The most loyal followers of Android they know each other by heart versions, but for many it can be a bit more complicated to understand what is supposed to be how up-to-date the tablets that interest them and it must be taken into account that a few coexist even among new models. We review the main differences between Marshmallow, Nougat and Oreo to help you choose the buy tablet.
Android Marshmallow: the minimum essential now to buy a tablet
Not only do we have relatively recent tablets released still with marshmallow (Android 6) but it is possible to find among the most popular cheap tablets on Amazon and other distributors, it is common that we even find some with Android Lollipop (Android 5), but we would advise you to put them aside, because, in addition to everything, the fact that they arrive with a version four years ago gives an idea of how little updated we can expect it to be in hardware and the abandonment in which the manufacturer may have it.
Android MarshmallowOn the other hand, it was an update that did not leave us too many new functions, but that did a lot to improve performance and stability and in this sense it is an important advance over Lollipop. There is at least one novelty in this version that we are going to be grateful for being able to enjoy, and that is Pickups, since it will allow us to limit the power consumption of the tablet and autonomy is usually a problem with cheaper tablets.
Sure enough, we are going to meet marshmallow in most of the cheaper tablets (those of 100 euros or less), even in models launched last year (such as the MediaPad T3 7), but it is also very common to see it in the chinese tablets and in some somewhat old high-end tablets (from the end of 2016, approximately), which is not worth ruling out just for that reason, because they are between the best tablets in quality / price ratio and they can compensate us with other virtues, such as the MediaPad M3.
Android Nougat: the most recommended option today
Taking into account that our options to enjoy Android Oreo are still very limited, we should try to get a tablet with Android Nougat and this should not be a problem, unless, as we said before, we are looking for tablets of 100 euros or less. And it is not just a matter of having a more current version (and more likely to receive the next one), but there is at least one quite important novelty for tablets.
It is necessary to make a mention that Android Nougat remarkably delves into the autonomy improvements that Marshmallow introduced and that leaves us with a notable increase in fluidity, as we reflected at the time in our first impressions with a Nexus 9, but above all we must bear in mind that with this version we will be able to enjoy the multi-window, a function that can go a little more unnoticed on smartphones, but that is much appreciated with the larger screens of tablets in the face of multitasking.
As we said at the beginning, the challenge is above all to find cheap tablets with Android Nougat, but from 150 euros and up and with some exceptions, we should not have any problem. It should also be remembered that a few of the mid-range tablets you will find them advertised with Marshmallow but they have the update available, as is the case with the Galaxy Tab A 10.1, the Galaxy Tab S2 or the Yoga Tab 3 Plus.
Android Oreo: thinking ahead
Today we just can't buy one tablet with Android Oreo officially, because the only option we had was the Pixel C and it has stopped selling. We are not going to much more now, however, to start seeing the first ones, so soon we will have the possibility to choose and it does not hurt to be clear how much it may be worth or not to bet on a tablet that offers it to us.
In this sense, it must be recognized that Android Oreo It has been another update that has left us performance improvements but not so many new functions, especially thinking about tablets. Along with the novelties for the desktop (such as the dots in the apps to indicate the notifications), the star novelty was the floating window (or Picture in Picture), but there are not many apps that have implemented it (VLC and few more) and even among those of Google its use is very limited. As we have already shown with YouTubeFurthermore, it is possible to enjoy this feature in other ways in previous versions.
The first tablet to be launched with this version will probably be the MediaPad M5 and this may be a good reason to wait before getting hold of the MediaPad M3 (at the very least we will win the split screen). Although it is somewhat more risky, we may also be interested in betting on some of the tablets with a greater probability of being updated, but at the moment we only have slightly clear indications of what they will be. Samsung tablets that will update to Android Oreo.