My quest to find the ideal “day to day” second device continues… I’m trying to find something that is lightweight, has a good screen, has hardware decode support for modern video codecs (h265 and VP9 at minimum), and uses a Real Desktop Operating System(tm). The main use case is media playback, and I use YouTube a lot - hence the codec requirement. An Android or iOS device would do all that just fine, and I have indeed been using a Samsung tablet to fill that need. But I want to be able to do development work on the device as well. We’re not talking recompiling the Linux kernel or training an LLM here, but I can’t use applications like VSCode, for example, on Android. And I’d like to be able to swap to Linux (which comes with some caveats for hardware accelerated video, I know), and Linux on ARM Android tablets is… just… no. I like the tablet form factor, I’d like to stick with it if I can. Unlike what manufacturers seem to want to claim, to me “tablet” means “tablet”: a device that can be used entirely by touch alone with no keyboard physically attached or connected. The only real hardware requirements I have are: it must use USB-C for charging, display, etc, minimum 8GB RAM, and ideally I want at least 4hrs of battery life. I’d prefer smaller, but there really aren’t any sub-12-inch options any more. As best I can tell, my only real option in this area is either the Surface Pro or the Surface Go. I do actually have a couple of Surface Pro devices here. One SP4, which is seemingly dead as a dodo; an SP7, which has some kind of hardware fault; and another SP4, which appears to be working OK. The seemingly-working SP4 would be perfect… if it used USB-C instead of a proprietary connector . So. Am I missing any devices that I should be considering, besides some very recent and ludicrously expensive Dell, Asus, and Lenovo devices? I don’t want to spend much more than about £300-£400, which I’m well aware puts me firmly in “scouring eBay” territory. I think if I end up going beyond this price, I’m just going to put a few more pennies aside and get an Apple Silicon MacBook from the last couple of years. But I really would prefer a tablet device. Side note: repairing the knackered Surface Pro 7 I have is not worth the time and effort. The screen is glued down, which has to be melted/prised off - without breaking it - before I even start isolating the hardware fault. If there was a software fix, or some arcane combination of button presses, that could make it spring back into life then I’d have found it by now.
I use an 11" windows tablet that might fit your needs but it is not the lightest though comparable with S7Pro and not the most ergonomic as whilst it is smaller, it is thicker, maybe near double the surface, but it has upto 64Gb of ram, lasts all day, depending on power level and has 24 zen4 cores and RDNA3 GPU, has usb4 and occulink. They are gaming centric but brilliant machines in their own right, works great as all touch. The company also do it in an 8.8 inch size, you may be able to find used with last gen chip too, price is high otherwise, much the same as a similarly specced laptop ONEXPLAYER X1 Series onexplayer x1 pro and x1 mini. There are a couple of other handheld PC guys doing similar like GPD etc.
Yeah, they’re a little beyond the price range I’m looking, I’m afraid . Great machines undoubtedly, but real overkill!
honestly when my SP4 got hit with the cloud strike bug last year , i looked around then just got got the most recent surface pro tablet there really is not much else out there. my SP4 is still running fine, if only i could get to some files in the internal ssd. i have tried all the suggested work arounds but none lets me boot into windows.
This is likely a bit out there but there is this, its cheap and cheerful. Hi10 Max N150丨 2-In-1 Tablet 12.96" 3K – CHUWI Global Store Its CPU won't set the world alight but I run windows 10 on far lesser hardware (older n3350 at a 1/3 the clockspeed, 2 threads, 4Gb) and w11 is better, once decluttered. it has alder lake GPU so supports the codecs and is shown driving 3 screens. It claims long battery life at 4.5 hours trades description. I'm sure it'll run fine once all updated (which will no doubt take an age) and optimized. Chuwi Hi10 Max N150 Review: Portability Meets Power
I think I saw a Chuwi device mentioned on reddit somewhere, ‘twas very likely this one. From what I gather, they can be a bit tricksy when it comes to installing Linux - I’ll have to re-check this… That’s a damn shame you can’t get Windows working on it… Have you tried booting a live distro from USB, or is the storage encrypted by default? Honestly the SP4 I’m testing at the moment looks like a fine machine. If it wasn’t for that damn proprietary dock/power connector instead of Type-C, it would be perfect.
runs fine on Linux I went down a youtube rat hole on this as I think I might pick one up One guy tested on manjoaro or something it was fine, seems decent for the dough.
i am going to try a linux distro on it. i dont think i ever enabled encryption on it and have a lot of blender and .stl files on it that i never backed up. i know alot of folts have had issues with SP 4/5/6 but my SP4 had been rock solid.
Here is a vid of the Hi10 Max with dual boot w11 and ubuntu on the older n100, so the current one will be faster, completely normal install. Chuwi Hi10 Max. Impressive Intel N100 12.9" Tablet Ubuntu just needed updated to support everything. Immediately got 15% off through the lucky dip wheel, so it is peanuts really.
@Byron C I was looking at some vids on the updated Samsung Dex and came across someone running Windows 11 on Dex, he did everything from games, video production etc via this, of course not native, using Parsec, would this not be a perfect use case for you on your Android tablet, basically remote desktop Windows on Android to do your dev stuff as you already have all the gear?
Until about 10 minutes ago, I had narrowed it down to either: Chuwi Hi10 Max, Dell Latitude 7320, or bite the bullet and just get an Apple Silicon MacBook. But I’ve just learned of a complete “wildcard” option: an adapter or cable to go from Type-C to Surface power connector. I didn’t know such a thing existed, I’d never really looked. The Surface Pro 4 I already have would be perfect if it had Type-C, I could even learn to live with 8GB RAM. The screen looks great, except for maybe one blemish visible only on a bright white background. I haven’t checked the battery cycle count, but I’ve benchmarked it at up to 3.5hrs (local 1080p playback looped, 75% display, no “battery saver” mode). Maybe I can get to “nearly perfect” with £20 on a few adaptors, instead of spending £250-£400 trying to get to “perfect” Whoops, forgot to reply to this I actually have Parsec already . In the past I’ve also created a containerised development environment with a web front-end - basically like my own GitPod or GitHub Spaces, just without the ability to provision a new environment on the fly. I did a bunch of development for a university course with just an iPad that way. But. I need a local environment, not something remote. One of the things I need to be able to do is plug in and talk directly to hardware like a microcontroller, and that just isn’t practical with remote solutions. Even though I’m on an older version (which will now never be updated), I’ve generally been impressed with DeX. But there are just a few too many niggles here and there, like the fact that Android apps just aren’t designed for a larger “desktop” experience. Netflix, for example: when I launch it in DeX it’s in a small portrait window, if I try to “full screen” it so I can watch something, it just makes the portrait window bigger and videos play in a tiny letterboxed area. I have to first click the button that simulates rotating the screen to put it into portrait mode and then it’ll go “full screen” correctly. But on the other hand Disney+, YouTube, and Plex all work the way I expect. But there still aren’t IDEs for Android or iOS, and even if there were, I wouldn’t get the kind of low-level access in the OS that I want.
Yeah, so, massive change of plan on this… I might just stick with my existing ThinkPad and replace the screen. I’m gonna sleep on it, but I’m in no hurry to buy anything else right now.
