The Best Tablets in Canada

This Amazon Fire tablet is a good pick for a first tablet, especially if you’re still figuring out if you really need one. It’s easy to carry, comes with built-in Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant, and it’s a budget option (you can buy it for around $100 in Canada.)

With a quad-core 2.0 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM, you have enough performance power for checking emails, listening to songs on Spotify, scrolling your social media feeds, and browsing the web, but don’t expect much more than that.

We wouldn’t suggest this tablet for heavy or professional use.

The Fire HD 8 is portable, lightweight (355 g) and could be a good companion during a trip for watching movies and reading. After all, this is an Amazon device and comes with native Kindle apps.

Its 8″ display is not great (189 PPI), but it isn’t awful either. This means it’s not ideal for anyone working on visual or meticulous projects that require crisp resolution, but it will do the work for some Netflix or Prime Video on the go.

Specifications:

• Operating system: Modified Android
• Screen size: 8″
• Display resolution: 1280 X 800 pixels
• CPU: Quad-Core 2.0 GHz
• RAM: 2 GB
• Storage: 32 or 64 GB (expandable to 1 TB)
• Battery: 12 hours
• Camera: 2 MP; 720p HD video recording

The iPad Pro (2020) comes in two sizes: the 11-inch version and the 12.9-inch one. These two are quite similar for most of their features, including RAM memory and storage options, except for obviously weight, screen size and overall size. The 11″ iPad Pro is lighter and smaller.

But yes, in this iPad comparison, the 12.9″ iPad Pro has more complete specs, especially when it comes to screen quality, such as a Liquid Retina XDR display and more brightness levels. This can be a deal-breaker for professionals such as designers and videomakers, but not for most users.

With Apple’s acclaimed M1 chip and 8GB or 16 GB RAM options (the latter on models with 1 or 2 TB storage only), the iPad Pro can do almost anything a computer would. Of course, it still has some of the limitations any other tablet has, but it’s really impressive to listen to what people have to say about it, especially regarding tough jobs such as video editing.

Video editing usually requires a lot from any machine and there are numerous reviewers shocked by how well the iPad Pro handles this task. According to this 4K Shooters review, the iPad Pro still can’t replace your regular video editing computer but it can get the work done when your laptop is not around.

For the 12.9″ version, the iPad Pro not only displays crisp images (2732 x 2048 pixels at 264 pixels per inch) but also feels comfortable to look at for hours, thanks to its 2D backlighting system with 2596 full‑array local dimming zones. We’d still recommend you an e-reader if you read a lot of e-books, but as long as tablets can go for reading, it doesn’t get much better than this.

As we mentioned before, cameras are not a tablet’s forte, but nobody does it like the iPad Pro. With 12MP and Wide and Ultra Wide cameras, you will be able to take nice pictures and record 4K videos using this iPad. These iPad Pros have five-element camera lenses and a good combination between hardware and camera software, which has been Apple’s differential since the first iPhone.

For an example of how the photos and videos taken with the iPad Pro camera may look like, here’s an in-depth article by Lux Camera with many sample images.

Specifications:

• Operating system: iOS
• Screen size: 12.9″
• Display resolution: 2732 x 2048 pixels
• CPU: Apple M1
• RAM: 8 or 16 GB
• Storage: 128, 256 or 512 GB; 1 or 2 TB
• Battery: 10 hours
• Camera: 12 MP; 4k video recording

This is also our pick for the best tablet for reading (although we’d still recommend an e-reader for reading books.)

The iPad Air (4th gen) is ideal if you’re not looking to spend too much on an iPad Pro but still want a little more power than the regular iPad (9th gen.)

This iPad comes with A14 Bionic chip with 64-bit desktop-class architecture, and both 64 GB and 256 GB storage options. This means more power than most tablets on the market, but limited storage options.

For students, this can be a hard balance. 64 GB may not be enough for your apps and files, but you probably don’t want to pay almost $200 more for the model with larger storage either.

Aside from that, the iPad Air is one of the best-reviewed tablets Canadians can find today.

With up to 10 hours of battery life on Wi-Fi and a 10.9-inch 264 PPI screen, this Apple tablet could make most users happy, not only students. It allows you to stream videos, listen to music, use multiple apps and even play some games without performance issues.

Specifications:

• Operating system: iOS
• Screen size: 10.9″
• CPU: Apple A14
• Storage: 64 or 256 GB
• Battery: 10 hours
• Camera: 12 MP; 4k video recording

Most reasonably priced tablets don’t come with a keyboard included. For our “tablet with keyboard” category, we considered tablets that have native compatibility with keyboards but that don’t necessarily come with one in the same box.

