Best Compact Tablets 2026: Astra 2 vs Y700 AI vs iPad
This article reviews the 2026 compact tablet market, comparing the high-performance RedMagic Astra 2 and Lenovo Legion Y700 AI against the aging iPad mini. While the Android tablets offer superior hardware specifications, the author notes the iPad mini remains a strong contender for general-purpose use.
Why it matters
It highlights the divergence in the tablet market between gaming-focused Android devices and the established Apple ecosystem.
Compact tablets became much more interesting when Android manufacturers stopped treating them as smaller versions of normal tablets.
RedMagic’s Astra 2 has a 185Hz OLED display, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, visible liquid cooling, bypass charging and two USB-C ports. Lenovo went even further with the Legion Y700 AI, squeezing an OLED display, 5G, microSD storage and up to 24GB of RAM into an 8.4-inch body weighing less than 300g.
Apple is still selling the A17 Pro model introduced in 2024, with an 8.3-inch LCD, 500 nits of brightness and a 60Hz refresh rate, while its charging hardware looks almost comically slow beside either Android tablet. Apple raised the US starting price to $599 in June 2026 as well, which makes the comparison even less flattering on paper.
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