Amazon retires 15-year Fire tablet brand for Alexa tablets running Android with Google Play

Amazon has retired the Fire tablet brand after 15 years and replaced it with a lineup of Alexa Tablets that run full Android with Google Play Store access and ship with the company's Alexa+ AI assistant built in. Announced Thursday, the three-model line goes on sale October 14, 2026 in the United States, Mexico and Canada, with the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain following on October 19, according to TechCrunch.

A clean break from Fire OS

An Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch that the devices are an all-new product line with new hardware and a new operating system, not a Fire Tablet rebrand. The Verge reports the project ran two and a half years, with Amazon devices chief Panos Panay instructing the team to start from zero and reuse no components from previous products.

The bigger departure is software. Where Fire tablets ran a forked OS locked to Amazon's own app store, the new slates offer a standard Android experience with access to apps like YouTube, Netflix and Gmail. Panay told The Verge that "Google Play was a necessity, end of story," while naming the hardware itself as the most important part of the redesign. He described the screen as the one feature the team refused to compromise on.

Three models, one flagship

The Alexa Tablet 8 starts at $229.99 with an 8.7-inch display and a 329-gram aluminum body designed for one-handed use, coming in Graphite, Rosette and Teal. The Alexa Tablet 11 starts at $329.99 with an 11-inch 2.5K display at 276 pixels per inch, 90Hz scrolling, 15 hours of video playback and dual Dolby Atmos speakers, in Graphite, Amethyst and Matcha.

The Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, at $499.99, is the flagship. It measures 6.5 mm thick, weighs 550 grams, and uses a MediaTek Dimensity 8400 processor with a choice of 128 or 256GB of storage, per The Verge. Outlets disagree slightly on the details: TechCrunch describes a 12-inch 280 PPI display, The Verge's spec rundown says 12.5 inches at 2800 x 1840, and its hands-on says 12.3 inches. All agree on a 3:2 aspect ratio, up to 120Hz refresh and, per The Verge, 500 nits of brightness. The Verge's coverage also splits on RAM, listing either 8/16GB or 8/12GB configurations.

Amazon claims the 12 Pro delivers nearly three times the processing and nine times the graphics performance of any tablet it has shipped before, along with Dolby Atmos speakers, Wi-Fi 6E and 16 hours of video playback. A $549.99 Nanomatte option uses glass etched with a Corning-developed texture to cut glare, an approach The Verge compares to Apple's nano-texture finish; its hands-on found the coating nearly eliminates reflections and may retain more contrast than Apple's version. A Pro Pen ($89.99) and Pro Keyboard ($149.99) aim to turn the device into a workstation, though the same hands-on found the keyboard shallow and the two-part case awkward to attach.

Alexa+ at the center

All three tablets launch with Alexa+ built in, activated by voice or an Ask Alexa button. An On-Screen Intelligence feature, which TechCrunch demonstrates with the example of asking "Which of these hikes is best for me?" while browsing trails, lets the assistant respond to what is on the display. The Verge's hands-on notes the feature is strictly opt-in, with controls over what Alexa can hear and remember.

A Dynamic Tab surfaces proactive suggestions based on reading, viewing and shopping habits, and the assistant can identify objects in photos and add matching products to an Amazon cart. The Verge observes that Alexa+ is nearly as pervasive on these devices as Gemini or Siri on rival tablets, while noting its own testing of the assistant has been less impressed. A new Kindle reading mode silences notifications, reduces blue light, extends battery life to 20 hours and offers Standard, Color and grayscale Ink display modes.

Amazon also announced Kids tablets in 8.7-inch and 11-inch sizes, bundled with a kid-proof case and a year of Amazon Kids+. Versions for ages 3+ get soft bumper cases featuring franchises like Paw Patrol and Barbie, while the 6+ model has a slim hard case with a kickstand. The Kids tablets also reach Japan on October 14, per TechCrunch.

Why it matters

For most of their existence, Fire tablets were inexpensive gateways to Prime and Amazon's store, hampered by a limited app catalog. By adopting full Android and Google Play, Amazon removes the most common criticism of its hardware and positions the line squarely against the iPad, as The Verge notes. The tablets are also the biggest stage yet for Alexa+, which Amazon is framing as a general-purpose computing assistant and shopping companion rather than a smart home controller. If the display and tradeoffs land as advertised, Amazon may finally have a credible premium tablet, and a new distribution channel for its AI assistant, in a market it has long treated as an afterthought.