Samsung Galaxy Tab A9 Galaxy Tab A9+ Tablet 11" Review

Look, the Galaxy Tab A9+ is a cheap tablet. That's the one thing you need to know. It's not trying to be an iPad Pro or a Surface Pro. It's for someone who wants a big screen for watching videos, browsing the web, and maybe checking email without spending a lot of cash. For $240, you get an 11-inch Android tablet that's surprisingly light and thin, landing in the 100th percentile for compactness. Just don't expect it to do much else.

The performance is exactly what you'd expect from a budget tablet with an AMD 1200 CPU and integrated graphics. It's slow. The CPU is in the 1st percentile, which means it's slower than 99% of other products in its category. Apps will open with a noticeable lag, and switching between them isn't smooth. The 8GB of RAM helps a bit, but this thing is not built for speed. It's built for basic tasks, and it just barely handles those.

For $240, it's a value only if your needs are extremely basic. You're paying for a big screen and a lightweight body, and you're sacrificing everything else to get there. If your budget is absolutely locked at $250, it's an option. But if you can stretch your budget even a little, you'll find much better value elsewhere.

This isn't competing with those high-end laptops listed. Its real competition is other budget tablets. Compared to an older iPad (like a 9th gen), the iPad will feel miles faster and have a better app ecosystem, but it costs more. Compared to an Amazon Fire HD 10, the Samsung has a cleaner Android experience without Amazon's ads, but the Fire is even cheaper. The Lenovo Tab M11 is a more direct Android competitor, often with similar specs but sometimes better performance. The A9+ wins on being ultra-light, but loses on almost every performance metric.

I can't recommend the Galaxy Tab A9+ for most people. The performance is just too big of a compromise. It's only a good buy if you need the absolute lightest, largest screen possible for under $250 and you will literally only use it to watch Netflix in bed. For any other use—web browsing, email, social media—the lag will frustrate you. Save up a bit more for a used iPad or a better Android tablet.