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).
Well, i have the 5290 laptop (not the tablet)(i5-8350u) for a year now. It’s great, practically pocketable, upgradable everything except the cpu (obivously), decent materials, a decent keyboard, etc. But the display is terrible.