If you're prepared to do a bit of hunting around there are some good Tablets to be found on sale for very cheap. You have to be careful though when buying a Tablet within this cheap price range, as there are so many Tablet computers and components imported from China these days that it can be hard to separate the good ones from the bad. Post updated for 2020.
Customer reviews will play a big part in this. And also questions from potential customers about the products, because these questions are answered by the very people who have already bought the product and have been using it for several weeks or months.
This is the type of feedback that needs to be looked at in order to get a feel for how the Tablet will last and perform over a longer period of time. The work has been done for you. See below for a list of some of the best and cheapest (Reliable) Tablets to buy in the UK. Please note: Any prices listed are subject to change at any time.
FUSION5 9" Quad Core Tablet
Probably the best deal out of all the cheap Tablets on the market right now in the UK. The FUSION5 A7 Quad-Core and MALI 400 GPU Android Tablet is totally open to everything you could possibly want to do with it. Total freedom! Please note: This model has been updated, and as a result it now has a better specification. But is more expensive.
Although, not by a huge amount. Read books, play games, watch films online, and of course, browse the Internet. Updated model.
Being pre-installed with the Kit Kat operating system its very easy to use, and also very smooth and stable thanks to its A7 Processor and adequate 512MB DDR3 RAM (Now 1GB).
Check out the latest 64-bit model (Excellent)
It has impressive WiFi capabilities and a good quality screen for the price. It also has 8GB of internal storage (Now optional 16GB or 32GB), Micro SD Card slot, headphone jack, mini USB port, Bluetooth, and dual cameras. You get all this, and on top of that you also get a free 1 year warranty (limited) included when you buy this Tablet brand new from Fusion5. (Model updated - Price changed).
This is an excellent deal for the price. Only draw backs are the two cameras are not very good quality and the speakers aren't the best. But for this price it's still a great bargain. Spend a bit more and get the upgraded 10.1 Inch Fusion5 Tablet with 4.4 Kitkat, 1GB RAM, and 16GB Internal Storage. And it comes with a 1 year warranty. (New model now available).
Amazon Fire 7" Tablet
One of the latest additions to the Amazon Tablet range. And also the cheapest. This Tablet has set a new overall standard of quality of what can be bought for such a low price. It's a stable and smooth Tablet to use and is great for streaming video, playing games, and surfing the Internet. The Amazon Fire 7" Tablet has a Quad Core Processor (4x 1.3GHz), WiFi, 8GB built-in storage, and extra clear IPS display.
This Tablet is the number one best seller on Amazon for a reason, and the big majority of positive reviews reflect its performance and value for money. The only downfall is that there are some teething problems because they are so new, and everything is kept "In house", such as the Apps and online storage space (Cloud). It's not fully "open" for the user to download what they please instantly.
Google Play and other software can be installed but requires some searching around on the Internet and side-loading. For people who can't be bothered with all that it's probably best to buy an Android Tablet for around the same price (Fusion5) which is open to everything straight out the box.
Yuntab V101H 10.1 Inch Tablet
The Yuntab V101H 10.1 Inch Tablet has excellent reviews, but there isn't that many of them. But with what reviews there are, they were mostly all written by happy customers. Just one buyer rated it badly and that was because it arrived damaged. So nothing to do with the Tablets performance. This is another cheap Tablet that has a really good specification for the price. Read the reviews. Update: Reviews have turned terrible for most Yuntab models, so go for something else like the Fire HD or
2020 Neocore E1 with 3GB RAM instead.
It features the Quad Core Allwinner A33 Processor which is made up of 4 x 1.5GHz Cores, Android Kit Kit operating system, 8GB built-in storage space (max 32GB), 512MB RAM, Bluetooth, dual cameras, headphone jack, micro USB port, Micro SD card slot, and its compatible with a 3G dongle. It also comes with Google Play pre-installed. For a bargain price the Yuntab V101H 10.1 inch Tablet is well worth taking the risk on. It appears to be a really good Tablet for the money.
iRULU eXpro X1a 9 Inch Android Tablet
With the iRULU eXpro X1a 9 Inch Tablet we again see a cheap Tablet with excellent reviews. And again, there are not a lot of reviews. This time the reviews are not from people who have bought the product, but by Amazon UK users who were given the Tablet free of charge, and in return they will leave a truthful review about what they thought of the product.
As of writing this, the iRULU eXpro X1a has a total of 6 reviews written by people who were given it for free by Amazon, and every one of them has said that it is a great, high quality Tablet for the price. This tablet is now sold out. The Neocore E1 and N1 models are great alternatives and can be found for sale on the
official Neocore website.
This Tablet has a Quad Core ARM Cortex-A7 processor which is made up of 4 x 1.3 GHZ Cores. It also has 512MB RAM (although one reviewer said it had 1GB), and the combination of both the A7 processor and the DDR3 RAM makes this Tablet fairly fast and able to multi-task with relative ease.
It has all the usual features included on most cheap Tablets including, WiFi, Micro SD slot dual cameras, microphone, USB port, headphone jack and Bluetooth. A few other features that are good to see included are that it supports a 3G dongle and has a 16GB hard drive rather than 8GB that you normally get on budget Tablets. The iRULU eXpro X1a also comes with a free protector for both the front screen and back cover.
Things to be aware of with this model: No charger is included, just a USB lead (normal USB on one end and Micro USB on the other) which you can use to charge the Tablet from another device. The WiFi connection has been known to be temperamental on some of these Tablets and the configuration may need to be changed to a static IP rather than being on a DHCP IP by default. Easily changed in the network settings.
