After over a decade with Android tablets, I’ve left for the iPad

While iPad might be the obvious leader in the tablet space, I’ve never been a big fan. While we did own a second-gen iPad for a few years, I eventually switched exclusively to Android tablets. Going back as far as Android Honeycomb, I’ve experienced tablets from numerous brands, including ASUS, NVIDIA, and Samsung.

I’ll admit that much of the draw has been value proposition, but I also truly enjoy the flexibility Android brings that you just won’t find with iPad OS. Unfortunately, the range of hardware is a whole other story. Over the last several years, the Android tablet market has shrunk considerably.

You’ll still find a range of tablets from Amazon, Lenovo, Samsung, and a few others. The big change is that most manufacturers have moved away from smaller, sleeker high-end tablets in favor of screens ranging from 10 inches to the massive 14.6-inch display on the Tab S10 Ultra.

These days, if you want to get a tablet with an 8-inch or 9-inch display, you’ll find your options are limited mostly to budget devices. This is exactly the situation my family ran into around 2020, as we looked to replace our aging Tab S2 8.0. We eventually settled on the Galaxy A 8.4. As someone accustomed to more flagship-level experiences, I found it to be a bit too sluggish for my needs, but it served my kids well.

Fast-forward to early 2026, and it was no longer cutting it by any measure. My boys were older and needed more. So I shopped around, hoping to find something that was small, reasonably affordable, and yet at a more flagship-level. While we considered buying a newer Galaxy Tab A or going with a flagship Android tablet with a larger display, we ultimately settled on the latest iPad Mini. This was a big change for us, but honestly, it’s been mostly a positive one.

The most obvious thing that drew us to the iPad Mini was its size. You won’t find any other tablet in this size range that comes even close to the level of performance it offers.

You might wonder why we were so set on a smaller tablet. One reason is that we’ve had pretty terrible luck with larger tablets. They are heavier, more unwieldy, and more likely to get dropped. Our original iPad met that fate, and so did two other flagship-level Android tablets, both of which had at least 10-inch display sizes.  After that, I decided I’d never let my kids handle a bigger tablet again until they were teenagers.

Of course, the screen size isn’t the only thing that has impressed us. While Google has made improvements in optimizing its tablet experience recently, Apple is still in the lead here. If you download an app for iPad OS, you don’t have to worry about apps that look overstretched, and you’ll find that the latest games and experiences often arrive on iPad long before they reach the Android platform.

Both of my kids have also noted that the game quality and variety feel closer to a console-like experience than what you’ll find from a typical Android tablet. I also personally love Apple’s accessory support. While Samsung has its own ecosystem and there are tons of generic tablet accessories, Apple’s first and third-party options often feel more polished by comparison.

I absolutely love the Apple Pencil Pro in particular and have started using the iPad as a drawing device, which is a major departure for me as someone who has always preferred sketching on physical paper.

Then there’s software support. While it’s true that some of Samsung’s best tablets offer up to seven years of OS and security fix support, this varies depending on the model. Outside of Samsung, Android tablet support typically tends to be much more limited by comparison.

With Apple, you’ll typically see OS updates for at least five to seven years. This isn’t much different than what Samsung offers, but the update cadence is faster since Apple controls both the OS and the hardware.

While I admit I don’t customize my Android devices nearly as much as I used to, I still like Android’s flexibility here. While my youngest son didn’t mess around with the settings much anyhow, my older son liked to use custom skins and liked messing around with the look. He says he misses that a bit with the iPad, even if it’s not the end of the world.

Android file management is also so much easier. Not only do I find Android easier to navigate and manage, but many Android tablets have options like microSD that let me add a ton of extra space for when my kids inevitably fill up the tablet with junk apps because they don’t pay attention to storage constraints. That’s especially true for my nine-year-old.

Sideloading is another thing I’ll miss. My son and I have been playing around with Android app development using tools like Construct 3. Creating unverified test apps is easy on our aging Android tablet. While I realize newer versions of Android have made it much harder to sideload, it’s pretty much impossible to do the same on the iPad Mini. Luckily, I have enough old Android devices around; it’s not a massive problem, but still worth highlighting.

All of these things are manageable enough, but there’s one aspect that makes a single iPad a bit of a dealbreaker for family use. Our Samsung tablet had a profile for my wife, me, and a joint account for my boys. With the iPad Mini, we’re just using my boy’s profile since there’s no support for multiple users.

This works okay for now, because my wife and I rarely use tablets anyhow. We both prefer to use our phones or laptops, except for certain types of reading and media. When we do want to use a tablet, the older Samsung is still there on standby. I do think it’s a bit frustrating, though, because the iPad is actually much better suited as a laptop replacement for light work than my Android tablets ever were, but the lack of profile support limits it from this potential.

The even bigger problem is that my eldest son is almost a teen, and so he’s expressed interest in having his own tablet account. This means we’ll inevitably need a second iPad Mini down the road, which highlights just how much more expensive investing in the Apple ecosystem can be.

While the iPad Mini has some limits that make it less appealing to me personally, the experience has been a net positive for my kids. Sure, I don’t love that I’ll have to get them their own devices eventually, but the iPad is a bit more kid-friendly. There’s typically less malware and less maintenance needed as well. Granted, these are usually easy enough issues to solve, but kids aren’t always great at showing proper care for technology. This makes the iPad a slightly safer choice.

I want to make it clear that I don’t necessarily think iPad is the better platform, though. Just better for my kids. Ultimately, it comes down to personal experience and tastes. As for my wife and me? Honestly, there’s a good chance we’ll eventually end up with another Android tablet. More than likely, when we do make the move, it will be to a bigger Android tablet that’s capable of providing a laptop-like experience that’s just for us.