Looking for a tablet for light daily use (Youtube/ Instagram), with native google services

Dusk Fall

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Aug 1, 2019
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Hello everyone. I had a huawei tablet from 2018 up until last spring, when I got an updated model because I wanted to use wireless earbuds on it. Turns out I didn't do enough research because new tablets from huawei don't have google services on them (totally bricking them for me).

I managed to install google services with some youtuber's help but that lasted 6 months. I never want to have to resort to that again, so I'm looking for a new android tablet. Things I want from it:

It has to have google services

It has to support wireless earbuds

It has to have instagram

About 8" size is fine, a little bigger is not a deal breaker, but not necessary

Not a google device. I bought their very first nexus 7 tablet in 2013 and it became so slow just a year later that it was unusable.

I'm only going to use it lightly on a daily basis, watching youtube while working out and the occasional instagram browsing. I want something that will remain fast for at least a couple of years if not more.
 

B. Diddy

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Mar 9, 2012
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I've been trying to find a decent tablet this size for a while. So far, the ones I've tried are decent on paper, but not so great in real world performance. The Lenovo Tab 4 8" has a good 720p screen and stereo speakers, but is pretty old (Android 8.1) and has a fairly weak Snapdragon 425 CPU and a measly 16 GB internal storage. The Lenovo Tab M8 FHD has a better 1080p screen and was updated to Android 10, but has only one speaker, and more importantly can get pretty sluggish (MediaTek Helio P22T). More recently, I got a TCL Tab 8, which should be a lot better (with 1080P screen, Android 10, Snapdragon 665, still only mono speaker), but the firmware is terrible -- it kills apps aggressively in the background such that you can't even listen to Spotify while doing something else.

As Kizzy Catwoman mentioned, Samsung would probably be a better bet -- specifically the Tab A7 lite, which starts at $159 in the US (although it's currently on sale at Best Buy for $129). But that tablet also uses the MediaTek Helio P22T CPU (like the Lenovo Tab M8 FHD), so I'd be concerned that it has the same tendency towards sluggishness.