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Comment by dabernathy89 | Hacker News Reader

Android tablets generally feel overpriced right now for what they offer compared to Apple's ecosystem. There's one exception: Lenovo's last gen pro tablet got a small refresh. It's the "Lenovo P11 Pro Gen 2" and it's absurdly affordable compared to the competition right now (~$270). It's got a 120hz OLED display, great general-purpose performance (my previous tablet experience was Samsung's budget S6 Lite, which was a little sluggish and had a worse display.). I'm super happy with my purchase so far.

Downside: the compatible pen Precision Pen 3 seems to be unavailable right now.

[edit: looks like the price has gone back up to $399 in most places. I'd still consider it a good alternative at that price, but if you can pick it up on sale at under $300 it's a no-brainer]

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> for what they offer compared to Apple's ecosystem

Yet after over a decade, iPads still don't support multiple profiles for a device that's very often used in a household by multiple people. Something that this very first generation Pixel Tablet does.

Wonder who downvotes this.

The sole reason why I chose samsung tab over iPad is that iPad is essentially useless as a shared family device - the UX of switching accounts inside apps is just terrible.

Tablet should definitely be a multiuser device and it's kinda stupid that Apple actually has multiple accounts functionality, but it only works for school or enterprise.

> it's kinda stupid that Apple

Its marketing, by locking that feature you are forced to buy more iPads for other family members.

> you are forced to buy more iPads for other family members

Who does this? 5% of consumers?

I think they-misestimate anyone's desire to be wastefull, both ecologically and financially.

By looking at people I know and their tablet ownership, I think you're the one mis-estimating.

But the psychology probably goes further than "I'll buy everyone in the family a tablet" and is more like "Well I was thinking of maybe upgrading soon in a year or two, and anyway I'm tired of loaning the kids my tablet, how about I buy that new shiny one for myself and the kids can have this one?" to just push people over a threshold of spending

Apple devices have so long lifetimes with iOS/iPadOS updates you can just cycle the devices among family.

I get a new one because I ca... because I need one, yes, that's why. And my old one goes to the kids. A few cycles of this and everyone has their own, and all of them are still officially supported with major version upgrades - not just security patches.

Their assumption may not apply to you, but I assure you that Mr. Apple himself has considered this possibility and allocated a significant amount of resources to finding the most profitable solution.

Since we are soeculating, maybe the solution agreed eith me but was overruled by internal politics.

Yeah, honestly it probably forces more sales than it prevents people from buying ipads at all.

Apple has conditioned its user base to spend on its products. They honestly buy and upgrade whenever told and that includes multiple iPads.

I have one tablet from each ecosystem and user switching is really handy! On top of that, it's nice to have a work profile where you can just shut it off and get no notifications from any work apps. I haven't looked to see if my iPad will do that.

Yeah, iOS and iPadOS have profiles where you can whitelist or blacklist specific people or apps. E.g. when I'm at work, I only get notifications from my girlfriend and Slack.

Sounds like something the EU should regulate.

"due to the new EU Directive 2024/0815/EC, every new device must support multiuser functionality. This includes ovens, toothbrushes, powerbanks Apple AirTags, and vape pens."

That would be great. I have been eyeing iTablet for long now.

If I could flash android onto it, I would buy it right away

> iPad is essentially useless as a shared family device - the UX of switching accounts inside apps is just terrible.

What does "multiuser" mean to you? The traditional home PC was shared by everyone in the family, all using the same account. What do you accomplish by running multiple accounts on the iPad?

> all using the same account.

not in my family. You only do this if they don't know how to create an account.

Previously PCs contained no personal data - maybe some school work, a few documents and a hidden porn collection .

Nowadays there is all of your messages, bank apps and photos you dont want your parents to see

> all using the same account

Never heard of this. Anyone I knew back in the days with a home PC always had an account for each family member. Multi account on PC is a long solved problem. Not sure why iPad still hasn't solved it after over a decade.

