Tablets and e-readers

What to look for when choosing an ethical tablet 

Larger than a mobile phone but smaller than a laptop, a tablet is an in-between sort of device which may appeal to some people. If you want something light to carry around, with internet access, a big enough screen for reading, and enough capacity to work from on the go, it may be a better option than a laptop. 

The reasonable sized screen can be idea for watching films, or reading books and magazines. Tablets are more portable than laptops and tend to have a longer battery life, and still give you capacity for a range of apps. 

With models made by many of the big tech brands, are there any ethical tablets? 

We rate and review the Apple iPad, Amazon Fire tablet, Microsoft Surface tablet, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and many others to find out which is the most ethical.

A fair tablet?

The first smartphone, IBM’s ‘Simon’, was launched in 1994 and it took 18 years before the Fairphone gave ethical consumers an ethical option. Will consumers have to wait as long before an ethically conscious tablet is produced? If you count Apple’s iPad as the first tablet, launched in 2010, we’d be waiting until 2028 for a Fair-tablet!

For now, consumers are stuck trying to distinguish between a number of ethically compromised brands, a task that this guide will help you with. It covers 20 of the largest tablet companies in the UK, focusing on the traditional ‘slate’ tablets that are sold without a detachable keyboard.

The ethical dilemmas in the tablets market mirror those of mobile phones and laptops, with supply chains often riddled with conflict minerals, dangerous toxic chemicals and poor labour standards. 

As well as ethical issues arising from manufacture, this article will also consider the impact that tablets have on children’s development.

Popular tablets 

Despite serious competition posed by increasingly powerful smartphones, tablets continue to hold a niche of their own. Many people use them primarily for media consumption, as the wide screen and paper-thin depth makes tablets ideal for on the go streaming and gaming. Tablets are also increasingly popular among artists and graphic designers, as styluses and touch screens have improved in the last decade. 

49% of all tablet owners have an Apple iPad, which remains the UK market leader – almost twice as popular as the runner up company, Samsung. Amazon has a 17% share, with the other companies in the guide holding between 1-7% of the UK market. 

Conflict minerals used in tablets

All tablets contain the 3TGs (tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold), minerals that are largely found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and surrounding countries. These are commonly referred to as conflict minerals. Profits from the sale of these minerals are a significant financier of armed conflicts that have plagued the country since the 1990s.

In addition, several other ‘high impact’ minerals have come to the attention of environmental and human rights groups. Amongst these are lithium, nickel, cobalt and many others that are similarly linked to conflict and/or environmental destruction. 

Ethical Consumer expects all tablet, laptop, smartphone, solar panel, car and white goods manufacturers to have an adequate policy addressing conflict minerals whether or not they are bound to do so by law. We also require companies to commit to continue to source 3TG minerals from the DRC, to stop companies just leaving instead of bothering with due diligence, which could have serious effects on employment in the region.

We also expect them to outline in detail the due diligence steps they take to minimise workers’ rights abuses and environmental issues, rather than just referring to the OECD guidelines. We award extra marks for companies that address high impact minerals other than the 3TG minerals and if they use recycled minerals.

Which brands score best for conflict minerals?

ASUS and HP both topped the table, on 80/100 each, for this category rating. 

HONOR was the lowest scoring company for conflict minerals, and did not gain a single mark in the category. 

Tech Sustainability 

Our new tech sustainability rating looks at tablet companies’ approaches to repairability and longevity, and also assesses their use of recycled materials.

HP is leading the field on repairability for tablets, with its three most recent tablets receiving scores of 9/10 on the repair site iFixit. 

Tablets are less easily repairable and upgradable than laptops in general, however, and we’d steer clear of recommending anything HP-branded due to the company’s military links and ongoing BDS boycott.  

Where to buy secondhand and refurbished tablets

Buying secondhand and refurbished tech means a lower environmental footprint as many of the problems associated with devices are in the sourcing and manufacturing stages. 

Back Market provides a marketplace for refurbished technology. It scored well when we rated it in our Ethical Online Retailers guide in 2023, but it's worth noting that the refurbishment is not done in-house – read reviews of individual sellers before you buy.

Another option is Tier1, which is a business that’s focused on circular IT solutions and offers refurbished tech for businesses and individual consumers. The additional emissions released during refurbishment are minimal in comparison with buying a new tablet. Circular IT company Tier1 claims that the carbon savings of refurbishing a device versus buying new are 225kg CO2e per device, a 75% reduction in carbon footprint. 

Read our separate article on what to look for when buying secondhand or refurbished tech.

Workers’ rights in the tech industry

Our workers category is designed to weed out those companies who are yet to develop strong workers’ rights protections, and to highlight allegations of poor practice brought by reputable sources such as NGOs. 

