Amazon has replaced its Fire tablets with three Android-based Alexa Tablets that run Google Play and have the Alexa+ assistant built in, starting at $229.99 and shipping from 14 October.
Amazon unveiled three new Alexa tablets on 8 October 2026, the Alexa Tablet 8, the Alexa Tablet 11 and the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, according to TechCrunch and other outlets. They run Android, not a rebranded Fire OS, and have access to the Google Play Store at launch, according to TechCrunch. They also have the Alexa+ assistant built in, with a feature called On-Screen Intelligence, and the line replaces the budget Fire tablets, as CNBC’s headline says.
The Alexa Tablet 8 starts at $229.99 and has an 8.7-inch display, weighs 329 grams and has an all-aluminium design in graphite, rosette and teal. The Alexa Tablet 11 starts at $329.99 and has an 11-inch 2.5K display at 276 pixels per inch with a 90 Hz refresh rate, dual Dolby Atmos speakers and a battery rated at 15 hours of video playback, in graphite, amethyst and matcha, according to TechCrunch.
The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro starts at $499.99, or $549.99 for a Nanomatte display, and has a 12-inch screen at 280 pixels per inch with a 120 Hz refresh rate and a 3:2 aspect ratio. It is a 6.5-millimetre aluminium unibody with Dolby Atmos speakers, Wi-Fi 6E and a 16-hour video battery, in graphite. Amazon says that it has nearly three times the processing performance and nine times the graphics performance of its earlier tablets. Search summaries of other reports give the memory as 8 GB for the 11 and the Pro, and 4 GB for the 8, with 64 GB or 128 GB of storage, but TechCrunch’s article does not list the specifications.
A Pro Pen and a Pro Keyboard are available for the 12 Pro, according to TechCrunch. A search summary of other reports says that the keyboard costs $150, though the TechCrunch article did not give a price. The new Kindle experience on the tablets includes blue light reduction and up to 20 hours of battery life for reading, according to the report.
The shipping dates are 14 October in the United States, Mexico and Canada, and 19 October in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, according to the same coverage. Orders were opened on 8 October. The sources reviewed do not give the price in other currencies.
The change marks a shift for Amazon’s tablet business. The Fire line was known for low prices, and a Hoodline headline says the new Alexa tablets have higher prices, starting at $230 and rising to $500, while a CNBC headline says that Amazon overhauled its ageing device lineup with a higher-priced Alexa tablet and dumped the budget Fire. A Techrepublic headline says the tablets start at $229 and discusses what changes for Fire owners, but the details were not reviewed.
The TechCrunch headline highlights the Google Play Store access as a main change. That does not mean that the tablets will run every app well, and the sources reviewed do not include tests.
Alexa+ is Amazon’s upgraded assistant. The sources reviewed do not say whether it is free for owners or tied to Prime, and TechCrunch’s article does not state the price, so that question is left open here.
The new line shows Amazon betting that a tablet built around its assistant can sell at higher prices, and the next sign will be how buyers respond after the first shipments.
Image: An Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus tablet, the kind of device the Alexa tablets replace (file photo). Photo: KKPCWKyu3 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
