[dabernathy89]

Android tablets generally feel overpriced right now for what they offer compared to Apple's ecosystem. There's one exception: Lenovo's last gen pro tablet got a small refresh. It's the "Lenovo P11 Pro Gen 2" and it's absurdly affordable compared to the competition right now (~$270). It's got a 120hz OLED display, great general-purpose performance (my previous tablet experience was Samsung's budget S6 Lite, which was a little sluggish and had a worse display.). I'm super happy with my purchase so far.

Downside: the compatible pen Precision Pen 3 seems to be unavailable right now.

[edit: looks like the price has gone back up to $399 in most places. I'd still consider it a good alternative at that price, but if you can pick it up on sale at under $300 it's a no-brainer]

[ehsankia]

> for what they offer compared to Apple's ecosystem

Yet after over a decade, iPads still don't support multiple profiles for a device that's very often used in a household by multiple people. Something that this very first generation Pixel Tablet does.

[foverzar]

Wonder who downvotes this.

The sole reason why I chose samsung tab over iPad is that iPad is essentially useless as a shared family device - the UX of switching accounts inside apps is just terrible.

Tablet should definitely be a multiuser device and it's kinda stupid that Apple actually has multiple accounts functionality, but it only works for school or enterprise.

[my123]

> iPads still don't support multiple profiles for a device

It's even worse than that. They actually do!

But managed for education/enterprise only...

[benburleson]

Is this really considered "first generation" Pixel tablet?

Google is so good at killing off products that nobody remembers the previous attempts at tablets?

[markmark]

Apple want you to buy multiple iPads.

[creshal]

OTOH, I'm still waiting for any pen-enabled Android apps that manage to catch up with XP Tablet PC Edition 2004 in terms of usability and feature set, let alone anything made for iPads (or Windows 8/10/11). Even desktop Linux is doing fractionally less worse.

[morog]

Something my 4 year old Asus zenpad does perfectly. It has a profile for everyone in the house...all with their own apps, email accounts and personalizations.

[pyrelight]

When Apple inevitably copies that feature it will be "revolutionary"

[mcintyre1994]

Android has had that for ages too, I remember the Nexus 7 having it.

[Bloating]

Literally nobody needs this... until Apple "invents" it

[unstuck3958]

> Android tablets generally feel overpriced right now for what they offer compared to Apple's ecosystem.

Is this a US-only thing? I have not been actively looking into the latest Android offering, but I got my sister a Xiaomi Pad 5 [1] two years ago, which I believe delivered much more value at that time compared to the latest iPad 10.2 I owned, at a slightly cheaper price too.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/xiaomi-gets-back-int...

[not_your_vase]

I'm in Europe, and also believe that iPads are unbeatable when talking about price - in both nominal and price/value ratio sense.

I have been an iPad user for over a decade. 2 years ago I was shopping for a new tablet. I went to a local electronics shop trying some of them out: the affordable (~300 EUR for me) Lenovo, Huawei and Samsung ones all stuttered even in their own setting menu. The high end Samsungs were nice - starting at 600EUR.

Settled for a base iPad for 300 EUR. I hate Apple, but iPads are literally cheap, have good performance, and offer more than magnified phone applications, even with the crappy iOS.

[Frotag]

The specs are nice on paper but even at 60Hz and minimal brightness, the battery on my brand new one barely lasts 2-3 hours when just using the browser. It'll even drain completely if I leave it on standby for a few days.

There's also a serious red tint to the screen [0].

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/Lenovo/comments/zmht0j/lenovo_p11_p...

[dabernathy89]

Sounds like something funky is going on... I just flew to/from Europe and I watched many hours of HDR content on mine, and the battery was fine.

[godelski]

Also, where the hell is the pencil? Seriously, that is one of the big edges to iPads. I'll complain that the pencil should do more but the only reason they are getting away with that is that there's no decent option outside. The other thing I use a lot is the screen sharing (second monitor) and air drop (Google has an air drop alternative). Google is catching up on the aesthetic side that Apple did well but I'm often surprised at missing features. Tbh, I can say this about a lot of ecosystems so this isn't that harsh of a criticism. Though I have to ask what all these engineers are doing if we're not developing new features, even low hanging fruit.