GP is probably older and remembers the more primitive home OS from DOS to Win98 and MacOS System N which didn’t have accounts.

> What does "multiuser" mean to you?

It means separate app data, so I don't have to tediously re-login in spotify, messengers etc.

> The traditional home PC was shared by everyone in the family, all using the same account.

Not really and even if so, the separation of concerns is much easier. For traditional PC I can get by with a separate browser profile.

For mobile OS with mobile apps, each having an account or personalisation features, it's just non-usable.

Stop downvoting OP because you don't remember PCs before 2000/XP. Those either didn't have different users or, in the case of windows 95 and 98, they were essentially pointless.

For the record: I don't remember my family having different accounts on our home computer as a kid.

Traditional computers persisted decades after windows 95, so it's a really bad point of reference.

And PCs even nowadays don't have so many installed apps that require login, unlike mobile OS apps.

Windows didn't properly support multi-users before Windows 10 anyway.

Properly as in "even my mom can use it". You could do it in earlier versions, but the UX wasn't exactly smooth if you had multiple users you needed to switch between.

I remember it differently. We had a family PC on WinXP with multiuser setup, and I hardly remember any issues.

Um, what? User switching in Windows 10 works exactly like it worked in 7, where it worked exactly like it worked in XP. Start -> Log Out -> Select another user and log in. Am I misremembering?

Even MacOS 9 supported multiple user accounts

> iPads still don't support multiple profiles for a device

It's even worse than that. They actually do!

But managed for education/enterprise only...

Is this really considered "first generation" Pixel tablet?

Google is so good at killing off products that nobody remembers the previous attempts at tablets?

I also think it's weird to call this first generation when it's the second one (not counting the misstep of Pixel Slate with ChromeOS).

My first generation Pixel C from 2015 is still in daily use, but admittedly getting slow so I will be ordering this one. This refresh cycle of 8 years seems almost as designed for those who bought the original C. I'm already looking forward for the third installment in 2031.

> Is this really considered “first generation” Pixel tablet?

No, its the first generation Pixel Tablet (note capitalization: “Pixel Tablet” is a new branding.)

Yep. Nexus devices were a whole different thing.

There was also a Pixel tablet, but it was not a Pixel Tablet.

Certainly no worse than the iPad. Not to be confused with the iPad or the iPad or the iPad or the iPad going back 10 generations. For sale now at apple.com is the "New iPad".

Oh... wow that's some SEO fun.

Pixel C and Pixel slate. I had a Pixel C that my employer paid for, nice device, but I wouldn't have paid sticker price for it

Are you referring to the Pixel Slate?

They mean the Pixel C. We try to not talk about the Pixel Slate.

I still have a semi functioning nexus 7. I used it as an ebook reader for the longest time. Not sure what to do with it now.

I also have a Nexus 7, but it's now slow as molasses to the point of being unusable. Maybe I should try a factory reset...

I think someone mentioned there's a new kernel and lineage build for it, but it might just be time to admit its too old. I used it as a pdf reader for a while but its been a couple years since I last tried to use it.

Try replacing the battery. The Nexus 7 was way ahead of its time.

Apple want you to buy multiple iPads.

ding ding ding, we own 4 - could be 2 with profiles

OTOH, I'm still waiting for any pen-enabled Android apps that manage to catch up with XP Tablet PC Edition 2004 in terms of usability and feature set, let alone anything made for iPads (or Windows 8/10/11). Even desktop Linux is doing fractionally less worse.

Something my 4 year old Asus zenpad does perfectly. It has a profile for everyone in the house...all with their own apps, email accounts and personalizations.

When Apple inevitably copies that feature it will be "revolutionary"

Android has had that for ages too, I remember the Nexus 7 having it.

Literally nobody needs this... until Apple "invents" it

> Android tablets generally feel overpriced right now for what they offer compared to Apple's ecosystem.

