Fire tablets were the cheap seats. This is Amazon buying a ticket to the front row. The Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro is a 6.5mm aluminum slab with a 12-inch, 2.8K, 120Hz screen, a 4nm 8-core chip, up to 16GB of RAM, Alexa+ baked into the OS and, for the first time, the full Google Play Store. It starts at $499.99 and ships today, October 14.
Goodbye Fire OS walls
It runs Android with Google Play, so YouTube, Netflix, Gmail, Google Docs and the rest install like on any other Android tablet. Amazon’s own apps (Prime Video, Kindle, Audible, Amazon Music, Luna) come preloaded and signed in. The 3:2 screen gives you more room for documents than a widescreen tablet, and multi-window lets you run apps side by side.
The screen is the headliner
Pay $50 more and you get the Nanomatte display, made with Corning. Instead of sandblasting the glass like a normal matte screen, the anti-glare texture is etched into it at the sub-pixel level. Amazon says that keeps color and sharpness intact while killing reflections, and The Verge’s hands-on called it the truly exciting part. Amazon rates it at 16 hours of video, its longest ever on a tablet, with quad Dolby Atmos speakers and Wi-Fi 6E.
Pen and keyboard, sold separately
The Pro Keyboard ($149.99) snaps on magnetically with no Bluetooth pairing and adds a touchpad. The Pro Pen ($89.99) is a USI 2.0 stylus with 4,096 pressure levels, tilt, magnetic docking and wireless charging. Base tablet plus both comes to $739.97. Early hands-on note: the keyboard is a little cramped for all-day typing.
A Kindle mode with its own rules
Open a book in the Kindle app and the tablet goes quiet: notifications off, blue light down, and up to 20 hours of reading. You can write notes in the margins with the Pro Pen, and they sync to Kindle Scribe. Already turn pages with our Kindle Click remote? This is the color, big-screen reader to go with it. Prefer E Ink for notes? See the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.
Alexa+ that can see your screen
Say “Alexa” or tap the button and Alexa+ pops up over whatever you are doing. Turn on On-Screen Intelligence (off by default) and she can read the page: pull dates from a game schedule into your calendar, or find a product from a video on Amazon. Live sessions keep the conversation going without repeating the wake word.
Price and availability
- Alexa Tablet 12 Pro (8GB/128GB, Graphite): $499.99
- Nanomatte model: from $549.99
- Pro Keyboard: $149.99. Pro Pen: $89.99
- Ships October 14 in the US, Canada and Mexico. Also at Best Buy and Target.
