Best iPad Alternatives: These Tablets Beat Apple In 2025

Usually, iPads perform very well in our reviews but they’re not perfect. For some, it’s much better to buy an Android or Windows tablet instead. No matter the operating system, we review pretty much every tablet that gets released and in this list, we give you the best alternatives to iPads that you can currently buy. At the beginning, we give you a quick overview. And further down, we link our detailed review of each.

Best iPad Alternatives: An Overview

• Best 13″ iPad Pro alternative: Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra and S10+ (on Amazon*). Huge AMOLED displays, flagship performance, long software support and Samsung’s excellent S-Pens make these tablets the clear choice if you’re looking for a premium tablet with a massive display.
• Affordable 13″ iPad Pro alternative: Honor MagicPad 2 (on Amazon*). The Honor MagicPad loses to the 13’ iPad Pro in all but one aspect – this tablet features a bright OLED display that’s perfect for entertainment. If you don’t need the overkill performance of the iPad Pro and still want a great display, this is a strong and budget friendly pick.
• Business 13″ iPad Pro alternatives: Microsoft Surface Pro 11 & Pro 11 for Business (on Amazon*). These are excellent tablets with a key strength: They both run the latest version of Windows 11, allowing for far better software compatibility and flexibility. They support great pen and keyboard accessories as well, but naturally come at a hefty Microsoft premium.
• Best 11″ iPad Pro alternative: Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 (on Amazon*). Samsung hasn’t released an 11’ S10 series tablet yet, but the S9 has dropped in price significantly and still offers almost everything that the S10+ and Ultra do, save for Galaxy AI.
• Best 13″ iPad Air alternative: OnePlus Pad 3 (on Amazon*). Large 13,2’ tablet with comparable performance, a brilliant display and long software support. If you want the best performance on Android, here it is. The pen and keyboard are solid but not as refined as Apple’s offerings.
• Best iPad 11 alternative: Xiaomi Pad 7 (on Amazon*). This tablet is basically an iPad clone in the best way possible. Great design, good accessories and an excellent display make this an appealing choice over the iPad 11.
• Best iPad Mini alternative: Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 (on Amazon*). A combination of flagship performance, top-end hardware and longer battery life makes this tablet a more compelling choice than the iPad Mini for Gamers and casual users alike.

Best iPad Alternatives: All Details

Let’s get right into it and take a closer look at the best alternatives to the iPad Pro lineup.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Ultra and S10+: Best iPad Pro 13” Alternative

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is a great alternative to the iPad Pro 13’.

Coming in with an even larger 14.6 inch AMOLED display, you’re not going to find a bigger flagship tablet than this. It’s equipped with a powerful Mediatek Dimensity 9300+ processor which is fantastic for gaming at maximum settings and editing videos. With that being said, the Apple M4 chip continues to be better in benchmarks and there are some demanding games like Resident Evil that run great on the iPad but don’t even exist for Android.

Although the Galaxy Tab Ultra’s display “only” gets up to a peak of 930 nits brightness in HDR, the anti-reflection coating makes it nicely readable even outside when it’s very bright. And in general, it’s a very nice display, it has great speakers, and tons of premium features. That includes an IP68 water and dust resistant body, by the way.

Like all S series tablets, this tablet also comes with Samsung’s excellent S-Pen and that stylus definitely is on the same level as an Apple Pencil. It’s a great tablet for handwritten notes and for drawing.

Usually, the S10 Ultra is a little bit cheaper that the 13-inch iPad Pro. And quite a bit cheaper is its smaller sibling which is the Galaxy tab S10+.

That’s a 12.4 inch version of the S10 Ultra with a slightly dimmer screen but everything else is pretty much the same. So if you want a large OLED tablet with tons of premium features, this is a quite a bit cheaper and great alternative to the 13-inch iPad Pro. And a nice alternative to the 13-inch iPad Air, by the way, often the both cost about the same.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9: Great Alternative to 11” iPad Pro & Air

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 is an 11’ tablet that punches way above its weight class. With an excellent AMOLED display and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, the performance of this tablet is just a bit worse than the newer Tab S10+ and Ultra. But often you can get it for less than half the price on an 11” iPad Pro and it’s also cheaper than the 11-inch iPad Air.

Samsung didn’t release an 11-inch version of the Tab S10 series, by the way, so this is the best 11-inch Samsung tablet.

Unlike Apples tablets, it also has an IP68 rating which protects it against water and dust. And the fantastic S Pen is included again, so you don’t have to pay extra for a pen.

Performance is quite a lot worse compared to the iPad Pro, but it will still be great for heavy mobile games and tasks like video editing. And especially compared to the iPad Air, we love its pretty AMOLED screen.

