The GSMArena tablet buyer's guide

Introduction

It's that time again - the summer edition of our tablet buyer's guide is up so you can go slate-shopping the right way.

Since the last issue back in February, a lot of new devices have hit the market and we've done our best to include the right ones complete with their price tags and relevant alternatives.

Just like before, the list of suggested tablets is broken down in three tiers: compact, mid and full-size. The devices in each category are sorted by price, low to high. There are cheap gadgets that are a worth a look (in our humble opinion) and it's entirely up to you whether you'll make a move for the premium offerings or some reasonably-priced options.

The list of compact tablets welcomes back some golden oldies like the Nexus 7 (2013) which has had another price cut, while others have failed to stay competitive and therefore had to go.

The mid-sized tablet market remains the busiest and it's here that we saw the most meaningful price reductions. Some notable newcomers such as the Nokia N1 and the Dell Venue 8 7000 are rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Lenovo Tab S8, Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact and Nvidia Shield, which have gotten cheaper.

As for the full-sized tablet market, things have remained mostly unchanged save for a few tablets that have had a slight discount.

As usual, at the end of our guide we look at what didn't make the cut. We have some very big names there that you'd think are a cinch to recommend but it isn't actually that simple. Stay tuned for that one.

As usual we don't feature Windows tablets as we have very few of them in our database and we generally feel they are outside our focus. They're practically PCs and not the web and multimedia oriented tablets we deal with here.

• Compact tablets (Wi-Fi & 3G)
• Mid-size tablets (Wi-Fi & 3G)
• Full-size tablets (Wi-Fi & 3G)