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I bought several inexpensive new 7″ and 10″ Android tablets from different manufacturers. The screens on all of them are quite poor. You have to look at them at just the right angle to get a reasonably good image. Straight-on viewing is no good, nor is anything at more than a 20° angle.

I even wrote this SuperUser question asking about what has changed in LED screen manufacturing.

Can anyone recommend inexpensive 7″–11″ Android tablets that have good quality screens? By ‘good quality screen’, I mean something that when viewed straight-on looks perfect, and is usable at a minimum of 30° in all 4 directions.

I don’t have a requirement of the screen technology (IPS, etc.). Although more pixels is better, I prefer image quality over pixel density.

The Android version must be 4.4 ‘KitKat’ or later.

I would like as low of a price as possible, but am not going to set a price requirement because I don’t know the starting price point for a tablet with a good screen.

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    Please add "Android" in the title, because I came here to say "used iPad".
    – Agent_L
    Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 12:54

2 Answers 2

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I'll recommend the 16GB Nexus 7 (2013 model) at $130 from Amazon.

  • It runs any version of Android; I believe current versions are shipping with Lollipop and can easily be upgraded to Marshmallow.
  • It's got a 320 dpi IPS screen. Colors start darkening at about 30 degrees off-axis in all four directions (measured using the tablet's orientation sensor) and the screen remains readable up to about 70 degrees off-axis. I did not notice a color shift at any angle.
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  • Thanks! That's very useful. Do you have any recommendations for a 10" tablet?
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Dec 12, 2015 at 10:15
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I would recommend the Amazon Fire 10" Wi-Fi 16GB which starts at $179.99 but you may be able to find it cheaper.

Amazon Fire Picture

This features an HD display of 1280x800 and quoting from the Amazon website:

Fire HD 10 features a widescreen 1280 x 800 high definition display with over a million pixels (149 ppi) for a bright, vivid picture. Enjoy a great viewing experience with wide viewing angles, less glare, blacker blacks and more brightness thanks to a fully laminated IPS (in-plane switching) LCD display.

People say the screen quality is great, the reviews praise it for having great screen quality1 and for having a low price

This StackExchange question on Android SE, describes how you can install Vanilla Android on a Fire tablet. This does require a root which you may do if you are comfortable with it.

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  • Thanks! I've heard nice things about the screens on those. I'm not sure if US$180 qualifies as low cost, but I intentionally did not specify a minimum price (and no one has found a lower cost option so far!). Note that the price without visible advertisements is US$195. Also, these run the Fire OS, which is a bit different than standard Android, and has both advantages and disadvantages.
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 5:47
  • @RockPaperLizard Oh yes, sorry I didn't see the part about KitKat or above android, the Fire OS may not be sufficient for some, but there are ways to get Vanilla android on a Fire tablet (root required), I'll add a link to that
    – Downgoat
    Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 5:49

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