Honor MagicPad 2: Outstanding OLED Alternative

If you want an iPad Pro for its fantastic and bright OLED screen mostly for watching movies and YouTube, the high price probably does sound quite painful for you. But actually, there’s an affordable tablet with an OLED that has pretty much the same qualities. And that’s the Honor MagicPad 2.

This tablet has a very similar 1000 nits OLED display with similarly fantastic colors and contrast as the iPad Pro 13, and is relatively close in size as well at 12,3 inches. It’s obviously a great choice for watching video content and high refresh rate gaming, although the performance is quite a bit weaker with its Snapdragon 8s Gen 3.

Unfortunately, you miss out on the usual Apple privileges; this tablet will get a maximum 3 years of security updates, and probably no Android version updates after Android 15. In our opinion, Honor’s MagicOS has a cluttered interface and lacks polish compared to Samsung’s One UI or stock Android.

But again, the Honor MagicPad 2 usually is very affordable and it does have an amazing screen. If you want to do much more than watching movies, we do recommend the Samsung lineup instead, though. Just because of lacking software support and Samsung has better build quality and better accessories.

Microsoft Surface Pro 11: Best iPad Pro Alternative For Work

The Microsoft Surface Pro 11 has 2 configurations that challenge both the iPad Air and iPad Pro 13’. As a windows tablet, the most obvious advantage over the iPads is that this laptop-tablet hybrid actually comes with a versatile operating system, that being Windows. We tried working just on the iPad Air again recently and it’s just not the same yet. Maybe it’ll be soon, but probably not really on the same level as a full desktop operating system.

You can get the Surface Pro 11 either with a weaker Snapdragon X Plus processor and an IPS display or the X Elite processor with an OLED. Especially the latter is a very nice screen, although the iPad Pro remains brighter.

By the way, if you want to use some traditional Windows apps that are not optimized for ARM yet, there’s also an Intel version for business.

For people who want Adobe software like full Photoshop, for example, the Surface is great. And it does run well on it. And we really like it as an office tablet due to its fantastic keyboard cover.

OnePlus Pad 3: Great iPad Air 13” Alternative

The OnePlus Pad 3 is a 13,2’ Android tablet that beats the iPad Air 13’ at its own game. It’s got a bright, high refresh LCD display, excellent speakers and even comparable performance to the iPad, all while being quite a bit cheaper.

The 7 years of security updates should keep it running for a long time, and you won’t have to worry about performance thanks to its Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. With this chip, any mobile game can be played at its highest setting and even tasks like video editing aren’t a challenge.

Battery life of the OnePlus Pad 3 is nearly double that of the iPad Air as well, and the OxygenOS software feels very mature and far better for split-screen use.

The only real downsides are that the Apple Pencil Pro and Magic keyboard feel a bit better designed and better quality than OnePlus’ alternatives.

Xiaomi Pad 7: Fantastic iPad 11 Alternative

Let’s check out some alternatives to the standard iPad 11. The Xiaomi Pad 7 looks and feels just like an iPad but has a far superior high refresh rate display. This 11-inch display is also fully laminated unlike the iPad one. Below the touchscreen of the iPad 11 is a visible air gap which can be quite annoying especially after you noticed it for the first time.

The Xiaomi Pad 7 is one of the easiest Android tablets we recommend because we loved it during our review and are still using it. It does pretty much everything the standard iPad does, and often a bit better, maybe except for pure performance. Pure performance is still better on the iPad 11 and if you want the highest graphics but don’t care for a 120Hz screen, the iPad 11 is better.

However, if you’re looking for an iPad alternative and that’s probably why you watch this, the Xiaomi Pad 7 is great.

Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3: Best iPad Mini Alternative

Now let’s get to the biggest iPad Mini competitor. The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 is a high-end “gaming” tablet that ticks every box as an iPad Mini alternative. Although it’s marketed as a gaming tablet, it’s a great all-rounder. There are very few areas where it loses to the iPad and many where it’s just better, and the Legion Tab barely costs more than the Mini.

Performance on the Legion is close to the iPad mini with its flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC and 12GB of RAM. The iPad has a slight upper hand in graphics and single core performance. The Legion has double the base storage with 256GB instead of 128GB.

Battery life on the Legion Tab is also about 50% better than the iPad mini thanks to its more modern chipset and larger battery, even though the display can provide up to 165Hz refresh rate. The Legion’s display also doesn’t have any jelly scrolling issues – a major weakness of the iPad mini which isn’t helped by the 60Hz refresh rate.

Lenovo also has an alternative for the Apple Pencil Pro that’s supported on the Legion if you’re looking for a smaller note taking tablet. However, if the pen is a very important feature for you, we still think the iPad Mini is better.