What are your requirements/wants from a tablet? Mine were hi-resolution and 5GHz WiFi.
I actually prefer 4:3 screen aspect ratio and initially was looking only at those, but that eliminated everything except the Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 (which was oddly discontinued after selling for 3-4 months) or the Samsung Tab S2 / Tab S3 which are quite expensive.
Giving up the screen ratio for 16:10 FHD, it leaves the Samsungs, Huawei Mediapad M3 8.4 /M3 8.4 Lite.
Oh, there are also no-name Chinese brands sold only by GearBest/BangGood/AliExpress, but I don't think repair labs outside China will be able to do anything with them in case of malfunction, and there's no software support at all. They're not that much cheaper, anyway.
If you're willing to consider 10", there are also the
- Mediapad M3 10 Lite
- Acer Iconia One 10 B3-A40FHD,
https://uk-store.acer.com/iconia-one-10-tablet-b3-a40fhd-black#specifications
(but note, there's an identically-named model which is not FHD, just to confuse customers) - Samsung Tab A 10.1 (2016) T580/T585
- Asus Zenpad 10 Z500M (which despite what their specs say, doesn't support Qualcomm Quick Charge, but a different rapid-charging standard called "Pump Express" that basically no 3d-party chargers support)
I ended up getting a 10" -- difference in weight & size between the TAB 4 10 Plus and TAB 4 8 Plus is small, price difference only $35 locally, and battery life is better on the 10".
the 5GHz Wifi requirement, which for me is an absolute must, is surprisingly difficult to find in low/midrange tablets, and most vendors don't actually say in the specs whether it's supported or not; "802.11n" doesn't say anything about the frequency bands either way.
Important: Don't reply on the specs of one region for devices sold for another. Lenovo completely cripples its tablets in the US, both the Tab 3 and Tab 4 series are 2GB RAM / 16 GB Storage, where in all other markets it's 3GB-4GB and 32GB/64GB. ALL the Huawei tablets sold in the US don't support 5GHz Wifi, because for some reason they don't certify them with the FCC for that.
I bought Lenovo both because of the good HW specs, esp. for the price, and because I expected good HW and SW support (ot a large extent because of excellent experience with Thinkpad business laptop support).
Looks like I didn't do enough research beforehand, given some of the issues mentioned here, and I also already experienced very amateur local service -- the USB cable I got was DOA, and while the lab replaced it quickly, it took too much communications with Lenovo Service to get it sorted.
All that said, I strongly doubt any Android tablet brand except Samsung will have better support than Lenovo. Tablets are not a priority for any vendor. They're a much less profitable item than phones, and sell very little.