Is this a US-only thing? I have not been actively looking into the latest Android offering, but I got my sister a Xiaomi Pad 5 [1] two years ago, which I believe delivered much more value at that time compared to the latest iPad 10.2 I owned, at a slightly cheaper price too.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/xiaomi-gets-back-int...

I'm in Europe, and also believe that iPads are unbeatable when talking about price - in both nominal and price/value ratio sense.

I have been an iPad user for over a decade. 2 years ago I was shopping for a new tablet. I went to a local electronics shop trying some of them out: the affordable (~300 EUR for me) Lenovo, Huawei and Samsung ones all stuttered even in their own setting menu. The high end Samsungs were nice - starting at 600EUR.

Settled for a base iPad for 300 EUR. I hate Apple, but iPads are literally cheap, have good performance, and offer more than magnified phone applications, even with the crappy iOS.

> I'm in Europe, and also believe that iPads are unbeatable when talking about price - in both nominal and price/value ratio sense

The problem with iPad is that if you want a larger screen you have to get the very expensive iPad Pro. For large screen sizes, the Android ecosystem is much better value.

iPad still has huge disadvantages to me:

- Android tablets have the Opera browser which has text reflow functionality which works much much better than anything else. This is a huge deal for me. - I can access the file system and do whatever I want with it. - I still like notifications more in Android vs iPadOS.

If it were not for these things, I would buy an iPad in a heartbeat.

And iPads get about 5 years of major version updates.

The 600€ high end Samsung will maybe get one Android OS update.

This is FUD. Samsung promise 5 years of security updates and 4 OS updates:

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-sets-the-new-standar...

It's not FUD. Apple has _delivered_ updates for multiple generations of devices for 5+ years.

Samsung has promised to update for 4 OS versions. They haven't delivered anything yet. We'll see in 2027 if they can actually deliver.

Casting fear, uncertainty and doubt over a manufacturers claims is literally what FUD stands for. And that's what you're doing.

I had Samsung s9+ in 2018 and I did have monthly security upgrades up until 2022 when I had it. Their promise was 5 years of security upgrades.

I also had the latest Android version. iirc they promised 3 years of OS upgrades

This topic will probably resolve itself from 2025 on when the EU will start requiring 5 years of software updates.

The specs are nice on paper but even at 60Hz and minimal brightness, the battery on my brand new one barely lasts 2-3 hours when just using the browser. It'll even drain completely if I leave it on standby for a few days.

There's also a serious red tint to the screen [0].

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/Lenovo/comments/zmht0j/lenovo_p11_p...

Sounds like something funky is going on... I just flew to/from Europe and I watched many hours of HDR content on mine, and the battery was fine.

Also, where the hell is the pencil? Seriously, that is one of the big edges to iPads. I'll complain that the pencil should do more but the only reason they are getting away with that is that there's no decent option outside. The other thing I use a lot is the screen sharing (second monitor) and air drop (Google has an air drop alternative). Google is catching up on the aesthetic side that Apple did well but I'm often surprised at missing features. Tbh, I can say this about a lot of ecosystems so this isn't that harsh of a criticism. Though I have to ask what all these engineers are doing if we're not developing new features, even low hanging fruit.

You can use any USI 2.0 stylus with it.

This tablet has a lower pixel density than my desktop. But 120Hz OLED sounds soooo good. I'm almost super sad it's not 4K. Would've been an instant wishlist item then.

2560x1536 is 267dpi, which ain't bad.

Notebookcheck.net also notes it averages 633 nits brightness, which is superb. That's why I ordered one, to be a better outdoor-capable remote terminal than my oled-but-meh-brighness Samsung Book 12. Hopefully I can run a real Linux at least via KVM on the Lenovo someday!!

Yeah it ain't bad, but my desktop has 4K@15.6", which is around 280dpi. Actually smaller gap than I thought, but an 11 inch display is going to be used closer which amplifies it.

Brightness and vividness of colors is a huge plus though, OLEDs are amazing. I love them. But it's gotta be 4K.

