Choosing a tablet PC for creative work

May 5, 2020

Since at least 2018, the creative work tablet market has had Windows and Linux devices as a great choice. Features to consider in a tablet for creative work include:

• Windows or Linux OS instead of iPadOS or Android
• cost $500-700
• microSD slots to expand storage cheaply
• 128 GB SSD instead of too-small 64 GB (unless you know a microSD card is fast enough for the work)

Inexpensive tablets in general suffer poor display resolution and slow CPUs.

Windows LTE tablets are in the $700 range, but with mobile phone hotspot plans commonplace, LTE in the tablet may not be necessary. Whatever tablet one is considering for creative work, don’t neglect the ~ $100 keyboard price. Windows tablets are generally well-suited for creative STEAM work.

Typically look at last year’s models (new, and especially refurbished) to get them at about half the price of this year’s models. For refurbished electronics, the “bathtub curve” of early failure has already been worked out.