WIRED’s TCL Tab A1 Plus review makes a familiar budget-tablet tradeoff look unusually sane: spend the money on the screen and body, then accept middling silicon, ordinary cameras, and a support policy that ends too soon. Reviewer Scott Gilbertson gave the Android tablet a 7/10, calling it one of the best budget Android tablets he has tested.
The Tab A1 Plus is listed at $220 on Amazon and $219 through TCL, down from prices around $280. At that price, Gilbertson’s case is straightforward. Tablets are usually secondary devices, and TCL appears to have built this one for streaming, reading, browsing, light work, and split-screen use rather than pretending it is a laptop replacement with a bargain-bin disguise.
Is the TCL Tab A1 Plus worth buying?
For buyers who want a low-cost Android tablet and care most about the display, WIRED says yes. Gilbertson says the 12.2-inch LCD panel is the reason to look at the Tab A1 Plus: it has a 2400 x 1600 resolution, a 3:2 aspect ratio, and a 120 Hz refresh rate, which makes scrolling and interface movement feel smoother than many cheap tablets manage.
That screen works out to 236 pixels per inch, close to the base iPad’s 2360 x 1640 panel at 264 pixels per inch, according to WIRED’s comparison. Gilbertson also judged the TCL panel’s color as more vibrant than the iPad’s in side-by-side use, though he treated color preference as partly subjective. Against Samsung’s similarly priced Tab 11, he found TCL’s higher-resolution, faster-refresh screen more convincing than Samsung’s 1080p, 90 Hz display.
The hardware does not feel disposable, either. WIRED says the Tab A1 Plus uses a thin aluminum unibody design, measures 6.7 mm thick, weighs 542 grams, and carries an IP54 rating for resistance to dust and splashes. That means it is protected against limited dust ingress and water splashes, not built for dunking in a sink. Budget tablet, yes. Plastic creak machine, apparently no.
Where TCL cut costs
The compromises are exactly where they usually hide. The rear camera is 8 megapixels and good enough for documents, receipts, or quick reference shots, according to Gilbertson, but not something he recommends for real photography. The front camera is 5 megapixels and described as adequate for video calls.
The chip is also not a flagship part. TCL uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4 Gen 2, a 2023 processor. WIRED says it handled normal tablet jobs well: web browsing with many tabs, music, multitasking, 4K video playback, and live sports streaming when bandwidth was available. Gaming is the weak spot. Gilbertson says casual games are fine, but the Tab A1 Plus is the wrong device for buyers mainly looking to play demanding games.
The larger concern is software support. The tablet ships with Android 16, and TCL guarantees upgrades only through Android 17, which WIRED notes has already been released. TCL’s website says it will provide security updates for “at least two years after the first shipment of a certain device model.” Gilbertson calls that one of the shortest Android tablet support windows available.
What productivity features does it include?
TCL’s software adds a few work-friendly tools. WIRED notes split-screen support through the taskbar, a Magic Hub sidebar for saving snippets of text or images, and an extend mode that lets the tablet act as a second display for a laptop or PC. A mirror mode is also included.
The Tab A1 Plus also includes Gemini, Writing Assist, and Smart Translator. Gilbertson says those AI tools run on-device and offline, which can help with privacy but limits them compared with cloud-based systems.
Battery life was another strength in WIRED’s testing. Gilbertson says the tablet lasted through a full day of heavy use including browsing, work, music, and baseball streaming, then recharged to full in just under three hours. His bottom line: the TCL Tab A1 Plus is not a flagship killer, but as a cheap second screen with a surprisingly good display, it gets the priorities right.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
