The New Alexa Tablets Feel Like a Blueprint for an Amazon Phone

With Amazon announcing a complete rebrand of its tablet line on Thursday—killing the cheap Fire Tablets and replacing them with premium Alexa Tablets that finally run Android with access to the Google Play Store—we now have a blueprint for what an Android-powered Amazon phone could look like.

Amazon's souped-up Alexa+ assistant is front and center on the tablets. There's a persistent “Ask Alexa” widget on the home screen that lets you call on the assistant to ask it questions—you can say “Alexa” to trigger it, too. But Alexa+ now finally has what Amazon calls On-Screen Intelligence. Like Google's Gemini on Android phones or Apple's Siri on iPhones, which can read your screen and answer contextual questions, Alexa now has the same functionality (if you opt in).