[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What is currently the best "nerd friendly" t...
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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?
Author : azalemeth
Score : 8 points
Date : 2021-03-20 21:58 UTC (1 hours ago)
| rektide wrote:
| Get 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.
|
| But I have a somewhat more modern alternative these days. 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) 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. 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, which is a pretty respectable
| & modern arm, but a usable ARM system is the exception rather
| than the rule. Tragic loss, imo.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| If 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 [1]
| https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable [2]
| https://github.com/danielebruneo/remarkable2-hacks#remarkabl...
| bravura wrote:
| Remarkable 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 wrote:
| That'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!
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(page generated 2021-03-20 23:01 UTC)