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IDK, I haven't used a tablet for years now.
I have a 6.7" Phone which is great for portability and easy to read, and when I want the bigger screen I use a "real" (old fashioned) computer, either laptop or desktop.
I still prefer the desktop format of a (Linux) PC. 32" desktop monitor is great IMO, and super for gaming.
The tablet fills a hole that doesn't exist for me anymore.
For the people around me, the only people using tablets are students. It's actually very helpful for note taking and I don't think there are any good alternatives to the iPad unfortunately.
2in1 laptops aren't that useful when you need to both type and draw/write
Tablets are worse laptops unless youβre a kid at a restaurant watching Bluey.
Their hardware is meh, particularly for the price. I consider it GrapheneOS tax.
Wasn't the tablet market eaten up by iPads and 2 in 1 laptops?
An iPad is a tablet.
The problem is that most people use tablets as a media consumption device, so the need to update is far less than a phone. Even then, the smartphone market has cratered as justification for flagship phones have dropped. As tablets have a lower demand than phones, that market has completely dried up.
Yes, I'm aware an iPad is a tablet, the tablet market was eaten up by Apple tablets and laptops that turn into a tablet. Plus large phones, as you've mentioned.
Meanwhile all I want is a relatively cheap tablet sized display/AIO that can be powered by PoE and has no battery for displaying Home Assistant. (With ePaper it becomes totally crazy) Whoch seemingly is impossible.
Time to DIY!
Waveshare touchscreen for pi, 1200x800 is a good price and for home assistant that is fine. $70/75 for 8inch/10.1inch version. (10.1DP-CAPLCD)
Raspberry pi 3/4/5 can mount directly on the back of it. For whatever outrageous price Pis are now. (Around here, a 4B/4GB is 60β¬.
Wave share PoE hat for $20
Assemble it like Lego, put it in a wooden frame or 3D print, done. Around 160 USD plus shipping for a full build of a POE battery-less touchscreen display that runs full Linux of whatever flavor. (And is quite overkill as far as power).
You could probably do it even cheaper with an orange pi zero 3 with a PoE to USB-C converter or a Banana Pi BPI-P2 Pro IoT which has PoE built in.
It is cheaper than a tablet and strips out the useless things like a battery, camera, really high DPI display, LTE radios, etc... For a simple home assistant kiosk.
But yeah, epaper displays are 3x the display cost without touchscreen. Though in my opinion, epaper is better for static non-interactive sensor display which can run on battery with an MCU for almost no power because it only has to update once an hour or so.
Literally what I am doing,but has it's drawbacks and is hard to sell to other people that are less technically inclined. And sometimes time is money...
And it lead to me not finding proper wodden frames which led to me needing a CNC.. Etc. Etc.
You know how it goes.
Android tablets anyway. Has there ever been a good one?
Get an iPad, there isn't a bad one, just less good ones. The $300 (or $330) base iPad is still better than like 95% of Android tablets, it can run Procreate, and it gives you access to the App Store. Nothing wrong with running an Android phone and an iPad. A lot of bloggers do it and recommend it, it's a good "best of both worlds" scenario, especially if you're into custom firmware on the Android side and tablet support is much less than it is on phones... might as well diversify at that point. Kind of like how if you're gonna get a PC, you maybe want Windows for gaming, but for a laptop, you'd be a fool to not just get a MacBook for its performance and battery life. Laptop gaming is streaming anyway, both platforms do it just fine. And again, there really aren't great PC laptops, and if they are, they're hard to find.
Call me a fool, but Macbooks are 300-500 euros more than a decent windows laptop.
I have a Samsung Tab S7 that I still use and like. It's great for watching Plex and YouTube ReVanced, and I even use the Samsung Notes app with its S Pen. The bummer is Samsung will seemingly never update the OS on it again, so it's stuck on Android 13. There are custom builds of LineageOS I could try, but apparently those break S Pen support.
What constitutes good? And what makes an iPad good? I had an iPad pro about 4 years ago and I hated it and its' idiotic appleisms. People were paroting that iPad is the way to go back then as well and I fell for it. I switched to a Samsung Tab S7+ and couldn't be happier. I still use it daily, it does everything I need it to do and it does it better than the iPad.
I've had my ipad for 6 years and still feels new. Still gets updates.
Apps stop working on them, just because you can't update the app. Like currently functioning apps that don't require internet (but still use it for ads and tracking you).
I've had games that worked fine just stop because theres no update for an older iPad, yet the game works fine (think games like Risk, Solitaire, Dominoes, etc).
That's unacceptable, and why I'll never own another one.
I had the Huawei Mediapad M3 and M5 tablets. They were great hardware wise. Wish the bootloader was unlockable.
But I don't want a Β£300 tablet. I want a much cheaper one.
Why even buy a tablet? The only thing you can install on it are social media apps or something. Just buy a laptop.
The original apple tablet was amazing for its time and then google put out something that was such a good deal for what you paid. Since only the fire sorta came close but its even more closed nature ruined it. I mean you could work around it but as you say its low powered and having to put that much effort sorta makes the cheap tablet thing meh.
I would be fine with a low spec tablet. But it should be priced appropriately. Currently using some old fire tablet that I got second hand for Β£15. Occasionally web browser runs out of RAM and crashes if I use reddit but not really had a problem with lemmy.
I could be tempted by a slight upgrade for like Β£30-50 though. Maybe.