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Any suggestions for a decent 10" tablet?
I want it for web, email, games (adventure games and the likes). A must: SD card. Nice to have: removable battery.

Not looking to spend much, but I'd go beyond entry-level if there's a good reason.
I suppose Chinese makers offer better specs/price, but I'd rather go non-Chinese.

That's going to be tough without going with a low-end OEM. The real trouble you're going to have with Gaming is that even some of the nicer cheap tablets skimp on RAM.

Maybe you could try the ASUS MeMO Pad FHD 10? That's got an SD card and is reasonably inexpensive.

Thanks.
Seems like there's not much competition in 10" Android mid-end tablets.
I guess I should research Chinese brands after all.

Teclast T10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ImjMdQtaHc


Note that the processor is still relatively old. My guess is that within a year the processor will be upgraded to a newer model.



-and yeah, I'd really wish that tablets had easily removable/replaceable batteries (..even though it would result in a thicker tablet).

Interesting. But I'm leaning more toward the better known Chinese brands.

One thing I dislike in that T10 is the overly high resolution: 2560x1600.
Is there any point, or am I correct in assuming it will just decrease performance and battery time?

Another poor choice in some tablets is 2048x resolutions. I don't see any real gain from 1920x, and the result is having to resample videos.

I think Teclast is the leader in Chinese brands. Chuwi as a close second. Cube 3rd. (..I've got a Teclast and a Cube. My sub $100 Teclast was purchased for extended display-space for my Cube, which has a Wacom digitizer for sketching.)

I don't know about power-use for this tablet. Usually however, the newer the components - the more power efficient. The display is pretty new, the processor: not so much. You'd think the IGP would work harder with the higher res.. but I'd bet that it depends more on application and the actual output for that app. My guess is that the display's back-lighting is a close second to that.

I don't see much gain in going beyond 1920 on a 10" screen. Good for marketing bullet points, perhaps.

The ones I consider leading Chinese brands, at least from a western perspective, are Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, etc.
Lenovo I consider non-Chinese.

What, do you use a tablet with a second tablet as an extra monitor? How?

Latest Amazon Fire HD looks like it fits your bill. 1920x1080 IPS, quad-core, 2GB RAM, 32 GB storage, $150.

Disclaimer: I'm assuming you can just install/enable the Play Store and go on your way. I believe that has always been the case with the Fire tablets, but I can be corrected.

I saw it, but I'm not sure non-standard Android is a good idea.
Also, maybe 2GB RAM isn't enough, especially long-term.

Galaxy Tab A 10" - there are two models, with or without the S Pen.

I bought one for a staffer, and he really likes it.

meerkt wrote:

I don't see much gain in going beyond 1920 on a 10" screen. Good for marketing bullet points, perhaps.

The ones I consider leading Chinese brands, at least from a western perspective, are Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, etc.
Lenovo I consider non-Chinese.

What, do you use a tablet with a second tablet as an extra monitor? How?

The guy from Techtablets is pretty good for gauging things like the apparent "niceness" of the display. He used to think similarly with a 1080P screen (vs higher res.), but on occasion (like this review) mentions that the result is better.

Yeah, I forget Huawei - they have decent world market share, like 3rd for tablets.

Both are Windows 10 Machines w/ wifi, so I use Miracast with "extend" for the desktop. There are however a few applications for doing this, even between other OS's, iDisplay is one of them. The real value for me is that the Cube's 10" can be full sketch "white" space.

I wouldn't get a Windows tablet, but dual Windows/Android could be interesting. Problem is, I'm not sure it's easily possible to zap Windows if you want to give Android the whole space, and I'm not sure SD can fully take the place of native storage in all cases. I also think most of these would be x86, which is perhaps not the best for Android.

meerkt wrote:

I don't see much gain in going beyond 1920 on a 10" screen. Good for marketing bullet points, perhaps.

The ones I consider leading Chinese brands, at least from a western perspective, are Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, etc.
Lenovo I consider non-Chinese.

What, do you use a tablet with a second tablet as an extra monitor? How?

There's a huge benefit to large pixel counts on a mobile device... it kills battery life.

More seriously, I understand that sometimes these devices are held pretty close to the eye compared to a PC monitor, but I don't ever see that "screen-door" effect even on 1280x800 tablets, myself.

meerkt wrote:

I saw it, but I'm not sure non-standard Android is a good idea.
Also, maybe 2GB RAM isn't enough, especially long-term.

