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!
I use a Lenovo IdeaPad FLEX 14API with PopOS on it, it’s a flip over style covertible with stylus support and it’s working pretty well for me. The specific model I have is a few years old now, but there are certainly modern equivalents. The only hardware on it that doesn’t work out of the box with Linux is the fingerprint reader, but I don’t use that anyway.
Thank you for your recommendation, I will take a closer look at IdeaPad Flex devices, as they seem very promising. How is your battery life on Linux and what is stylus support like?
The battery life is not great but not terrible, it could do six hours on light use and low brightness after several years of normal battery degradation, and I would expect the equivalent model with a newer processor to last longer. The stylus support is proprietary, you need the Lenovo brand stylus, but it works as you’d expect with pressure sensitivity and all. I primarily use it for note taking in Xournal++.
I’m really tempted to order a StarLite, and I feel like that would be the best fit for you, but understand the hesitance to be an early adopter. Maybe you can pick up a used device to tick the boxes and order one later.
I just discover https://puri.sm/products/librem-11/ and it looks great !
Not sure if it feat every point, specially the german keyboard ?!
I use a Lenovo IdeaPad flex 5 14" running Manjaro as my daily driver. Tablet with stylus works fine, and the fingerprint reader even works using some 3rs-party library for libfprintd. Only issue I have is sleep doesn’t always work, (though that’s a pretty standard problem for most Linux laptops) and I could never get it to rotate into portrait mode successfully (I tried tools to manually change the screen orientation but that makes the digitizer not line up properly with the new orientation.
Another small note is that the built in keyboard started failing on me, and it’s very difficult to replace, so I have to use an external keyboard now. This may be something you have to deal with but it didn’t seem to be a common issue online.
Arch wiki link: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_IdeaPad_Flex_5_14ARE05
That sounds great! Could you tell me how you like the stylus and what’s battery life like? I’m also a bit curious of how big/clunky it feels compared to a real tablet, because the 14" screen is kind of keeping me away from it (I’m leaning towards the IdeaPad Duet 5 at the moment, which is comparably weak in performance for the same price, but has a detachable keyboard which would be more suited for school).
I’ve not had any issues with the stylus - it works flawlessly . It uses the Wacom drivers, I believe, and has all pressure sensitivity. Of course the drawback is that it’s a glass screen so it’s more slippery than a drawing tablet, but it’s still good imo.
I don’t have any issues with the bulkiness, but I use it primarily as a laptop for school and switch it to tablet mode if I need to draw or read PDFs, but besides that I usually just use it as a laptop. If you plan on spending most time with it as a tablet, you may want to go with that duet
