i’m seriously considering permanently abandoning laptops in favor of tablets. i spent a day working on my wife’s tablet today and it was fine enough for when you’re on the go that the small screen isn’t too much of an issue. plus, you get an extended battery life, no noise, more comfort carrying it around, and the best of all, for much less money
the biggest downside is that, since tablets are technically embedded devices, they’re much more locked up and you basically have no access to the system with the stock rom
so im looking for a cheap tablet ($100-$200), around 10 inches, that i can easily (or at least reliably) install linux to. any recommendations?
check out dell latitude 5285/5290 2-in-1. they are Surface Pro lookalikes with detachable keyboards, but with way service-friendlier interior - easy to open and SSD, comms, battery can be easily replaced, whereas RAM is soldered. the screens (12" 1920x1200 IPS mutlitouch) are gorgeous and the hardware isn’t too shabby, kabylake (7xxxu) and kabylake-r (8xxxu), with standard UEFI BIOS so you can install Linux and have SecureBoot even. I can get them locally for $100-150, dependent on config and equipment (even less if they’re without battery and keyboard).
edit: yeah, I misunderstood your idea, I thought you wanted a cheap linux tablet. what you actually want is a fantasy - an ultra-portable device with huge battery autonomy running linux and such a thing doesn’t exist, for any kind of money.
namely, the mentioned dells are twice the heft of a normal android tablet and the battery autonomy is laughable; not only is it not an improvement over a normal laptop, it’s likely to be worse, as that thing’s essentially a laptop with extras, like touch, gyros, etc.
then comes the real hammer - touching the thing. Gnome and Plasma (and their derivatives) have touch support but if you’re coming from an android or iOS tablet, that support is in its infancy. it’s crude, inconsistent, flaky, and not very well propagated throughout the system. it’s way better than it was a few years ago, but this is not something you’ll want to hang your career or education on.
you can tweak the thing into something semi-usable, and for the price (around $100) that’s a worthwhile endeavour and cute hobby project. it bears repeating, it is not daily driver material, and that includes way pricier solutions - saw a Ryzen 6-series the other day for like $700; everything I’ve written applies to it as well.
Have you looked at ubuntu touch supported devices?
That might do some tablets - although i guess they’re focussed on phones - and I think have very little resources.
Pinetab 2? https://pine64.com/product-category/pinetab/
pine stuff has excellent cost/benefit, but…
Package cannot be shipped to your country due to logistical reasons.
☹️
FWIW I do use a PineTab2 on a daily basis and… it works. I can warmly recommend it but some caveats :
- WiFi didn’t work for a while, it’s good now though (mostly stable, AFAICT no instability for me)
- BT still does not work (not ideal if you need a mouse)
- USB-C is a single port for charging, single port for devices, iirc usb-C hubs don’t work, only usb-C to A single converters
- it’s… not fast, so if your workflow is a bit of Web browser or a text editor great, if it’s Blender or Gimp or anything that can be a bit demanding, it might test your patience
- WebCam does not work, problematic if you have to do video calls
Overall while keeping such limitations in mind, still recommended! (if you can get it shipped somehow)
Depending on your country you can use a remailer. I used to use one when I lived in the middle east and couldn’t order from the US. I has a bunch of addresses worldwide you can use to order and they aggregate and forward the packages.
For proper desktop Linux in that price range a used surface is a choice. It’ll be bigger and less battery life than an android tablet and I don’t know what the fan situation is in the generations in that price range now.
Another option is go with an Android tablet that has LineageOS support. You get fullish access to the system, but the system is still Android, so depends on what you want if that works for you.
Another option is go with an Android tablet that has LineageOS support. You get fullish access to the system, but the system is still Android, so depends on what you want if that works for you.
that’s an acceptable possibilty, too. from my experience with my wife’s tablet, android is fine to work with now that emacs is available
I was in a similar boat, and ended up buying a used convertible tablet from eBay instead. Much more Linux friendly, 12” Toshiba Dynabook. Might be a better option.
This is a bit of a slog, but I have tailscale and rdclient running on an iplay mini 50. I have a SIM card in it, but I am on wifi 95% of the time, and it connects back to my desktop at home running Fedora. Not quite as good as being in front of it, but it’s a pretty reliable workflow, and I can switch the same remote session to my laptop if I need more screen size.
