Though iPads are great, the cheapest Amazon is selling a model from the current range at the time of writing is for £313 (though you can get the older 10th-gen iPad for £269).
If you need a new tablet to stream videos on Netflix, browse the web in Chrome or make video calls to friends and family, you might want to check out the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9.
Right now, there is a ‘limited time deal’ on the tablet, which means we also don’t know how long the price will last, but it’s an amazing price of £81.71, 52 percent less than the usual price of £169.
This gets you the 8.7-inch screen tablet with 64GB storage, front and rear facing cameras and a 5,100mAh battery that should last you a full day of use. It’s also only 8mm thick, so should disappear in a bag easily enough.
As this is a more affordable tablet, you don’t get top tier specs. The display is a 60Hz LCD, so doesn’t have a high refresh rate, but that shouldn’t matter if you’re mainly watching films, reading emails, calling up websites or reading books on your e-book app of choice.
All this is easy to do on the Galaxy Tab A9 as it runs Android, so you can download any Android app from the Google Play Store. From Kindle to Candy Crush, Spotify to Zoom, this tablet is a good way to get the apps you need for a very low price.
That said, the A9 has quite an underpowered processor, so don’t expect to play triple A games on it, and you should also expect to see a fair amount of lag if you’re trying to multitask or quickly switch between apps.
But if you just want an inexpensive tablet to stream YouTube on the sofa or call your friends on Google Meet, it should do the trick. Maybe just stick to one app at a time, even if Samsung’s tablet software lets you split-screen and run two apps at once.
If you want to plug in headphones then, unlike any modern iPad, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack. You also get Bluetooth for hooking up any wireless set of headphones.
The relatively small 8.7-inch tablet isn’t going to win any performance awards but if you’re after a sub-£100 Android tablet for casual or light use, this is certainly an excellent price.
