I’ll tell you a secret: I hate having to update our best cheap tablets guide. Not because I’m against the idea of affordable tech slates, but because I feel bad about the state of the cheap tablet market in 2025.
There are really only a handful of lower-end tablets worth considering at the time of writing, and it’s a challenge to recommend anything other than Apple’s latest entry-level iPad, which, I acknowledge, stretches the definition of ‘affordable’ for most people.
