Amazon’s Alexa tablets’ USP could be their biggest weakness
The brand-new Alexa Tablet range consists of three models: the budget Tablet 8 (£199.99/$229.99), a larger Tablet 11 (£289.99/$329.99) and a flagship (at least for Amazon) Tablet 12 Pro (£449.99/$499.99). You will have to pay at least £499.99/$549.99 for the latter with a fancy ‘Nanomatte’ display, but it still massively undercuts iPad Pro and flagship Galaxy Tabs.
And no prizes for guessing what the main selling point of these tablets is. All three feature Alexa+, Amazon’s upgraded AI assistant that’s rolling out to Echo smart speakers. However, rather than being a key selling point, I believe Alexa+ integration could be what convinces people to look elsewhere.
Tablet, set a timer
Alexa’s dominance in the smart speaker market means it has a long-standing reputation… as a mediocre voice assistant.
Over the last decade, it’s been great for basic queries such as the weather, playing music or setting timers. But, as I experience on a near-daily basis, anything more complex becomes a major struggle.
In theory, Alexa+ mostly solves this. It gives Alexa a big AI boost, leveraging the power of advanced large language models (LLMs) to answer complex, multi-step queries without resorting to an unhelpful web search or admitting “I’m not quite sure how to help you with that”. In other words, it should be on a par with the likes of Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude.
The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro is compatible with an optional keyboard cover and stylusAmazon
However, that’s not the experience that most people will be used to. While Amazon claims 97% of all the Echo devices it has ever shipped are capable of running Alexa+, only 10-15% are thought to be using it.