Recommend Me a Tablet!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Recommend Me a Tablet!

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Well it's a Windows device so you'll just get updates normally like you do with any PC even if Samsung fucks off and dies tomorrow.

Really curious what happened in OLED technology that it's suddenly available in a bunch of PCs. Hopefully they somehow mitigated the LED decay so it doesn't go to poo poo after a displaying the taskbar 24/7 for a week straight.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 11:13

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 08:36

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Has anyone used the Asus T100 or similar device? I'm looking for something as small and cheap as possible to take on a trip where I might be in some sketchy places with a minimum amount of cargo. I have a Nexus7 clone already but keyboard-less Android doesn't really cut it for anything more than browsing cat pics, although I wouldn't need a powerhouse either.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 17:03

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Has anyone used one of the cheap Cherry Trail 2-in-1s? More specifically, there's the Chuwi hi10 for under $200 (if it's not caught by the customs) which ticks many of the boxes that I wanted for a travel companion. Almost disposable, 10", keyboard, real OS, reasonable specs. What it's missing for full happiness is the Core m and digitizer. The Chuwi hi12 has a digitizer but is at least $100 more expensive and 12". Nothing under $500 seems to have a Core m. Which wouldn't be a problem if I thought I'd put it to more use, so I'm pretty tempted to pull the trigger on the hi10 as-is.

E: after some more research, looks like the Cube Mix Plus is exactly what I'm looking for - Kaby m3 and Wacom digitizer in 10.6" form-factor. Also by far the cheapest core m option, though still quite a bit more that I'd want to spen, but perhaps there would be some deals on it soon.

mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Apr 20, 2017

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 20:01

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I ended up getting a refurb Surface Book after all and so far it's working out pretty well. Thanks thread!

That's probably the best option if you're fine withe the size and cost tbh. But there are a few chinese tablets with Atoms or even CoreMs that are smaller and have proper digitizers for note taking. I think I'll pull the trigger on Cube MIx, it's just the perfect size to take travelling and backpacking and not too expensive to worry about.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 15:58

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

XenJ posted:

Do you have a link to it please? My nexus 9 get no more android updates only security for now and I'm not sure to go the way with a custom rom or buy a new one...

Sure, here's an (affiliated) link, if that's ok, or a plain one. It's also available at other regular suspects like gearbest and Ali, but it's the cheapest on BG right now.

I just finally ordered it earlier today when the price dropped a bit more, to about $280 shipped with a 20% coupon da8982. I don't have it yet obviously so can't comment myself but expect some tradeoffs compared to locally purchased brand name stuff of course. Still, I think it's worth it for the netbook-like form factor, wacom digitizer and Core M for a very reasonable price. There are a ton of other options if you're ok with Atom, capacitive stylus, or floppy keyboards though.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 12:42

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

clockworx posted:

One of my better eBay deals was getting a Cube i7 Stylus for $90. Only issue was a dent in the bottom of the keyboard base.

It's pretty cool, and also works as a Hackintosh (no stylus support, sadly).

My first thought was poo poo, that's expensive for a stylus! But actually that's a great deal, it's very similar to the Mix and who gives a poo poo about the dent. I probably should've watched ebay more closely but it seemed that there weren't that many available and I'd probably get screwed by shipping and taxes anyway to the point that it wouldn't be worth it.

isndl posted:

There's definitely been an explosion in options for Surface equivalents after Microsoft proved there's a market for them, though quality is always a concern when dealing with budget devices (not that Microsoft's QC track record has been stellar so far, but at least they seem to be responsive to issues if you have a Microsoft Store to make exchanges at). None of them have been particularly stand-out that I've heard, but I'll admit to not having been researching the market lately either.

Let us know how well that Cube works, particularly the digitizer. The Surface 1/2 models had Wacom digitizers and there were tracking issues around the edges as I recall.

This one isn't really spectacular in any single way, but it got my attention because of the combination of the digitizer, small size, Core M, and reasonable price. Usually you get at most 2 of those.

Expect an update in about 10 days or so. The digitizer is supposed to work fine around the edges but we'll find out, this gambling is part of the fun :v:

XenJ posted:

Thank you 🤗

You're Welcome!

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 17:41

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

isndl posted:

There's definitely been an explosion in options for Surface equivalents after Microsoft proved there's a market for them, though quality is always a concern when dealing with budget devices (not that Microsoft's QC track record has been stellar so far, but at least they seem to be responsive to issues if you have a Microsoft Store to make exchanges at). None of them have been particularly stand-out that I've heard, but I'll admit to not having been researching the market lately either.

Let us know how well that Cube works, particularly the digitizer. The Surface 1/2 models had Wacom digitizers and there were tracking issues around the edges as I recall.

Just got the Cube Mix. First thing's first: gently caress, it doesn't work with my existing Wacom pen. I guess I'll have to get a new one after all. Supposedly the Cube stylus isn't that great so I'll see if I could get a different EMR compatible one.

