Tablets and e-readers
Here are some notes regarding portable computing devices which fall in the broad "tablet" category. We focus specifically on devices to read papers (and especially PDFs) on, which excludes phones and laptops that are either too small or unwieldy.
We focus on devices that can be rooted with our own operating system. Considering the environment, this generally means Android derivatives like LineageOS although alternatives are acceptable (like postmarketOS, Replicant, OmniROM, resurrection remix, and what the hell is Dirty Unicorns exactly?) . This excludes proprietary platforms like Apple products but also many other tablets which run proprietary versions of Android or even Windows. Exceptions are made for devices that were under our possession or evaluated directly.
E-readers
An e-reader "also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals." For the purpose of this documentation, the difference between an e-reader and a tablet is that an e-reader has an electronic paper display which uses no battery when idle. This leads to a longer battery life (weeks instead of days) at the cost of a lower refresh rate (think 4-20Hz max instead of 60Hz for old CRTs, 120Hz for iPads and 600Hz for newer TVs). The E Ink corporation holds many patents on the technology which unfortunately keeps the price quite high when compared with regular displays.
As far as I know, all e-reader batteries are non-removable.
Kobo
Kobo (an anagram of "book") is a company that was started by Indigo books so it used to be Canadian but was bought by the Rakuten conglomerate. They make e-readers and tablets but we'll focus only on their e-readers for now as they run a proprietary OS. They are interesting only because they make cheap e-book readers. Although their OS is Linux-based, it's mostly proprietary.
Their firmware is (deliberately?) easily modifiable. I wrote wallabako to sync my articles to the reader, with moderate success.
Kobo Glo HD
The Glo HD is a nice device and I have used it extensively.
- 6" 1448×1072 / 300 dpi Carta display
- 157 x 115 x 9.2 mm
- 180g
- 1 GHz
- 4GB storage, but swappable internal SD card
- ePUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT, HTML, DRM support
- backlight
Downsides:
- capacitive touchscreen is poor: difficult to follow links or lookup definitions
- originally had support for reading Wikipedia dump, but was removed in some upgrade
- spies on its users
- proprietary, but hackable OS
Around 130$ retail price?
Aura h2o
Similar to the Glo HD, the Aura h2o is larger, and waterproof, but more expensive:
- IPX8 (60min in 2m water)
- 207g
- 6.8" Carta 265 dpi
- 129 x 172 x 8.8 mm
- 8GB storage
- backlight that switches to orange at night-time
Otherwise similar to the Glo HD. Retail price around 180$CAD.
Clara HD
See the guide I wrote for hacking on this device, similar to the above two devices.
Onyx
Onyx make all sorts of (e-ink) tablets, from big to small, mostly running Android. They publish some of their source on GitHub, mostly as a "GPL-compliant dump mode", but it's still better than nothing. The also have a neat community forum. They are based in China so products will ship from there.
Update: they seem to actually have significant GPL-compliance issues, from what I've read on hacker news.
Onyx Boox Max 2
The Onyx Boox Max 2 is an awesome creature:
- 325 × 237 × 7,5 mm
- 550g
- Android 6.0 (?!)
- HDMI input (!!)
- 13.3" display (great for PDFs)
- "low-latency" (as far as e-ink goes) makes it acceptable for typing with an external keyboard
- 32GB storage
- 2GB RAM
- 1.6GHz ARM, 4-core
- two sensors (capacitive multi-touch for fingers + wacom for pen)
- Wifi 2.4GHz, Bluetooth
- 4100mAh battery
- includes cover case, stylus
- 750$USD, now 700USD
Downsides:
- so expensive! 1040$CAD when last checked (2018-09-03) - update: new version now 750$USD
- very big - 13" is almost as large as a regular sheet of paper and larger than most tablets
- no backlight?
Update: the Onyx Boox Max 2 Pro just came out with an update on the e-ink technology (Mobius) and a more powerful processor. 850$USD
Another update: there's also the Max 3 now at 860$USD.
Onyx Boox Note Pro
The Onyx Boox Note Pro is slightly more reasonable:
- 249.5×178.8×6.8mm
- 390g
- 10.3” display with flush bezel
- Mobius carta eink, 1872x1404 (300 dpi) 16 gray scale
- back/forward buttons
- Dual touch, Wacom
- Android 6.0 (?!)
- Cortex-A17 1.6GHz
- 64GB storage
- 4GB ram
- Front-light with adjustable temperature
- Wifi, Bluetooth
- USB-C with MTP support
- PDF, EPUB , TXT, DJVU, HTML, RTF, FB2, DOC, MOBI, CHM, PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, WAV, MP3
- 600$USD
Downsides:
- Android 6
- Kind of janky Android version: had to hack around to get f-droid installed and the "settings" display is non-standard. but i could get into "developer mode" at least...
- Some compatibility problems with the annotation system
- Difficulties syncing with linux at times, MTP compatibility problems?
