I compared three of the best-selling budget tablets available in 2025. Which would I recommend?

Last month, Samsung were literally giving away their latest budget tablet, as well as a host of other goodies, to anyone purchasing an S25 phone. My wife received a Tab A9+, a Samsung Watch 7 and Samsung Buds Pro with her new S25 contract.

It’s proved to be a decent tablet, considering it was free. But if I had to pay for one, would it be the best value on the market? Here’s my rundown on how it compares to the other budget tablets in our house, the Redmi Pad 2 and Amazon Fire Max 11.

Design and build quality

The Fire Max 11 breaks away from the plastic past of budget Amazon tablets and replaces it with a more refined aluminium unibody. Measuring 259.1 x 163.7 x 7.5 mm and weighing ~490 g, it feels solid and refined. A fingerprint sensor is integrated into the power button, pogo pins to connect a keyboard without the need for Bluetooth and USI 2.0 stylus support. You’ll only find the Fire Max 11 in one colour, so if you’re not a fan of grey, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

The Galaxy Tab A9+ has a sleek metal-backed design with gently curved edges and plastic accents around the camera and SIM tray, offering a solid feel without the premium flair of Samsung’s more expensive tablets. At 257 × 169 × 6.9 mm, it’s smaller and thinner than the Fire Max 11 but weighs the same. There’s no fingerprint reader or S Pen compatibility, but there are pogo pins to attach to Samsung keyboards, and three colours to choose between.

The Redmi Pad 2’s aluminium body is a few grams heavier than the other two, but slightly smaller, measuring 254.6 x 166mm. Colour options include Graphite Gray, Mint Green, and Lavender Purple, and the rear camera module sits in a pleasing pill-shaped bump. There is smart pen compatibility, but no pogo pins, so the Redmi keyboard must be connected via Bluetooth.

All three devices have slots for expandable storage and 3mm headphone jacks.

Display and sound

While all three tablets have generous 11-inch screens, only the Tab A9+ and Redmi Pad 2 have a 90Hz refresh rate. It’s disappointing that the Fire Max 11 is capped at 60Hz and feels rather old-fashioned if you’ve gotten used to a high refresh rate. The resolution on the Redmi Pad 2 is significantly higher than the A9+ or the Fire Max 11, with a 2.5K display and ~274 ppi density, which is well over the Samsung’s 1200 x 1920 pixels ~206 ppi density and the Fire Max 11’s 2000 x 1200 ~212 ppi.

The Redmi Pad 2 and the Fire Max 11 both use an IPS screen, which is technically superior and better at rendering colours than TFT screens used in the Samsung A9+. This is noticeably better in the Redmi, but the Fire Max 11’s low refresh rate negates this positive. All three are fine for watching videos and playing undemanding games on however, since it’s common to lower the refresh rate on budget tablets to improve gaming performance.

Sound-wise, all three have impressive sound quality and volume, but the Redmi Pad 2 boasts a quad stereo speaker system with integrated Dolby Atmos, while the other two rely on just the two speakers, with Dolby Atmos.

Battery life

The battery on the Redmi Pad 2 is larger than the Samsung A9+, with a capacity of 9000mAh and 7400mAh, respectively. In real-world terms, this should allow around 17 hours of continuous video streaming for the Redmi and 14 hours on the Samsung. Amazon haven’t made the size of their battery available, but claims it can stream for 14 hours. The fast charging is slightly better in the Redmi, charging at 18W, opposed to the Fire Max 11 and Samsung’s 15W.

Performance

While the processors in all these devices are designed for gaming, these are all entry-level devices, and settings on some games will need to be lowered to run smoothly. The Samsung A9+’s Snapdragon 695 5G processor is the better processor of the three, closely followed by the MediaTek G100 used in the Redmi Pad 2.

The Fire Max 11’s processor is some way behind and bench tests on all the main tech websites rank it as the worst processor.

The RAM in the Fire Max 11 could hold back its performance, as there is no 8GB option, and the 4GB can cause issues on more demanding games.

But for normal day-to-day usage and less demanding games, all these devices are more than capable of running several apps at once without any real issues.

Software experience

The Galaxy Tab A9+ operates on Android 13 with Samsung’s One UI, offering a polished, versatile and familiar experience. It feels easy to use, especially if you’ve been using Samsung devices for years, as we have. There are some great productivity features, like DeX mode, which provides a desktop-like interface for multitasking and productivity. Samsung guarantees two operating system updates and four years of security patches, ensuring longevity.

The Redmi Pad 2 runs HyperOS, which is based on Android and feels almost as familiar as Samsung’s One UI, but not quite. It still provides a smooth, customisable interface with robust app compatibility via the Google Play Store, but there are one or two differences that take a while to get used to.

The Amazon Fire Max 11 uses Fire OS 8, which is a heavily modified Android fork. It replaces Google services with Amazon’s ecosystem and ditches the Play Store in favour of its own Amazon Appstore, which has limited app availability and can restrict the device. Where this does have some advantages is for anyone that uses lots of Amazon services, particularly eBooks, audiobooks and Prime Video. It also helps filter out more malicious apps, so could be better for children.

Pricing and value for money

While we were lucky enough to get our Samsung A9+ free with my wife’s phone contract, anyone wanting to purchase one is going to have to pay £164 for the 128GB, 8GB version of the device, and I’d say that’s great value for a device that can do quite a lot. The 256GB version, however, is almost £100 more at £257, which feels like a lot of money to pay for the extra storage. There are also various lower spec versions of the A9+, but be wary of what you’ll be sacrificing to save a few pounds.

The Redmi Pad 2 doesn’t have an equivalent to the 128GB, 8GB Samsung and has released a 256GB, 8GB model and a 128GB, 4GB model, which cost £199 and £129 respectively. So, in the most direct comparison, the Redmi Pad 2 is almost £60 cheaper than the Samsung A9+, and only £30 more expensive than the 128 GB version of the Samsung.

At £249.99 for their 64 GB, 4 GB model, Amazon are asking a lot more money for a lower specification, especially considering that it’s limited to the Amazon ecosystem. That said, there are often massively discounted deals on Amazon products around Prime Day and Black Friday, so consider waiting if you’re desperate for a Fire tablet.