Hi, I’ve been searching for a Linux tablet/convertible to use at school and university for quite a while and would like to hear your recommendations, if you have any.
I have a pretty strict set of requirements, those are:
- 6GB RAM
- 4 core CPU
- stylus support
- magnetic keyboard with German layout
- somewhat reasonable battery life (6h of note taking would be great)
I will mostly use the device for coding, taking notes, web browsing, document editing and watching stuff online. I am not afraid to do some work to get my device to be usable (e.g. port an Android driver if really necessary), but would prefer to be able to use the device as fast as possible (as one can probably imagine). I do not expect a perfectly usable out-of-the-box experience, as I know that’s not to be expected with mobile Linux. My maximum budget is 700€, but that does not mean I necessarily want to spend that much.
Some devices I’ve found specifically made to run Linux: PineTab 2: No stylus support, not for me. FydeTab Duo: No German layout, not being shipped yet (and kind of unclear when it will) Starlite Mk 5: Really cool device imo, but there are no reviews as it hasn’t been shipped yet
I’ve also been exploring the PostmarketOS devices page a bit, but only found the Xiaomi Mi Pad 5 Pro which looks good so far, but I might have to reach out to the device maintainer to find out more about the bluetooth status.
Edit: You’ve all recommended x86 devices/convertibles (which kind of makes sense) and I also found some of them:
- Surface devices: seem to work pretty well, although I would prefer not to support Microsoft
- IdeaPad Flex and Duet: Both seem like good deals, the Duet 5i looks especially interesting to me as it’s more of a “true tablet”
Are some of you daily driving Linux tablets? Do you recommend doing this at all? Do you have device recommendations? Thank you all a lot for your time and effort!
If you can find something not made by Microsoft, go for it, but I actually picked up a surface go 3 and installed fedora on it. As long as you install the Linux surface kernel it’s actually a really good experience. The only thing that doesn’t completely work are the cameras, but there are workarounds (and anything using libcamera works).
Thank you for your comment! I’ve seen other people mention Microsoft Surfaces too, but would obviously like to not use a device made by one of the very company whose operating systems I want to avoid. Another thing that kind of scared me are the 2 core CPUs in some of them (even the “higher” priced ones like the surface go 3), so how’s your performance with Fedora?
I got the i3 version and performance is great for what I use it for (notes, programming, and web browsing). Gnome runs really smooth.
How is the battery life and suspend?
Pretty good, although I never used it with windows so I don’t have a comparison. But it easily survives a day of notetaking and some coding, it usually gets down to 20% by the end of the day. Suspend works great, I’ve had it last for multiple days without losing much battery at all.
Cool, thanks for the info!
Running a Surface Go 1 with Fedora and really happy with it. No cameras and small screen are the only downsides.