A good Tablet for the very low price. Looking for a Tablet that's even cheaper than these ones costing a little less. Check out the iRULU X1S 7" Tablet that is also very cheap to buy. Need a cheap Tablet for the kids Christmas presents and don't have much to spend, checkout the Fusion5 Kidlet 7-Inch Tablet (Now an updated model) with a 1 year warranty.
Dragon Touch Y88XB 7 Inch Tablet
The Dragon Touch Y88XB 7 Inch Tablet comes with a case included with the price and is considered as one of the best cheap Tablets for kids. Better still, the Dragon Touch Y88XB 7 Inch Tablet comes in at a very cheap price. It also has Zoodles installed, which is basically kids interface that has access to lots of cool stuff for kids like playing games, books, learning and drawing. Zoodles is also a parental control which sensors certain content on the Internet that's not suitable for children. Alternative model available.
It also adapts and delivers content dependant on your kids age. There are two types of Zoodles, one free version and a paid subscription. The free version is perfectly fine and does have a decent amount of content that will keep kids occupied for hours on end. The Dragon Touch Y88XB 7 Inch (and 10 Inch) Tablet has a Quad Core Processor, which consists of 4 x 1.3 GHz Cores, making it a fairly fast Tablet to load. It comes with an 8GB internal hard drive (storage space), 512MB RAM, dual cameras, Google Play, and has the Android 4.4 Kit Kat operating system pre-installed.
All in all, this is a great Tablet for the money, and it's not just for Kids! Adults can also use this Tablet just as easy as they would use any other Tablet. The kids software can be deleted if you are an adult and want to use it as your main Tablet. The free case that comes with the Tablet is very tough and durable. This Tablet is available in colours blue, green, red and pink. Reviews are mostly excellent and this Tablet will make a really good purchase for people new to using a Tablet and need something that's going to be really easy to use.
The Best Of The Rest
Now as you are probably aware, finding a list of good quality, cheap Tablets that also have excellent reviews is not an easy task. I only like to suggest Tablets to visitors of this blog that I would condsider buying myself. The very few that I would buy with confidence are already talked about above.
The Amazon Fire, Neocore and Fusion5 really are the some of best Tablets within this low price range.
If you're willing to spend more money then yes, there are a lot of great Tablets out there to buy. But beings as this list is for the best cheap Tablets in the UK, I will recommend a few more Tablets for you to consider.
However, these last ones are the best out of a bad bunch that we could find for this price and they do have their fair share of bad reviews and complaints. But it should be noted that the positive customer reviews for these Tablets do outweigh the negative ones.
TONBUX 10.1" Android Tablet
Mixed reviews but an impressive specification and a heavily positive review score overall makes the TONBUX 10 Inch Android TONBUX 10 Inch Android Tablet a decent option. This model has now been discontinued. See an alternative for the same price (sold out). It features the Android operating system and the Allwinner Quad-Core A31S processor, which consists of 4 x 1.5GHz Cores. It also has a respectable 1GB RAM, and an 8GB internal hard drive.
Please Note: All of these Tablets won't actually have 8GB of free storage space as a big chunk (Easily a few GB) will be used up by the operating system (Android) and other files. This is easily upgraded via Micro SD card (Max 32GB). The TONBUX 10 Inch Tablet also has Micro-SD card slot, Micro-USB, dual cameras, Bluetooth, internal microphone, a 3.5mm Headphone jack, and a Mini HDMI slot. You can also use a 3G dongle with this Tablet.
Like the rest of the cheap Tablets it has terrible camera quality, low volume, and pretty bad sound clarity too.
Again, with the Tablets from China its luck of the draw whether you get a good Tablet or not. But in defence of the TONBUX, and going on the reviews, it does appear that you have a much better chance of buying a good TONBUX Tablet rather than a bad one. By some reports customer service isn't very good and a few people who wanted to return their Tablet were asked to send it back to China! Very inconvenient.
PolaTab 10 Inch Octa Core Android Tablet
The specifications are impressive. A ten inch Tablet rather than a seven or nine-inch, and the PolaTab has a A33 Quadcore + Octa core GPU Processor, and 1GB of RAM (Now updated with newer model). It also has 8GB (Now 16GB) of internal storage which is upgradable by adding an external Micro SD memory card. With the PolaTab you can add an additional 40GB of storage.
It's an Android Tablet which has Kit Kat installed so is open to the downloading of anything, including Apps the from Google Play store (Google account required).
By most accounts it's a fast and fairly stable Tablet for the price. The WiFi speed is decent and the video playback is good.
It also has two charging ports, one for the household mains and a USB cable which can also be used to charge the Tablet via another device (desktop computer). They are both included.
A USB cable that comes with the PolaTab 10 inch Tablet has a mini USB on one end and a normal sized USB connector on the other making it nice and easy to connect another device to the Tablet that uses a normal sized USB. Dual cameras (front and back), 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth, and even a HDMI port are featured on this Tablet.
The PolaTab 10 Inch Octa Core Android Tablet also comes with a 1 year UK warranty. Sounds like a great deal! It is good for the price. So what's the catch?
There are various problems to report. The sound quality is not that great, and there have been issues with the battery aging / wearing out prematurely and not holding a charge for very long.
The charging problems go further, with other faults regarding the charging port and the charger itself breaking very easily. Freezing, turning itself off, bad WiFi signal, and a not so smooth returns process are other complaints that frequent the reviews of this Tablet.
With the PolaTab 10 Inch Tablet it's basically luck of the draw as to whether you get a good product or one that's plagued with problems.
They are made in China using cheap internal components and not very durable outer materials, so they are not really built to last. There are better PolaTab Tablets out there, like the Q10.3 model, that have much better reviews.
But they cost more. The Fusion5, Neocore E1 and N1, and Amazon Fire 7" are much better choices within this price range. I hope you managed to find something suitable from the list that provides you with a good user experience and great value for money.