While the actual tablet experience in Windows 11 is mediocre, the fact that I run plain, regular desktop apps makes the device so much more enjoyable to use. It's not a replacement for a decent laptop, but as a tablet, I'd pick this one over crappy Android or locked-down iOS any time of the day.
Android is out, they've basically thrown in the towel in this space. Their newest release claims "We're back for real this time", but they already dumped it once.
I'd take a desktop with touch experience over a "phone app on big screen" experience 100%.
So I've ended up with a Surface Go as my tablet when I replaced my nvidia shield k1 also. The UI can be janky, but having stuff like proper multitasking, being able to use apps like VS Code or my preferred PDF reader, and actual desktop Firefox with all the extensions does outweigh that jankiness for me.
I don't understand the purpose of the "big phone" tablets when phones themselves have now gotten as big as my first tablet.
I think future iPhones may provide similar docking and software, so, who knows, maybe in five years a phone will be good for everything as long as docking setups are available.
As I said elsewhere in this thread, to use iOS or iPadOS for general use, I need a SSH/Mosh client app and a remote server. This may seem like a huge constraint but I often use SSH/Mosh on my laptops and work on remote servers. This is likely an age thing: I am 71 years old and it seems natural for me to work with remote Emacs, etc. setups.
I want to replace paper books and notebooks. The iPad is unrivalled for that. If I need a machine to type on, I need a full OS on a full laptop. I just pack both.
There still isnt an easy way to give an ipad an SSH identity and sync arbitrary folders for example.
I end up stripping DRM off mine with Calibre's tools, then reading them on calibre-web.
Or just get an actual Kindle.
It offers a lot of applications that do all sorts of wonderful things. It's a great way to draw/paint, you can sculpt stuff in 3d, you can create full music tracks with professional quality. You can write books on it, you can watch your tv shows, read your comic books, and do a whole lot of stuff in a way that for me, is simply much more delightful than sitting at my computer.
There's plenty of uses that it doesn't serve very well, though. The coding experience is lackluster at best. The fact that there's only one web browser engine is a miss. The fact that the concept of extensibility is severely gimped or nonexistent in applications is a miss (though the addition of extensions to safari helps a bit). The fact that there's no reasonable way to side load officially supported by Apple is awful. A lot of these points are probably ones that are important to the hacker crowd on HN so to those people they probably find it hard to overlook those shortcomings.
I use my iPad every day and I love it for the things that it does do. To me that is enough to consider it a good tablet experience.
Even there, I'd argue that Android is the worst part of the platform.
I want to run the full browser I want, if needed, I want to be able to load up some code and review/run tests and maybe start coding something simple and keep going.
There are apps that kind of help, but they're not the same. I also can't say I'm always online.
I went with a Surface Pro. I'm running windows which I don't particularly like, but it'll have to do for now. I would have preferred something that runs Linux over Windows, but I didn't see things with great support and I'm also not here to fight the hardware to make it work.
I've tried both. Both are a pain IMO (but Mac doesn't really improve this). With WSL2 you end up with another abstraction layer that you have to figure how to get your programs to work nice with.
With Docker Desktop, there's been some performance issues lately. Doesn't turn into a hoverboard like my mac, but the performance still lags.
I mainly use it to script small things on python and that's worked out fine. Haven't had issues with paths which was the most annoying things last time I tried it on Windows.
I've taken a hard look at what the strengths/weaknesses of tablets are (see my link-drop elsewhere in this subthread), and the one thing they're really good at seems to be reading ebooks. For which a dedicated e-ink ebook reader is far superior.
Almost any productivity task is better done with a keyboard, ergo, laptop.
Video and audio capture are more flexibly and usefully achieved with a dedicated camera or recorder, and both can be extremely inexpensive.
(I've also reasons for wanting my audio/video capture tools to have minimal connectivity and not be part of a surveillance-capitalism platform.)
Handwritten notetaking is another possible application, though having a keyboard available makes typed notes and note-management systems viable. Then there's drawing / sketching. Again, e-ink kworks well for B&W there.
Video can be watched on a laptop. Audiobooks are pretty well suited to an e-ink tablet again.
The iPad has a great size and depth for this. When I use my wife's the thickness is not bad. If I want to annotate a PDF, I can sit on the couch and it's super easy and not heavy or too thick.
Videos, I can easily remove the keyboard, prop it against something and it doesn't take more space. However, I rarely do this for long periods. My main use to watch videos is to figure something out and take notes.
I want to be able to take handwritten notes, highlight and annotate PDF's, and research using a full featured browser. So it's an in-between. I think the iPad is close. Hardware is there (same CPU/architecture). Just needs software support.