[andrewaylett]

You can use any USI 2.0 stylus with it.

[LoganDark]

This tablet has a lower pixel density than my desktop. But 120Hz OLED sounds soooo good. I'm almost super sad it's not 4K. Would've been an instant wishlist item then.

[rektide]

2560x1536 is 267dpi, which ain't bad.

Notebookcheck.net also notes it averages 633 nits brightness, which is superb. That's why I ordered one, to be a better outdoor-capable remote terminal than my oled-but-meh-brighness Samsung Book 12. Hopefully I can run a real Linux at least via KVM on the Lenovo someday!!

[dabernathy89]

I would have liked a slightly higher resolution, but the contrast is so good that you really won't notice in most situations. Certainly for media consumption it looks great.

[flangola7]

You sure about that? Desktop resolution is 72 ppi

[ge96]

I wish more Android devices had built in lidar

[TechBro8615]

Is that tablet a loss leader for lenovo? How can they possibly sell a tablet with a 120hz display at a fraction of the price of monitors with such a refresh rate? Would it be possible to remove the screen and plug it into an xbox?

[henryfjordan]

Nobody is buying 11" monitors, that's how. Also refresh rate is only one single stat out of dozens you need to consider to price a monitor.

[dabernathy89]

I think they're trying to dump their stock since the P12 is out now?

[rektide]

"mid range" (but excellent) MediaTek chip probably helps a ton. The screen is great quality oles... it's probably the most expensive part. But what does Lenovo actually pay? To spitball a number, probably like ~$80.

I think people don't appreciate how much we are up-sold, over very negligible costs. A huge amount of cheap products exist not because it's really that much cheaper to cut the specs here & there & make a chunky gross form factor, but because the company makes a $1800 model of whatever it is, that they want to push you towards.

Lenovo competes in a lot of markets, and I think many of the places they compete are more value oriented than North American type markets. I think that in part is why Lenovo came up with such a well balanced product; picking intelligently how to build a great product at a reasonable price.

[rektide]

Notably rocking a MediaTek Kompanio 1300T. I feel like for a while Qualcomm was the obly company making chips we see in most tablets.

I really hope we see competition open up again; it'd be great for Samsung to get their feed under them, for some new parties to show, and it'll be exciting if AMD gets below their new Z1's 9W TDP & starts competing too.

This is a great tablet, bought one for mom & then a couple months latter for me. Alas mine got lost in the mail! Boo.

[dabernathy89]

Follow-up: the display on this tablet is not as good as I initially thought. It's great for media consumption but not great for text. Seems to have something to do with the subpixel layout required by the OLED display.

[moffkalast]

> it's absurdly affordable compared to the competition right now (~$270).

Ipads are even cheaper at around $210 I think? I don't think it's possible to get an Android tablet of that screen size for anywhere close. It's sort of weird how Apple overprices all of their stuff except tablets.

Then again, then you have to deal with the ATS nonsense which is hell for local web dev without https.

[dabernathy89]

Cheapest new ipad is $270, but the base model will have a worse screen. Of course you'll still get all the awesome iPad apps you can't get on Android.

[lajupechere]

They completely over priced the keyboards, though, it’s kind of incredible. If you want to close the gap between tablet and laptop, you’re going to pay laptop prices.

[krzyk]

In my country it has comparable price to Pixel tablet.

BTW. Is there a good tablet that has a screen that one can comfortably keep in hands, like around 8 inches?

[mcintyre1994]

I’d guess that iPad mini is the best option there, it’s 8.3 inches. Compared to the current gen Air it has an A15 instead of M1 and doesn’t have the same accessories support, but otherwise looks very similarly specced.

[arvinsim]

I wonder if there is a cheaper portable monitor version of that tablet.

[creshal]

Lenovo has the M14 series of portable monitors, which is fairly cheap.