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Door staff@engadget.com (Max Miller) - 08 Oct 2026
One major reason to buy an Amazon tablet is as a Kindle alternative. If you read a lot of ebooks but want the ability to watch videos and run Android apps, Fire tablets have had your back. Of course, the Kindle app runs perfectly well on tablets from other brands, so Amazon is leaning hard into its first-party advantage with the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro. In fact, all the new Alexa tablets announced today will offer a new Kindle mode, designed to "preserve the sanctuary of reading," according to Amazon's Panos Panay.
The updated Kindle reading experience will be enhanced if you're using the tablet with the optional nanomatte display. Amazon designed it in partnership with Corning, the company behind Gorilla Glass, to create a texture that lines up with the pixel grid in the panel. The upshot of this is that it should reduce screen glare, making it easier to read text in bright conditions. We've seen other new devices with similar finishes, including Apple's foldable iPhone Duo.
While reading in the Kindle app, the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro will silence notifications, reduce blue light, and extend battery life (presumably by killing some background processes you don't need while stuck in the Kindle app). You can also pick from three display settings: warm, paper-like, or grayscale. We'll need to test this in order to know whether it's a better experience than, say, programming a Samsung tablet to enter do-not-disturb and turn on a blue light filter when you open the Kindle app. But if you're fully ensconced within the Kindle or Alexa ecosystems, this is one device to keep on your radar.
Pricing for the Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro starts at $500 for the standard display version with 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM, or $550 for the nanomatte display version with the same storage and memory configuration. There is also a Pro Keyboard case accessory for $150 and a Tablet Pro Pen stylus for $90, both sold separately.
The updated Kindle reading experience will be enhanced if you're using the tablet with the optional nanomatte display. Amazon designed it in partnership with Corning, the company behind Gorilla Glass, to create a texture that lines up with the pixel grid in the panel. The upshot of this is that it should reduce screen glare, making it easier to read text in bright conditions. We've seen other new devices with similar finishes, including Apple's foldable iPhone Duo.
While reading in the Kindle app, the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro will silence notifications, reduce blue light, and extend battery life (presumably by killing some background processes you don't need while stuck in the Kindle app). You can also pick from three display settings: warm, paper-like, or grayscale. We'll need to test this in order to know whether it's a better experience than, say, programming a Samsung tablet to enter do-not-disturb and turn on a blue light filter when you open the Kindle app. But if you're fully ensconced within the Kindle or Alexa ecosystems, this is one device to keep on your radar.
Pricing for the Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro starts at $500 for the standard display version with 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM, or $550 for the nanomatte display version with the same storage and memory configuration. There is also a Pro Keyboard case accessory for $150 and a Tablet Pro Pen stylus for $90, both sold separately.