4 ms·
Ask HN: What is currently the best “nerd friendly” tablet?
Despite computers outnumbering people at least 5:1 in our house, and using at least five different operating systems, I must confess that I've never actually owned a tablet.
Partly because of the pandemic, I've found myself reading PDFs far more and want a slightly more bed-friendly experience reading, and loosly editing them (and their colour figures). Free software, hackability and repairability are important to me -- and for that reason, I'm disinclined to buy an iPad or a Samsung equivalent.
Might I be so rude as to ask for HN's current recommendations, for a hackable nerd-friendly *nix tablet?
- rPlayer6554 6y agoIf color doesn't matter to you ReMarkable [0] is the exact thing you need (it seems like you do, but I wll include it for anyone else looking for something hacker friendly). It basically allows you to just ssh into it and do whatever you want. It has an active hacker community [1][2]. Sorry I didn't answer your question exactly but reMarkable (I am not affiliated btw) seems quite cool. I am sad it is a bit too expensive for me to justify the purchase. [0] https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2 https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2 [1] https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable [2] https://github.com/danielebruneo/remarkable2-hacks#remarkable2-hacks https://github.com/danielebruneo/remarkable2-hacks#remarkabl...
- bravura 6y agoRemarkable is amazing for reading academic PDFs. Its only flaw is the lack of backlight. [edit: I own the Remarkable 1. The 2 has stronger build quality. I have not tried 2, but I love the plastic feel of 1 and that it feels simple and cheap, not something industrial prosumer grade. Neither have backlight or I would have upgraded.]
- azalemeth 6y agoThat's very helpful -- thank you. I've heard of them and considered it, especially as academic pdfs are indeed what I read. The trouble is that colour is really quite important in my field, and I'd like a backlight to use while I'm in bed and my partner is asleep! Thank you very much for replying!
- sschueller 6y agoLooks really nice but the price of 99 EUR for the pen with eraser seems exorbitantly expensive.
- rektide 6y agoGet a detachable PC. I used Dell Venue 11 Pros for many years. A perfectly cromulent system even today, albeit it's fairly thick at 11mm. I still use them occasionally! They're great systems. Easy to replace batteries. Dual cores way better than any (non-Apple) ARM chip. Idles down nicely. Has fans that rarely need to spring on but can. Tolerable (almost nice!) front & back cameras. Surprisingly good sound. Replaceable ssd. Gyro's & accelerometers. A usb3 type-a port. Decently drive 4k30 via mini-hdmi. With a big swap file, even a 4GB model made a daily driver for me for a long time; worked great. The only reason mine aren't still getting more use is because they use a custom pre-USB-PD Dell 19.5V power-over-usb-micro solution. There's a great tablet stand accessory for it, to make it a Google Max type hub, with power & ethernet & a usb hub; it was a great offering, super useful, but it never really fit well in my house & I didn't spend enough time building a touch-hub for it. Dell did an amazing job, it is such a well loved computer (by me at least), so well considered in every way, with a variety of great accessories. But I have a somewhat more modern alternative these days. (Still often on 4GB, but 8GB is available.) The Venue 11 Pros were not cutting edge when I bought them, nor was my new detachable. Newer designs are mostly folio-keyboard-centric (where-as the Venue 11 Pro had either a great clamshell keyboard with +4 hour battery or folio keyboard) which I resisted but end up working fine. Personally I prefer a bluetooth keyboard anyways; the ergonomics can be set up much much better than what a conventional laptop will ever grant it's poor user. Your desired tablet usage makes this a non-issue anyways (for me these were also daily drivers). Some laptops insist on using frustrating non-standard weird platform stuff, which may make various peripherals non-functional, but shockingly stuff just works across the board a good amount of the time. There's some roll of the dice. We need more people willing to try & to report what goes wrong, challenging others to complete the usually-not-that-hard reverse engineering. Alas, arm tablets are almost universally unusable for anything but Android. We are just starting to see some upstream kernel support for Snapdragon 845 systems (2017), which is a pretty respectable & modern arm, but a usable ARM system is the exception rather than the rule. Tragic loss, imo. (Even though my aged Dell Venue 11 Pro would smoke the tar out of whatever tablet/pc arm chip Qualcomm is selling these days anyways.)
- dewashing 6y agoSurfCe pro x
- 1MachineElf 6y agoI just received this kit in the mail: https://raspad.com/ https://raspad.com/ It's got an ethernet port, programmable GPIO, and runs Linux. How's that for "nerd friendly"?
- azalemeth 6y agoThat looks like a ton of fun! What is the battery life like -- and do you know if there'll be a (thinner) successor with e.g. the rpi4 compute module?
- 1MachineElf 6y agoYeah, the RasPad 3 was designed before the CM4 was announced. I expect they'd have incorporated it if the timing had been right. Looks like the Cute Pi (linked to elsewhere here) meets that criteria, albeit with some I/O sacrifices (ethernet port, etc.) After a week of using the RasPad 3 with an 8GB Pi 4, I can say that the battery life averages 5 hours. The fan on it isn't PWM controlled, and I'm amazed it gets 5 hours with it spinning at 100% the whole time. Luckily the fan isn't overly loud. The Cute Pi likely will beat it in these aspects. I have to say, that the thin tablet UI on top of Rasbian isn't so great. The touch keyboard works, but is a PITA. So I wouldn't recommend using it the recommended way without something like Lenovo's bluetooth trackpoint keyoard. I wonder how the Cute Pi will differ. There are a number of touch-focused UIs available for Linux through GNOME, KDE, and others. See PinePhone for examples. I wonder if one of those would have more polish than what the RasPad 3's Rasbian flavor has. In spite of it's many flaws, I am stoked to have something in a tablet form factor that I could connect to my LAN and run services from. Right now, I use it to chat online and pull up web pages while I am gaming on my Linux desktop PC. I'd like to see how it can help with streaming - a seperate device can keep it up in case of a Proton/Wine crash on the PC. Versus a hypothetical laptop, the tablet form factor gives some more flexibility in terms of how I position and mount it at my desk.
- throwaway81523 6y agoI couldn't find the info anywhere on the web site, but some web search found that the screen size is 10.1", 1280x800 res. I guess that's about right for this. I don't see anything about the batteries: can you say if they are normal 18650s or the like? It's $211 which is a bit steep compared to getting a random Android tablet at Costco, and the software is too cute for my hacker tastes, but that's just me. I'd rather that it run stock Raspbian since I'm suspicious of any software from hardware companies. Inkplate looks more interesting imho: https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6 https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6
- karmakaze 6y agoI use a surface go which is pretty good with WSL using Ubuntu. The Surface Go 2 is a bit bigger/faster. I don't know what the current story is for running Linux native on it. It has a flash memory card slot.
- akvadrako 6y agoIf you want a good tablet that's also decent for hackers get one with LineageOS and /e/ support. The best ones are probably: Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 Plus Wi-Fi (2016) - $380 Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e (Wi-Fi) - $400
- threatofrain 6y agoMight I suggest the iPad anyway so you can satisfy your PDF reading needs, while engaging in free software and hackability and repairing in other contexts? The iPad is that good. It has destroyed the tablet market for a reason.
- giantg2 6y agoI completely misread the title as most nerd-friendly toilet. Like those high tech japanese models with tons of functions...
- the__alchemist 6y agoSurface Pro, or related: It's like your laptop or desktop, but in a tablet form factor. It works best with Windows, but most functionality works on Linux if you use a custom kernel.