Second: fuuuuck, it won't charge from the included AC adapter! I'm an idiot and was sticking it in the absolutely identical headphone jack.

It's small, but not as small as I visualized myself. Certainly doesn't blow your mind the way the Yoga Book does the first time you see it. 16:9 feels wrong but in practice it's not too bad because you can actually multitask and put two windows side by side easily. The 1080p resolution is fine, it looks pretty sharp on this size and doesn't require scaling. Imo worth the tradeoff for extra battery life. It's not fully laminated but the gap isn't large enough to bother me and the panel looks good overall. Bezels could've been smaller.

This has been pointed out in reviews, but the keyboard is heavy. Feels really very solid, like you could literally murder someone with it. Surprisingly decent to type on (not Thinkpad level but still), and the trackpad is... a trackpad, wish it had a trackpoint but there's no such beast in existence. Again, thinkpad complaint but it doesn't open quite far enough. In general, build quality feels pretty good. There just seems to be a place in the mod of the plastic antenna insert for an SD or maybe sim slot, and you can see the outline even though it's not actually there. Not exactly ipad but whatever.

Anyway, I'll try using it for a while and post an update once I have a chance to actually try the stylus.

IKillForPie posted:

So I am looking for some recommendations (please keep in mind that I live in Canada in terms of what is available to me).

A refurbished Surface Pro is probably a good choice. The other option could be to roll the dice on a chinese tablet like this one. It has HDMI out (through USB Type-C), a real attachable keyboard and reasonable amount of power to run some light games.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2017 18:11

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

inferis posted:

What's the best 8" windows tablet? I saw one post earlier in the thread that said the hi8 pro broke on them in three weeks and that one looked like the best option

Xiaomi Mipad 2 Z8500 should be good, the 8" Nuvision is also looking great for the price especially: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXhoTGKx4LU

No personal experience with either of these though. But I've been using my Cube Mix for about a month and now also have a stylus so I'll post a short summary soon.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2017 01:17

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Yeah but it seems to be the Pad 2 only: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ijoh_ZNMDk, P3 seems to be android only and since it uses a Mediatek SOC that's how it will stay unless they come up with different hardware altogether.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2017 15:39

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

mobby_6kl posted:

Just got the Cube Mix. First thing's first: gently caress, it doesn't work with my existing Wacom pen. I guess I'll have to get a new one after all. Supposedly the Cube stylus isn't that great so I'll see if I could get a different EMR compatible one.

Second: fuuuuck, it won't charge from the included AC adapter! I'm an idiot and was sticking it in the absolutely identical headphone jack.

It's small, but not as small as I visualized myself. Certainly doesn't blow your mind the way the Yoga Book does the first time you see it. 16:9 feels wrong but in practice it's not too bad because you can actually multitask and put two windows side by side easily. The 1080p resolution is fine, it looks pretty sharp on this size and doesn't require scaling. Imo worth the tradeoff for extra battery life. It's not fully laminated but the gap isn't large enough to bother me and the panel looks good overall. Bezels could've been smaller.

This has been pointed out in reviews, but the keyboard is heavy. Feels really very solid, like you could literally murder someone with it. Surprisingly decent to type on (not Thinkpad level but still), and the trackpad is... a trackpad, wish it had a trackpoint but there's no such beast in existence. Again, thinkpad complaint but it doesn't open quite far enough. In general, build quality feels pretty good. There just seems to be a place in the mod of the plastic antenna insert for an SD or maybe sim slot, and you can see the outline even though it's not actually there. Not exactly ipad but whatever.

Anyway, I'll try using it for a while and post an update once I have a chance to actually try the stylus.

All right, took me a while go get a compatible stylus and use it for a while. The good news is that it works pretty drat well with a Fujitsu Lifebook two button stylus, probably even better than the original Cube one that some reviewers mention requires a bit too much pressure. It goes right up to the edge though there's some wonkiness in the top corners, and a bit of distortion at the bottom near the magnets. Might be solvable with calibration or new drivers I've heard, but it doesn't bother me too much for doodling or taking notes. Pressure is smooth but I had to screw around with the curve to make the minimum and maximum values a bit easier to draw.

Both cameras are garbage unsurprisingly, but I don't care. The front one is ok for skype if there's enough light. Wireless AC maxes out at 120Mbps in the same room (which might be limited by the router) and bluetooth works well for audio and mouse. I bit of a bummer that it doesn't have GPS though.

Performance is great until it bumps into either thermal or power limit throttling - the former is due to a lack of thermal conductivity between the CPU heatsink and the case, and can be fixed with a thermal pad. The latter is adjustable in BIOS/XTU and you can basically make it run at 15W full time with sufficient cooling. It actually runs Crysis and Dolphin at full speed at native resolution. Civ at lower to medium settings and the South Park game are fine too. Quake 3 runs at like 200fps :v:

. With the high turbo boost speeds it's very responsive in Photoshop and Lightroom as well, I used it to process these 18MP RAW files.

