 8GB RAM, which are more than enough to handle most editing works. 

Besides, the customers also can work in Windows OS without any extra exchange. 

Pros

  • A free full Windows 10
  • Pen compatibility

Cons

  • Lacks power
  • Pen and keyboard need extra cost.

Although the tablet is less rugged than more expensive ones and inquires the additional costs, it offers excellent features as a standard PC that photo-editing workers prefer. 

#8 Best Budget Tablet For Online Classes: Vankyo Matrix Pad S30

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 Because of the novel pandemic, studying online is becoming more and more popular. Therefore, the last one on our list is Vankyo Matrix Pad S30, the most suitable tablet for both teachers and students in online classes.

The tablet has a 10-inch screen, and its colors are vibrant and bright. Also, it is portable, and it uses the latest version of Android. 

Pros

  • A perfect front-facing camera for teaching
  • Long-lasting battery life
  • Gorgeous 10-inch screen

Cons

  • Needing a wireless headset
  • Not made by a famous brand.

Despite that Vankyo is not a well-known brand, this tablet is beloved by many customers for its low price and high quality. Plus, perfect cameras and long batteries are great for online classes.

Features to Consider When to Choose A Budget Tablet

Processor

Processor or CPU is an essential specification because it decides how fast the tablet’s speed is. More importantly, it is the “brain” of a tablet to run apps and carry out actions. For this reason, there are a lot of different tablet processors nowadays.

With a tight budget, customers should choose a dual-core processor or better than that. Furthermore, it is suggested that gamers or people often doing serious works choose a quad-core CPU or even octa-core ones.

RAM

Random-access memory or RAM is a short-term working memory that helps the tablet efficiently work while simultaneously running many apps. Therefore, whether a tablet’s RAM is good or not partly decides if it is worth buying. Recently, cheap tablets have been equipped with a RAM of 1GB, from 2-3GB is medium ones. A bigger RAM requires a higher price.

When buying a budget tablet, prospects are suggested to choose one with 1GB to 3GB RAM, which is sufficient for minimum needs.

Storage

Another necessary factor to check before buying a tablet is storage. It decides how much data your tablet can carry. An Android tablet has available storage of 8GB, 16GB, 32 GB, and 64GB. Besides the internal memory, some tablets even have external memories of more than 128GB. As such, buyers should determine their purposes and how much data they want to keep in their tablet before choosing one. Often, a tablet’s storage should be more significant than 16GB to store enough of your information.

Operating System

Nowadays, there are two popular operating systems in the tablet market with different functions and features: Android and iOs.

Android

The tablets using the Android OS are made and developed by Google. Therefore, buying an Android tablet can easily have access to the Google library of apps to download various services available.

iOs

Unlike Android tablets, Apple makes the iOs ones with more than 200000 apps to meet the customers’ demands.

On the plus side, prospects can consider choosing operating systems made by Amazon or Noble, which are updated to use their library of apps. Of course, their price is lower than Android tablets, which saves you money a lot.

Battery Life

With a tablet working independently, the battery life is a necessary part that always has a significant influence on the users’ experience. The ordinary battery life of recent tablets often varies from 10 to 12 hours, which is quite long. As such, choosing such a short battery life can give you worse experiences.

Brand

Modern tablets come from various brands with a wide range of sizes, durability, and values. Choosing a tablet made by a reputable brand is highly recommended for its warranty.

Apart from Samsung, a longstanding brand name for producing tablets, you can consider other brands such as Apple, Lenovo, or Huawei, which has become more popular recently.

Samsung 

Samsung is well-known for the best Android tablets as it is one of the few companies producing successfully premium Android slates. However, its products are often expensive, so if you have a tight budget, you can think about other brands below.

Apple

Although Apple has been only known for making tablets recently, its products such as Apple iPad 10.2 or iPad Air work well, running on the iOs operating system. These items’ prices are also lower than Samsung’s ones.

Besides, you can consider other brands such as Lenovo or Huawei, whose products are both excellent and reasonably priced.

FAQs

What Are The Disadvantages Of A Tablet?

The most significant disadvantages of a tablet are the lack of a mouse and keyboard and fragile. From time to time, they also have lower processors than computers.

Do Tablets Have Word And Excel?

Of course, you can use word and excel on tablets. Although Microsoft does not offer Microsoft Office for iPads and other tablets, you can still use some apps such as Office 365, Office Mobile, or Office Online to use word and excel, which resembles computers’ versions.

Is 32 GB Enough For A Tablet?

A tablet with 32GB storage is more than enough, especially with affordable ones. 

What Is The Best Budget Tablet To Buy?

Apple iPad 10.2 is the answer to this question. It is both inexpensive and well-equipped with a big screen with excellent resolution and long-lasting battery life.

Final Words 

Overall, if you are looking for the best budget tablet, you should think about Apple iPad 10.2. It is the latest Apple model, using an iOs operating system, and has excellent features such as an extended battery and a gorgeous display. However, if you have kids, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 may be worth considering. It can be used easily and also durable.

To conclude, above are the 7+ best budget tablets in 2021. Besides, the article also gives you some necessary pieces of knowledge to choose your suitable tablet. Hopefully, you will find your tablet and also save your money!

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