Maybe I am just cursed with above-average vision.

There are no tablets that meet your requirements. Apple's iPads are 264 dpi, and have been since the very first Retina tablet.

> There are no tablets that meet your requirements.

Probably the reason why I don't have one. Aside from money.

I'm a high dpi/tiny font person too.

I still use font size 14+ even with a very close to face small display. My belief is that higher dpi isn't useful or necessary. I can read font size 8 on a low dp display fine & not complain.

If your display isnt as high dpi as you want, there's almost always plenty of font sizes down you can go & still be fine.

Not tiny fonts. Normal sized fonts, but cleaner. More pixels.

I like 4K because it's an easy 1080p display but with enough pixels to make everything look way better. And everything divides evenly with a perfect 200% scale factor so I don't get any weird rounding errors.

On Android this is much, much less of an issue due to their DIP system, but more pixels still = better, imho.

I would have liked a slightly higher resolution, but the contrast is so good that you really won't notice in most situations. Certainly for media consumption it looks great.

You sure about that? Desktop resolution is 72 ppi

Whose desktop? 72 ppi would be a 1080p screen at 30". Or 1366x768 at 22". That's pretty low ppi even for your average Joe.

They also said their desktop. Though I don't know what resolution/size it would be to beat 266 ppi. I'm guessing a 4k laptop screen, as a 4k 24" monitor is only 183ppi.

72dpi was normal/standard... about two decades ago.

About the closest thing we have to a "normal" desktop dpi nowadays is probably 24 inches @ 1920x1080, which is ~92dpi.

> About the closest thing we have to a "normal" desktop dpi nowadays is probably 24 inches @ 1920x1080, which is ~92dpi.

Funnily enough, 96dpi is actually the reference that Windows uses. 200% scaling factor is therefore 192dpi, and 250% is 240dpi.

Explains why Windows defaults to 250% scaling on 15" 4K monitors, like laptops. Or 125% on 15" 1080p monitors!

I was curious about the reason for the 96dpi number and found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch#Computer_monitor...

There's interesting history behind these numbers.

> I'm guessing a 4k laptop screen

Yeah I use one of those 15.6" portable monitors. It's because I have a medical condition that requires me to lay in bed for ~all day ~every day, but I can no longer use actual laptops due to how fragile they are. But I like the laptop form factor as "something that can be used in bed". So here I am.

The monitor itself costed around $70 for 4K. It's only sRGB, but it's honestly the most accurate sRGB display I own aside from my phone. Even beats my laptop, because the laptop is 8-bit Adobe RGB.

This is from a professional design company:

>The optimal resolution for images on screen is 72 DPI. Increasing the DPI won’t make the image look any better, it’ll just make the file larger, which will probably slow down the website when it loads or the file when it opens.

https://largeprinting.com/resources/image-resolution-and-dpi...

As your link points out DPI and PPI aren't really the same thing. DPI has to do with the resolution of the edited/saved image. Usually, it's determined by your editing software. PPI is the physical or effective resolution of your display. You almost definitely want a better than 72ppi display for text work because otherwise fonts will look absurdly pixelated like in the early days of "desktop publishing." I don't think it's even possible anymore to buy a true computer monitor with less than 100ppi, although if you're using an old 768p 49-inch "HDTV" as a PC display it's going to give you something like 32ppi.

https://www.sven.de/dpi/

A high PPI is great for text work, 220 is close to print quality, if it weren’t for the backlight it would look like paper.

One reason I WFH is that it’s the only way I can use a decent monitor at work (outside of the laptop one).

Absolutely, the main reason I want 4K so bad is for crisp text and vector rendering. I actually do have a non-backlit tablet with around 220 DPI, it's the reMarkable 2[0] and the text still looks pretty fuzzy due to that pixel density (it's nowhere near print quality). Print quality is usually around 300–600 DPI at the low end.

