While you can invest in cryptocurrencies, they differ a great deal from traditional investments, like stocks. When you buy stock, you are buying a share of ownership of a company, which means you're entitled to do things like vote on the direction of the company. If that company goes bankrupt, you may also receive some compensation once its creditors have been paid from its liquidated assets. 

Buying cryptocurrency doesn't grant you ownership over anything except the token itself; it's more like exchanging one form of currency for another. If the crypto loses its value, you won't receive anything after the fact. 

There are several other key differences to keep in mind: 

• Trading hours. Stocks are only traded during stock exchange hours, typically 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. Cryptocurrency markets never close. So you can trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 
• Regulation. Stocks are regulated financial products, meaning a governing body verifies their credentials and their finances are matters of public record. By contrast, cryptocurrencies are not regulated investment vehicles, so you may not be aware of the inner dynamics of your crypto or the developers working on it. 
• Volatility. Both stocks and cryptocurrency involve risk; you can lose some or even all of the money you invest. However, stocks are directly linked to companies and generally rise and fall based on those companies' performance. Cryptocurrency prices are more speculative. No one is quite sure of their value yet. That makes them much more volatile and affected by something as small as a celebrity's tweet. 

Across the 10 devices in this article, three different operating systems are represented.

The most popular is Android, and there are lots of budget Android tablets to choose from. However, each manufacturer offers a slightly different take on Android, so it's worth researching these to see which one you prefer.

Also, the fact that a tablet is running Android doesn't automatically make it good. There are plenty of relatively unknown brands out there which offer a sub-par experience.

While based on Android, Amazon's Fire OS is fundamentally different. It's a much simpler software that's built around Amazon's own apps. Plenty of third-party apps are available, but the Amazon Appstore has a fraction of the selection on the Google Play Store.

Last, but very much not least, is iPadOS. It's only available on Apple's iPad, though there are only minor tweaks compared to iOS, which runs on the iPhone. iPadOS uses Apple's own App Store instead and is the best option if you're invested in the Apple ecosystem or you want an easy-to-use tablet.

Flagship processors such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite and MediaTek Dimensity 9400 are generally the most capable, but you won't find those on budget tablets.

Instead, for each device you're considering, look at which other phones or tablets are already using it. If it's new, see where it sits within the company's lineup - if it's the least powerful it makes, there may be cause for concern.

In general, it's best to look for a processor made by either Qualcomm, MediaTek, Google or Apple, which are known to be generally reliable.

But don't pay too much attention to clock speeds (in GHz) or even RAM. It's easy to be fooled into believing a tablet will (or won't) perform well, based on numbers alone.

Read our reviews to find out how each tablet handles in the real world.