I'm keeping an eye on this one once it's out to see how easily people can root it and put stock Android on there. The hardware is pretty good for the price (2 A72s, 2GB RAM), better than the infinite A53 + 1GB fare in this price range usually.

With stock android + play store it could be nice.

meerkt wrote:

I wouldn't get a Windows tablet, but dual Windows/Android could be interesting. Problem is, I'm not sure it's easily possible to zap Windows if you want to give Android the whole space, and I'm not sure SD can fully take the place of native storage in all cases. I also think most of these would be x86, which is perhaps not the best for Android.

Yeah, I don't know about removing Windows from dual-boot. You'd think it wouldn't be difficult, but you never know. Still, it probably doesn't take up a lot its space (on the T10). Problematic if the device only has about 16 GB of space or less, but otherwise it shouldn't be a problem. I don't think the SD can be used for any boot partition.

The T10 uses this processor:

https://www.mediatek.com/products/tablets/mt8176

I'll admit, I don't have any personal experience with these, but this looks like a nice deal if you don't mind refurbished:

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Latitude-Na ... 2core+M%22

You won't touch the speed and capabilities of something like that with any standard Android tablet or most Windows tablets. The are plenty of different models and variations available, but this looked like a decent price. The Core M m5-6y57 is basically a low clocked 4W Skylake i5 mobile (dual core with hyperthreading and turbo boost). This will completely mop the floor with any Atom or other tablet-focused CPUs. I have a feeling that battery life isn't as good as some other options, but it depends what you want to do with it I guess.

It also appears to be one of the few tablets with an easily replaceable battery (they seem to be around $45-$50 on eBay):
https://www.parts-people.com/blog/2016/ ... tallation/

Something to look into at least.

I got my Galaxy Tab A on Black Friday (it's coming up) so you may want to wait. I also picked up a 200GB microSD card so I got plenty of storage. I love it. I use it to read books and magazines, watch TV (HdHomeRun) and watch movies. The sound is not good so I bought a $10 Chinese bluetooth receiver that I connected to my stereo to get great sound. It has dual band wireless so I use 5GHz to get the fastest connection. I installed Talkatone (free) so I can use it as a phone. Very hard to hold so buy a case.

KingLear wrote:

I got my Galaxy Tab A on Black Friday (it's coming up) so you may want to wait. I also picked up a 200GB microSD card so I got plenty of storage. I love it. I use it to read books and magazines, watch TV (HdHomeRun) and watch movies. The sound is not good so I bought a $10 Chinese bluetooth receiver that I connected to my stereo to get great sound. It has dual band wireless so I use 5GHz to get the fastest connection. I installed Talkatone (free) so I can use it as a phone. Very hard to hold so buy a case.

I'm a huge fan of my Tab A, but unfortunately I use it mostly for web-browsing and once I open 20 tabs it starts to get really sluggish, which isn't a problem on my daily driver phone the Galaxy S5.

I don't know if it's more lack of RAM or processing power, but tab-management isn't fun. Otherwise, I agree it's great.

The best match so far is Lenovo Tab 4 10 Plus. Problem is, the version sold on Amazon includes only 16GB of storage. It's also 2GB of RAM, but that's probably less of an issue. I'm assuming the CPU/GPU is according to the specs.

Huawei's MediaPad M3 Lite 10 is priced similarly, but with a weaker CPU, maybe weaker GPU, and also limited to 16GB (though 3GB RAM), so no reason to go there. And it's white.

Huawei is about to release in the coming weeks the MediaPad M5 10. More expensive, but if it ends up priced around Asus's ZenPad 3S Z500M (not the Z500KL) it may be worth it. The 2560x1600 resolution is unfortunate, though.

Two observations: Android's lack of practical storage upgradability really hurts these 16GB mid-end devices, and I don't get why Windows tablets are cheaper or better-specced.

Vhalidictes wrote:

KingLear wrote:

I got my Galaxy Tab A on Black Friday (it's coming up) so you may want to wait. I also picked up a 200GB microSD card so I got plenty of storage. I love it. I use it to read books and magazines, watch TV (HdHomeRun) and watch movies. The sound is not good so I bought a $10 Chinese bluetooth receiver that I connected to my stereo to get great sound. It has dual band wireless so I use 5GHz to get the fastest connection. I installed Talkatone (free) so I can use it as a phone. Very hard to hold so buy a case.

I'm a huge fan of my Tab A, but unfortunately I use it mostly for web-browsing and once I open 20 tabs it starts to get really sluggish, which isn't a problem on my daily driver phone the Galaxy S5.