I haven't measured battery life properly but it's obviously going to be crap when running full tilt like that, but in normal use - browsing, typing stuff, video, I think 7-8 hours might be doable, which is ok for me. Overall I'm very happy with it, for ~$260 there's basically nothing comparable at all. I can take this travelling without worrying too much about destroying it, but also get decent performance for editing photos on the go, read books or play games in free time. It boots Kali linux fine too so I can get free wifi as well. That said, there are a few things they could do to greatly improve it without a big impact on cost:

A 16:10 or 3:2 screen.
Smaller bezels - it just barely doesn't fit into my badass surplus map case because of them and it makes me mad. There's plenty of empty space there, see photo below
Thinner - there's probably 1mm to gain by laminating the screen, maybe 0.5-1 in the back case
Lighter - it's as heavy as the 12" Surface Pro 4, reducing the bezels would help. This would also allow a lighter keyboard
Better cooling - just put a 5 cent thermal pad there so I don't have to open it myself

Essentially this would make it an x86 ipad pro.

Using it for a while and seeing the Yoga Book in person also got me thinking more about the form-factor in general. I think this is a good solution for 2-in-1s and I prefer it to the floppy typing covers that my colleagues look super awkward using, but the keyboard is of course necessarily thicker and heavier (but not by as much as you'd think, the surface is about 300g and this is 600g and could be easily reduced). That said, for someone who'd use it at least 50% as a tiny laptop, I think the Yoga approach might be better.

The Yoga Book is just nuts, though it's partially because it's Atom based and doesn't have a physical keyboard. Still, by placing all the guts in the keyboard part, which needs to be heavier anyway, the screen can be super skinny and thus not contribute much extra to the overall size. Allow a few mm for the keyboard and that should do it. I think the Macbook also shows that it's pretty much possible, and in another generation or two I might get a Yoga Book with a strong CPU and a physical keyboard instead of the gimmick, which is what I think I really want.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2017 15:28

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Yeah there are cases like that for pretty much any tablet. I have one for my Cube Mix and it works OK, but to be honest its way more stable when in the proper keyboard dock (see previous post here) plus it's way easier to type in e.g. a search or something.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 09:03

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

What's the cheapest tablet with a decent digitizer nowadays? My mom does tutoring and sometimes if the student can't make it, they do it over the phone. I imagine it'd be 100% better if she could do screensharing from a tablet and scribble formulas and what not on the screen.

I bought a Cube Mix Plus myself a few years back but it seems there are hardly any options nowadays short of the Surface or its direct clones.

Doesn't have to be Windows but probably would have to be, otherwies it's the Ipad Pro or Tab 6 or whatever.

mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Mar 5, 2020

# ¿ Mar 5, 2020 14:56

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Space Gopher posted:

The current base model iPad has a digitizer that works with the first-gen Apple Pencil or Logitech Crayon.

Huh, that's good to know. Will any ipad software let you share the screen while drawing on it? Skype on Android works even though the quality is rather poo poo on the receiving end. I guess in the worst case there could be some web solution.

BoldFace posted:

Does it have to be mobile? One option are the drawing tablet displays digital artists use. For example Wacom's Cintiq line. You could just connect it to your windows laptop/computer.

A self-contained tablet might be slightly more convenient but no it doesn't. I do actually have an old Graphire somewhere though it's probably too small and inconvenient to use, but this could definitely work. The only issue is that at these prices a low-end Surface would probably make more sense (although the larger size is nice).

# ¿ Mar 5, 2020 18:35

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Sounds like you need a computer-tablet not a big phone-tablet. Maybe a Surface Book? Check out the laptop thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3552651&pagenumber=880#lastpost

# ¿ May 21, 2020 12:35

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

codo27 posted:

I'm a darts player, and I use a website called Dartconnect to track stats and play against the CPU and stuff. I have my old Surface Pro 3 mounted on the wall for this purpose, obviously overkill, I'd like to put that elsewhere and just get some cheap tablet to do this. Not looking to spend Samsung money. Wondering if someone maybe has tried their luck with no name/amazon/china stuff and has had success? Looking for 10"+

Yes of course, any cheap tablet will do. People ITT keep saying that Amazon is good for the money, or you can check out some of the Chinese tablets this guy reviews: https://www.youtube.com/c/Techtablets/videos

I've had a number of weird tables like Chuwi and Alldocube and they've all been fine.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 17:12

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 08:36

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

I think I like the Yoga 2-in-1 form factor the best. But it probably mainly depends on how exactly you'll be using it. I mostly use the kb+m and then occasionally when I need to make some notes, sketch a diagram or mark up a document, it's right there. Stand, keyboard, and case all built in. Not so great if you want to hold it in your hands for 8 hours.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2023 21:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Recommend Me a Tablet!