Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 10.5" 8 Rosa Gold 2022

A slow but dependable tablet that's secretly a killer smart home panel. Just don't pay more than $200 for it, or you'll feel the burn.

Honestly, the chipset here is a bit of a snoozer. It lands in the 37th percentile for CPU and 38th for GPU in our database, which means it's firmly in "slow and steady" territory. What surprised us is how well it handles its one true calling: being a wall-mounted kiosk. Multiple owners rave about using it with Fully Kiosk for home assistant dashboards, and for that single-purpose life, the sluggish boot times and occasional app freezes are annoyances you'll only deal with once a month. For anything beyond that, the 4GB of RAM (in most models) will have you playing app-closing whack-a-mole.

Stacked against the Apple iPad Air M3, the Tab A8 looks like a relic from another decade. The iPad destroys it in screen quality, speed, and basically everything else, but it also costs three times as much. The real fight is with something like the Lenovo Idea Tab Pro. The Lenovo offers a smoother experience and a better screen for not much more cash. The Xiaomi Pad 6 is another strong alternative that runs circles around the A8's performance. This Samsung only wins if your budget is rock-bottom and you need the Samsung ecosystem for things like Quick Share.

Pricing is all over the map, from $170 to $447 depending on the seller. At the low end, it's a steal for a secondary device. At the high end, you're getting robbed. If you're buying, hunt down the best deal you can find. Amazon currently has the best price we've seen, and that's the only way this tablet makes financial sense. Paying over $200 for this is a mistake.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 is the tablet you buy when you know exactly what you're getting into. It's not fast, it's not fancy, and the screen won't blow you away. But for a family couch tablet or a dedicated smart home panel, it nails the basics at a price that's hard to argue with. The one thing to know? This is a budget workhorse, not a performance machine. If you need it to browse, stream, and run a few light apps without crying, you're in the right place. Just don't expect it to multitask like a champ.

If you're looking for a tablet to replace a laptop for work or school, this isn't it. The productivity score is a dismal 25.4 out of 100. Go get a Lenovo Idea Tab Pro or a base iPad instead. You'll hate trying to type anything longer than a search query on this thing.

Get the Galaxy Tab A8 if you need a cheap, no-frills screen for the kitchen or a kid's first tablet. It's a dedicated media streamer and smart home controller, not a daily driver. The performance is too pokey for serious work or heavy gaming, and the screen quality is a noticeable step down from even mid-range phones. If you can snag it for under $180, it's a smart buy for a very specific job. Otherwise, save up for something snappier.