I don't know if it's more lack of RAM or processing power, but tab-management isn't fun. Otherwise, I agree it's great.

I also have a Tab A. It's on the slow side, but for media consumption it's fine.

There are various Tab A models. Different years, different sizes. T280, T380, T550, T580...

Ridiculously, there's no direct headphone connector on the Huawei M5:

meerkt wrote:

There are various Tab A models. Different years, different sizes. T280, T380, T550, T580...

Good point. Mine is a T580, 10" screen.

I got the ASUS 10" 2 gig . it's a tad slow but works well.

meerkt wrote:

Any suggestions for a decent 10" tablet?
I want it for web, email, games (adventure games and the likes). A must: SD card. Nice to have: removable battery.
Not looking to spend much, but I'd go beyond entry-level if there's a good reason.

How about Samsung's Galaxy Tab S2 ($350)? This is the 2016 model of Samsung's S-series flagship tablets, it has been superseded by a newer (and pricier) S3.

This S2 can be upgraded up to Nougat (but I wouldn't expect anything beyond). It has 3 GB RAM, supports microSD, and a nice 4:3 display which you'd appreciate for the web and email. Note that there are 2 models T813N (Wi-Fi-only) T819N (Wi-Fi + LTE), what I've linked is the Wi-Fi only model.

On a related note, what mobile phone do you use? Its often easier to look for a tablet from the same manufacturer as it makes it a bit easier to swap between the two.

Yeah, the Tab S2 2016 (T813) was/is on my watch list. The OLED is a nice feature, and MSM8976+Adreno 510 appears to be somewhat better than MT8176+GX6250 (Asus Z500M), but $350 is beyond my target range. A few months ago it was $280. If that happens again I might get one.

Phone needs to be replaced and finding a suitable one is a problem as well.
It's not something that I would need, but what phone-tablet matching features do you mean?

meerkt wrote:

It's not something that I would need, but what phone-tablet matching features do you mean?

I was referring to the UI and user experience. For instance, if you use a Motorola/Nokia phone with (near) stock Android, getting a Samsung tablet with the Samsung Experience UI might feel weird - they have different pull gestures, setting screens, position of the back button, etc. Naturally, this is a soft (and minor) guideline, not a deal-breaker.

Similarly, if you use apps proprietary to a manufacturer and intend to use it on both devices (e.g. you have a Samsung Note, and your S-Pen notes are saved in Samsung Notes, and you wish to view/edit them on the tablet). However, if you stick to standard Android apps and those that are cloud synced (e.g. Google Keep), then this is not a concern at all.

BTW, a 20% price drop to $280 is definitely worth waiting for, so good luck with that.

Edit:

meerkt wrote:

Phone needs to be replaced and finding a suitable one is a problem as well.

If you're looking at a carrier phone, do they offer any tablets on discount? Android tablets aren't exactly the hottest item, so your carrier might toss one in at a good price, just to reward your phone upgrade.

Android is such a moving target, I don't even expect the UI to be consistent on the same device across major OS upgrades.
And I wouln't rely on manufacturer-specific software if I can help it. It's a somewhat sad state of affairs, how ephemeral mobile software is (like the modern web), but at least I don't expect to do serious work on Android.

No carrier phones for me. It's just expensive and potentially limiting. Maybe it's more lucrative in some other countries.

BTW, the Tab S2 goes for $300 currently. Not too far off from that $280 low.

Is Google Play an absolute necessity? I have nice things to say about the current-gen Kindle Fire 8", and the 10" has nicer hardware. For $165 without ads it might violate the "cheap" requirement, depending on how cheap is cheap, but it's half the price of an iPad. 32GB + SD slot, Amazon's app store isn't bad either. The SoC is a MediaTek with 2x A72 cores and 2x A53 cores with 2GB of RAM. The 8" I'm using only has 1.5GB and 4x A53 cores but it's reasonably capable. I play Hearthstone on it and aside from an occasional hiccup it's fine. Extra RAM and beefier hardware should fix that.

I haven't gone back to read ALL the parameters you have laid out so excuse me if i'm off-base here but you might consider the Nexus 9. You will likely get decent 3rd party ROM support for some time, and it's powerful enough to do the basic stuff most want to do. Plus you're only looking at 100-130 bucks so it's not like you're laying down for a mortgage or anything.

https://swappa.com/buy/nexus-9-wifi