Brands scored very poorly in this category overall. 

Worst tech brands for workers' rights:

• Alcatel
• Amazon
• Apple
• Dell
• Google
• HONOR
• Huawei
• Microsoft
• OnePlus
• Oppo
• TCL
• Xiaomi 

All the above brands failed to gain a single mark. 

The highest scorer for workers rights was Doro, yet it still only managed 40/100 in this category. 

Student forced labour

Headlines about workers’ rights abuses in tech factories are depressingly frequent. So much so that it is easy to forget the individuals trapped in these abusive systems.

A 2017 investigative report by Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) gave voice to Chinese students who’d been forced into workplace ‘internships’ on the production lines of major tech company suppliers.

SACOM found that student interns worked as much as 12 hours a day, sometimes overnight, without the standard labour protections afforded to regular workers. Shockingly, around half of the workforce at Quanta Computer’s Chongping factory were student interns. The report named Apple, Acer, HP and Sony as clients of Quanta.

One 18-year-old student said: “We were forced to come ... Every semester, our school recruits new students but our campus is small. When they don’t have enough space in the classrooms or dormitories, they force current students out to do internships and then let the new students stay in our dorms.”

Another 16-year-old intern said: “If we refused [to go on an internship], we would not be able to get our graduation certificates. Also, our dining and accommodation subsidies would be cancelled.”

Things do not appear to have improved much in recent years either. Apple was criticised in a report published in March 2024, which alleged workers’ rights abuses linked to Foxconn’s “dormitory labour regime” at its factory in India. Foxconn is a Taiwanese company that has long been contracted by Apple to make its products.

The dormitory labour regime is a model that became widespread in the 1980s and 1990s and relies on housing workers (often migrants or internal migrants) in hostels where they have minimal freedom. The practice, which originated in China, allows companies to have a supply of labour “on tap” and extend working days when needed to meet demand.

Tax avoidance by tech companies

We have scored all companies on their likely use of tax avoidance strategies. 

Unfortunately, the vast majority scored very poorly by having two or more ‘high-risk’ subsidiary types in jurisdictions considered to be tax havens at the time of writing.

Only two companies scored above 0/100: HONOR scraped 20 points while HMD scored 60/100.

We have written extensively about Amazon's massive tax avoidance which denies the public purse millons of pounds.

Boycott Amazon

This guide is one of the guides in our alternatives to Amazon series.

We are calling a boycott of Amazon over its tax avoidance and would urge you not to buy either of their products, opting instead for one of our recommended brands.

HP boycott

Since 2014, we have been reporting on the boycott of technology giant Hewlett-Packard. The boycott began in response to the pivotal role HP’s technology and software had in the development of the ‘BASAL’ checkpoint system, used by Israel to control the movement of Palestinians.

However, since then, Hewlett-Packard has split into two separate companies. Perhaps in an attempt to clean its slate, the company separated its consumer goods business from its government and military supply services. The BDS movement’s website states that it is continuing its boycott of both HP companies, “Because the companies share facilitates, branding and supply chains, and collaborate in a wide range of ways, both remain deeply complicit with Israeli apartheid.”

HP has been described as the “Polaroid of our times”, a reference to huge mobilisations against the use of Polaroid technology by the South African apartheid regime for its racist passbook system. Polaroid’s 1977 withdrawal from South Africa marked a turning point in the international effort to end apartheid there.

In response to the boycott, HP has stated that it is, “strongly committed to socially responsible business practices ... We abide by a strong human rights policy and adhere to the highest standards of human rights … It is not our policy to take sides in political disputes between countries or regions.”

Should children use tablets?

Children love tablets, we’ve probably all been amazed at one time or another when an infant picks up a tablet with more confidence and ability than most adults.

Tablets tend to be favoured by younger children, with the switch to mobiles occurring around teen years. According to Ofcom, children aged 12-17 are more likely to use a mobile phone to go online than any other device, while 3-11s are more likely to use a tablet for this purpose.

The proliferation of these gadgets had led many parents to worry about how this increase in ‘screen time’ could affect their children during early-years development, both in terms of learning, but also inactivity and socialisation.

There has been a lot of research around the impact of TV ‘screen time’ on early-years development, and these studies have largely found that overuse of TVs is detrimental to learning. There are growing concerns about use of smartphones and tablets among children, with an increase in calls for regulation or controls on use particularly in schools. Older research has looked at the social and emotional effects of these devices, which have the potential to be significant.

The Ofcom report Children and parents: media use and attitudes highlights that parents tend to feel the benefits outweigh the risks of children being online, but that they do worry about the impact of screentime and other related issues.

This is a web only guide which has not appeared in a print issue of the Ethical Consumer magazine.

Additional research by Jane Turner.