[0]: https://remarkable.com

> 220 is close to print quality

Would a decent laser printer be in that ballpark?

They seem to be a print company rather than design, which explains why they don't understand DPI for screens.

Above all, what DPI looks good enough for humans to notice depends on how close the screen is to the user's eyes, which is why phones tend to have higher DPIs than computer monitors which tens to have higher DPIs than TVs.

But even a computer screen at 72 DPI is pretty shit these days.

> Desktop resolution is 72 ppi

For a mid-range screen in the early 90s, right?

> Desktop resolution is 72 ppi

You have to assume _both_ their screen size and resolution to come up with ppi, so not sure where you're getting 72 from.

Speaking for my personal devices, my laptop is 201 ppi and my desktop is a little over half that at 109 (27" 1440p).

Sure? And I have a 4K monitor at 15.6", so around 280ppi. It doesn't matter what "desktop resolution" is.

I wish more Android devices had built in lidar

Is that tablet a loss leader for lenovo? How can they possibly sell a tablet with a 120hz display at a fraction of the price of monitors with such a refresh rate? Would it be possible to remove the screen and plug it into an xbox?

Nobody is buying 11" monitors, that's how. Also refresh rate is only one single stat out of dozens you need to consider to price a monitor.

I think they're trying to dump their stock since the P12 is out now?

"mid range" (but excellent) MediaTek chip probably helps a ton. The screen is great quality oles... it's probably the most expensive part. But what does Lenovo actually pay? To spitball a number, probably like ~$80.

I think people don't appreciate how much we are up-sold, over very negligible costs. A huge amount of cheap products exist not because it's really that much cheaper to cut the specs here & there & make a chunky gross form factor, but because the company makes a $1800 model of whatever it is, that they want to push you towards.

Lenovo competes in a lot of markets, and I think many of the places they compete are more value oriented than North American type markets. I think that in part is why Lenovo came up with such a well balanced product; picking intelligently how to build a great product at a reasonable price.

Notably rocking a MediaTek Kompanio 1300T. I feel like for a while Qualcomm was the obly company making chips we see in most tablets.

I really hope we see competition open up again; it'd be great for Samsung to get their feed under them, for some new parties to show, and it'll be exciting if AMD gets below their new Z1's 9W TDP & starts competing too.

This is a great tablet, bought one for mom & then a couple months latter for me. Alas mine got lost in the mail! Boo.

Follow-up: the display on this tablet is not as good as I initially thought. It's great for media consumption but not great for text. Seems to have something to do with the subpixel layout required by the OLED display.

> it's absurdly affordable compared to the competition right now (~$270).

Ipads are even cheaper at around $210 I think? I don't think it's possible to get an Android tablet of that screen size for anywhere close. It's sort of weird how Apple overprices all of their stuff except tablets.

Then again, then you have to deal with the ATS nonsense which is hell for local web dev without https.

Cheapest new ipad is $270, but the base model will have a worse screen. Of course you'll still get all the awesome iPad apps you can't get on Android.

Getting a second hand ipad is a lot more viable than on Android. Apple keeps these things updated for about 6-7 years and they feel super fresh the whole time. While my experience is that Android tablets feel a little clunky brand new, and then go downhill fast after only getting a years updates.

They completely over priced the keyboards, though, it’s kind of incredible. If you want to close the gap between tablet and laptop, you’re going to pay laptop prices.

Well, the ipad pro has pretty much the same internals so it's not surprising when you spec it to be similar to a laptop, it costs similarly.

In my country it has comparable price to Pixel tablet.

BTW. Is there a good tablet that has a screen that one can comfortably keep in hands, like around 8 inches?

I’d guess that iPad mini is the best option there, it’s 8.3 inches. Compared to the current gen Air it has an A15 instead of M1 and doesn’t have the same accessories support, but otherwise looks very similarly specced.

I wonder if there is a cheaper portable monitor version of that tablet.

Lenovo has the M14 series of portable monitors, which is fairly cheap.

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