How gamers and classrooms are breathing new life into Tablets and Chromebooks

A few years back, if you’d said tablets were about to stage a comeback, you might have been met with a polite smile and a change of subject. They’d had their heyday, or so everyone thought. But here we are, six quarters into steady growth, and the category is looking sharper and more surprising, than it has in years.

The rebound is partly due to familiar drivers, including steady commercial demand and subsidies in China that are bringing buyers back to stores. But another part is something no one quite saw coming, the rise of the gaming tablet. These aren’t the lightweights you hand to a kid for cartoons.

We’re talking high-refresh displays, cooling systems, and processors that can keep pace with long gaming marathons. Xiaomi’s Redmi K Pad, Vivo’s Pad5, and Lenovo’s Legion Tab are staking out this turf fast, and early signs suggest there’s a real audience for them.

The Market Leaders Shift

Suddenly, everyone's rediscovering tablets and not just gamers. Brands are rethinking what these devices are, less a standalone screen, more the nerve center for a connected lifestyle. Xiaomi’s Pad 7 Ultra isn’t marketed as a “tablet” at all, but as the control hub for your phone, home, car, and every other device in between. For users who already live in one brand’s ecosystem, it’s a tempting pitch.

Apple still sits comfortably on top of the leaderboard with 14.1 million iPads shipped in Q2, a modest but solid 2% increase year-on-year, according to Canalys. Samsung holds second place at 6.7 million units, but the real surprise came from Huawei, which surged into third after a 29% growth jump, pushing Lenovo into fourth. Xiaomi closes out the top five, steadily narrowing the gap with aggressive offline retail pushes in China.

Chromebooks Make a Comeback, Thanks to Japan’s Classroom Upgrade

While tablets win over gamers and ecosystem loyalists, Chromebooks are enjoying a revival of their own, driven not by consumers, but by classrooms.

Japan’s GIGA School Program is in the middle of a major refresh cycle, replacing the first generation of student devices. This alone sent Chromebook shipments in the country soaring more than twentyfold from last year. Globally, shipments hit 11 million units in the first half of 2025.

Elsewhere, education budgets are opening up too. At events like EDIX Tokyo 2025, manufacturers and software providers have been wooing school administrators with new devices and upgraded learning platforms, making the case that Chromebooks should stay in the classroom for the next generation. As per Canalys, Lenovo leads with 3.5 million units shipped in the first half of 2025, up 27% year-on-year. HP sits in second but ceded some ground, while Acer gained 10% and held firm in Asian markets. Dell slipped slightly into fourth place, and ASUS, riding the GIGA wave, posted a huge 43% jump.

Two Markets, Two Comebacks

Tablets and Chromebooks are riding very different waves, one about a consumer device that’s found new life through gaming and lifestyle integration, the other about a workhorse laptop thriving in the education sector.

But together, they show that in tech, a product’s “best years” aren’t always behind it. Sometimes all it takes is a shift in purpose, the right audience, and a bit of reinvention.