The Surface Pro 7 is an interesting option if you’re looking for a tablet for work or school. This laptop-tablet hybrid is designed for you to write, work and study for long hours, especially if you’re already used to using other Windows devices. It has a battery life of up to 10.5 hours, and users love its case and keyboard integration.

When it comes to performance, this model enables you to choose how powerful you’d like it to be, it has 4, 8 and 16 GB RAM options, as well as 128 GB, 256 GB, or 1 TB storage. You can also choose if you’d like it with an i5 or i7 Intel processor. Of course, all of these possible settings directly affect the Surface Pro 7’s price. Regardless of the configuration you choose, this Windows tablet should be more than enough for you to do regular tasks and school work without choppy scrolling or slowness.

However, its least powerful version (i5 with 4GB RAM and 128 GB storage) is not ideal for hard work such as gaming, video editing and music production.

In addition to the keyboard/cover, you can also use it with the Surface Arc Mouse and the Surface pen.

Specifications:

• Operating system: Windows
• Screen size: 12.3″
• Display resolution: 2736 x 1824 pixels
• CPU: Intel i5 or i7
• RAM: 4, 8 or 16 GB
• Storage: 128 GB, 256 GB or 1 TB
• Battery: 10.5 hours
• Camera: 8 MP

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 Plus has been named the best productivity tablet by many authoritative media outlets.

For us, it makes total sense. As of late 2021, no other Android tablet beats this Samsung option.

Although the S7 Plus has a wide range of features that makes us like it, it really stands out when it comes to two core specs: display and performance.

With storage up to 1TB, an octa-core processor, and a memory RAM size of 6 GB, this is a powerful tool that will handle the toughest jobs expected from an Android tablet.

With regards to the display, the 12.4″ Super AMOLED screen has a resolution of 2800 x 1752 pixels and a density of around 266 PPI. This means almost anything you try to watch or read on this tablet’s screen will look amazing.

Just like the iPad Pro and other high-end tablets, we only suggest the Galaxy Tab S7 Plus for users who feel they’re going to get the most out of it, whether working, watching videos, or studying.

If you’re looking for a good Android tablet for when you don’t have your phone or laptop around, we’d recommend its simpler version, the Galaxy Tab S7, which can sometimes be found at half the price of the Plus model.

Specifications:

• Operating system: Android
• Screen size: 12.4″
• Display resolution: 2800 x 1752 pixels
• CPU: 3.09GHz, 2.4GHz, 1.8GHz
• RAM: 6 GB
• Storage: Up to 1 TB
• Battery: 10,090 mAh (up to 15 hours)
• Camera: 13 MP

Who would’ve imagined that the device under this category wasn’t going to be a Microsoft tablet?

Well, pretty much anyone who’s tried the ThinkPad X12 Detachable (12″, Intel) Tablet, probably.

This Lenovo tablet-laptop hybrid is one of the most powerful tablets out there and could be a useful tool for those who already use Windows 10 computers and want to keep everything under the same system.

The ThinkPad series is well known for its superb laptops. And they did it again, now with a tablet.

With an Intel  i3, i5 or i7 Core vPRO processor — not a very common feature for a tablet — and 8 or 16 GB RAM options, this tablet is powerful enough to run for hours without performance issues, which could be ideal if you’re looking for something for work or school.

Its integration with the keyboard and the tablet pen makes it even more office-friendly, especially if you have frequent presentations.

As a tablet, the ThinkPad is somewhat lightweight and portable for a 12″ tablet (11.15″ x 8.01″ x 0.34″ and 760g), but it gets bulky with the keyboard attached (11.15″ x 8.01″ x 0.57″ and 1.1kg.).

It’s portable but not that portable.

Specifications:

• Operating system: Windows
• Screen size: 12.3″
• Display resolution: 2800 x 1752 pixels
• CPU: Intel i3, i5 or i7 Core vPRO processor
• RAM: 8 or 16 GB
• Storage: 512 GB
• Battery: Up to 10.36 hours
• Camera: 8 MP

As gaming devices, tablets can be quite annoying. They’re often too large, too slow, or too small.

Still, if you’re looking for a gaming tablet, there are some things you should have in mind: performance, display, battery life, and comfortable tablet use.

For us, the Lenovo Tab P11 Plus is the tablet that best fits these requirements.

With a MediaTek Helio G90T Tab Octa-Core processor with up to 2.05GHz main frequency and 4 or 6 GB of RAM options, this tablet is powerful enough to run most of the games available for Android tablets. This is actually one of the few tablets that mention gaming when talking about performance on its official website.

The Tab P11 comes in multiple versions performance-wise; and the more powerful the specs, the more expensive it gets. However, none of them has storage of more than 128 GB, which can definitely be an issue for some gamers.