We also have leaned towards mac's just for the UNIX tools but also it has a ton of nice things so that's why I think that the OS would be great. Copy from your computer, paste it on your ipad, keep going or open it through Files.
I'm pretty happy with the Onyx BOOX Max Lumi. That's 13.3". There are 10.3" and 8" devices as well.
Have you actually tried using an e-ink device for taking notes? Sluggish and not nearly good enough compared to Goodnotes (iPad), OneNote (Windows), Xournalpp (Linux).
>Video and audio capture are more flexibly and usefully achieved with a dedicated camera or recorder, and both can be extremely inexpensive.
Can not work as well for making instructional videos as a tablet with screen recording.
>Audiobooks are pretty well suited to an e-ink tablet again.
Phones or an mp3 player.
I really wouldn't call iPadOS 16 a major update for anything but the M1 iPads.
>Yes running external systems is cheating but the actual end result is insanely functional.
Now go somewhere without great internet connectivity and attempt to do work.
If you end up in a situation where you are suddenly without internet connectivity, the solution is simple: you stop working or you move somewhere that has internet connectivity. If you are knowingly going somewhere without internet and want to do work, you're obviously going to make arrangements to ensure that you can work. Maybe that means bringing a different device with you or maybe you find a workaround. For example, this youtuber/developer uses a raspberry pi connected directly to the iPad as a development server [1]. I think it's a tad silly, but it seems to work well for him to complete his work.
The whole "what if you don't have an internet connection?" argument just seems like needless FUD-spreading. I don't see it as a realistic problem for the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time.
I personally don't think Microsoft quite got it right with using Windows on a tablet, though it was certainly a lot better with Windows 8, which is what the surface pro 2 (I think the first one as well?) shipped with. There's way too many compromises on usability because it's running Windows, and there's no meaningful impetus for developers to create their applications specifically with touch in mind.
Apple's been much more antagonistic to developers yet they still get people making apps specifically for iPadOS in a way that neither Google nor Microsoft have managed. I think this is the advantage to their totalitarian strategy; they get less applications built for iOS/iPadOS overall and their restrictions make it significantly harder or impossible to create some things you can find easily on Windows, Android, or even MacOS, but because they control the platform they can impose minimum requirements for applications on the platform and as a result you actually get programs that run with that device's UX paradigms in mind. It probably also helps that their platform makes more money and that the iPad is already in a position of dominance in this market, but I digress.
If Microsoft wants to fully realize their Surface tablet vision, they need to pump a ton of money into getting developers on board and building apps that fit the UX paradigms of Surface tablets.
Plus I can read books or watch videos, take notes, etc, in tablet mode.
> building apps that fit the UX paradigms of Surface tablets
I kinda don’t want this. A major selling point was that I have a full OS with the same applications on my desktop and laptop (ie, PyCharm, other python-related stuff, Firefox, custom python, bash, powershell scripts). No need to have completely different apps because the tablet maker hobbles the OS, making using a tablet in laptop mode useless.
It can be awkward for sure in tablet mode, but it does kinda work.
Regarding that use case, the only thing I don't like about Surface 7 Pro is its screen which is very much reflective. Other then that, its totally awesome.
I personally use both a laptop and an iPad regularly enough in their own contexts that I find it worthwhile to have both.
I've switched to an Ergodox in early 2019 and I couldn't use a laptop since. MNT[1] is the only laptop manufacturer I know of, that is even trying to do anything about the absurdity of emulating 19th century typewriters; although the Planck-style ortholinear layout is not my type.
At one point I've been considering a tablet + a small foldable camera tripod + Corne-ish Zen[2] or similar; and a custom carrying case to fit all of these neatly. The tripod could also be useful for actual photography, and would put the screen at a reasonable height for actual work.
I'm having a difficult time finding decent tablet hardware though. I would ideally like to run OpenBSD on it!
[1]: https://mntmn.com/media/reform_md/2022-06-20-introducing-mnt... [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/jyht57/
Besides shortcuts between Windows and Mac, I can type on any of them.
Of course, I prefer my Kinesis, but, it's not an issue really switching.
I do wish there was a better option available on keyboards but alas the market is quite niche. Separating the keyboard from the laptop seems to be the only realistic option for people with those needs.
It's been reasonable for what I use it for, mainly SDR applications, such as CubicSDR and GNU Radio X11 apps, and multiple CLI apps like rtl_433. Audio is good, screen is fine, and WiFi works. It's nice to have a laptop if I want to use an antenna outside.
Don't even bother using the tiny trackpad on that model's type cover. Bluetooth works so I use that for an external mouse.
Bonus: I never even thought to try the built-in video cam, and after reading the article, I installed VLC and to my surprise the camera worked!