With an 11″ 2K display, most movies and games will look good on this tablet — good, no great. After calculating its PPI using CalculatorSoup’s calculator, we noticed that the Tab P11 has around 212 PPI, which is fair but not game-changing (no pun intended!)

With a 7,700 mAh battery, the Tab P11 Plus has a battery life of up to 15 hours, although it probably won’t last that long with games.

With 10.2″ x 6.4″ x 0.295″ dimensions, the Lenovo Tab P11 Plus should be somewhat easy to maneuver for gaming, as far as a tablet can go. Additional tip: if you’re going to use your tablet many hours a day, especially for gaming, many ergonomics experts recommend a comfort grip for long-term tablet use.

We also like that this tablet is not a huge investment like a Samsung or Apple tablet would be. Even its most powerful version is currently under $600 in Canada, and the basic model is a bit above $300. This means that if you’re done with tablet gaming some months from now, you won’t necessarily feel like your money was drained.

Specifications:

• Operating system: Android
• Screen size: 11″
• Display resolution: 2K
• CPU: MediaTek Helio G90T Tab Octa-Core processor
• RAM: 4 or 6 GB
• Storage: Up to 128 GB
• Battery: Up to 15 hours
• Camera: 8 MP

• The tablet needs to provide secure internet access.
• It needs filters and safe content.
• It needs to allow parents to control use and content.
• It needs to be very, very resistant to accidents.

This tablet is ideal for illustrators, photographers and visual artists in general, and it’s not suitable for regular use. It doesn’t have any of the core tablet features, such as apps, browsing, email, or even its own display. 

If you draw professionally, you probably know that no tablet beats a good drawing pad.

According to Xencelabs, this tablet allows you to create up to 40 shortcuts per applications and group sets of related functions like sketching, colouring, and editing, for both 2D and 3D projects.

With dimensions of 12.61 x 9.16 x 0.3 in and an active area size of 10,33 x 5,8 in, the Xencelabs Pen Tablet provides you with enough space to create your illustrations without affecting portability — although it requires that you have a computer with you, as it doesn’t have any screens to display your drawings.

If you plan to use it for work, the battery life (around 16 hours) won’t be a problem and will give you enough time to complete your projects before the next charge (the charging time is around 2.5 hours, by the way.)

One of the things that make it one of the best drawing tablets is not only its performance and features but also the accessories that come with it, which make for a quite complete set, including battery-free pens, cases, adapters, cables, and the Xencelabs Quick Keys, a separate remote with OLED display, buttons and a physical dial.

Even if you bought yourself a good regular tablet for drawing, such as the iPad Pro, you would still need to spend some hundreds of dollars on devices that turn into a proper drawing tablet. With this Xencelabs option, you can have it all drawing-wise for less than $400.

Specifications:

• Screen size/area size: 12″/10,33 x 5,8 in
• Battery: Up to 16 hours
• Dimensions: ‎32.05 x 23.28 x 0.8 cm
• Weight: 1 kilograms

A truly portable tablet needs to be small and lightweight. However, people don’t like it when these specs come at the cost of lower performance or any other related downgrades.

That’s why the iPad mini is our favourite small tablet. Except for obvious aspects, such as a smaller screen, the mini is not that different from its bigger peers; in fact, it performs even better than the regular iPad (9th generation) in some scenarios.

With 7.69 x 5.3 x 0.25 inches and 293 g (297 for the Wi-Fi + cellular version), the iPad mini is Apple’s most portable iPad, as well as one of the most portable tablets on the market.

The combination of the small screen (8.3″)  and high resolution (2266 x 1488 pixels) gives the iPad mini’s Liquid Retina display one of the highest densities for a tablet, and the best one for the latest generation of iPads, at 316 pixels per inch.

With regards to the performance, Apple doesn’t share much about the iPad mini’s RAM memory, but it does state that it comes with an A15 Bionic chip with 64-bit desktop-class architecture and Neural Engine. This component allows the brand’s A chips to use machine learning to manage how much processing power the tablet uses. As an example, the 16-core version of this structure (not available on the iPad mini) can process 11 trillion operations per second.

It also has two storage options: 64 GB or 256 GB.

One of the greatest things about the iPad mini is that its small size doesn’t impact battery life. It has the same duration as the iPad Pro 12.9-in and the iPad (9th generation): up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi or watching videos.

Specifications:

• Operating system: iOS
• Screen size: 8.3″
• Display resolution: 2266 x 1488 pixels
• CPU: A15 Bionic chip with 64-bit desktop-class architecture and Neural Engine
• RAM: 2 GB
• Storage: 64 or 256 GB
• Battery: Up to 10 hours
• Camera: 12 MP; 4K video recording