- Shitty reseller in Canada but buying from boox.com seems fine so far
- No external sd card
I ended up buying two of those (one for a teacher and one for me! ;), so I guess that means I'm happy with it. My biggest gripe about it is the old Android release and weird OS, but the reader is in generally excellent.
Onyx Mira
Not an e-reader, but a monitor, similar to the Dasungs:
https://shop.boox.com/products/mira
In depth review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBfWkxOfUfQ
reMarkable
The reMarkable seems promising:
- "paper feel"
- launched by a member of the KDE community
- 10" display (177 x 256 x 6.7mm / 6.9 x 10.1 x .26 inches)
- 1872x1404 resolution (226 DPI)
- 8GB storage
- 512MB ram
- 1GHz ARM A9
- wifi
- includes stylus
- 3000mAh battery
- FCC teardown
- 500$USD
Downsides:
- based on yet another custom Linux distribution called "Codex, a custom Linux-based OS optimized for low-latency e-paper" - which means it will be (needlessly) difficult to write extensions to it
- software has very negative reviews - highlights don't follow reflows, generally doesn't seem ready
- requires a custom pointer to draw, although it seems there are compatible pointers, this FAQ seems to say they might damage the screen - how fast do those wear out anyways?
- only ePUB and PDF support
- no backlight?
- can it still be used without the "remarkable cloud" stuff?
- battery life may be shorter than expected
- disastrous review: no metadata display, bad transfer experience, no in-book search, no table of contents, poor ePUB support (everything is plain text, no footnotes), fragile pen, no landscape mode
- there's a desktop app but support for Linux was dropped in 2018
There's a library to write applications for it (here's also an development tutorial) which is a good sign, but then why write applications when you can run Android on other readers?
Some notes from a friend:
- UI is closed source and system is not based on Android
- provides SSH access and books can be uploaded with curl
- buttons don't feel very solid, the pen looks cheap and fiddly and the body colors look strange
- writing experience feels superior to other devices
- zooming in documents makes notes shift to random places
See also this list of reMarkable resources.
Update: the reMarkable has a new version that looks really impressive, according to this Techcrunch review:
- lower latency (40->20ms)
- much thinner and lighter
- better battery life
- saves articles from the web (but with a custom chromium plugin, no firefox)
- marker now has an eraser
- cheaper (400$ instead of 700$)
Sony
PRS-T2
The Sony PRS-T2) was my first e-ink book reader. It died in a 1.5m free-fall after a ski trip by -20°C. Those are extreme conditions and I considered it served me well. The device actually still works, but the display (or more precisely the "substrate") is cracked which means the display does not work anymore and "repairing it would [not] be a cost-effective thing to try to do".
- 6" display (173 × 110 × 9.1 mm, effectively 115.4 × 88.2 mm / 4.54 × 3.47 in, 600 × 800 pixels, 16-level grayscale Pearl display)
- 2GB storage + 32GB expansion with external sdcard
- micro-USB charging port with data transfer
- ePUB, PDF, TXT, JPG, PNG support
- Wifi, basic web browser
- physical buttons for back/forward, return, menu and home, very useful in the cold
- 164g
Downsides:
- proprietary platform, hard to jailbreak
- no backlight
DPTS1
The DPTS1 is a fantastic device and was the first to introduce "real paper sizes" to e-ink displays. The DPTS1 itself is discontinued and has been replaced by the DPT-RP1/DPT-CP1 (10.3", 13.3").
- 10.3" / 13.3" display
- 240g / 349g
- 16GB storage
- Wifi 2.4/5GHz, Bluetooth
- very low latency in my tests (DPTS1)
- allows annotations on PDFs
- 1650 x 2200 dots for DPT-RP1, 1404 x 1872 for DPT-CP1
- 1270mAh battery
- includes stylus
- micro-USB port
Downsides:
- only supports PDFs!
- expensive: 700$USD
- hardware and software specs not public: DPTS1 supposedly had 1GB RAM and used a i.MX508 SOC with a ARM Cortex-A8 CPU 1GHz
- no backlight?
Freewrite
Le freewrite pourrait être une façon intéressante de me forcer à écrire. Amener seulement ça dans une chalet dans le bois pour une semaine. Mais ça coûte vraiment cher, probablement à cause de l'écran "E ink" (550$USD).
C'est aussi une machine beaucoup plus restreinte (délibérément) qu'une tablette générique.
Dasung
Dasung Tech make kind of weird devices. Their first device was a 13.3" e-ink monitor that only supported display and touch input, over HDMI, and that apparently works in Linux.
They also make a weird not-ereader that is a 7.8" e-ink screen that's designed to be a "phone monitor" but that also runs Android (6!) and can act as a standalone e-reader.
Supernote
https://supernote.com/
interesting devices, "paperlike", no backlight, handwriting recognition, mark/review system, PDF annotations, wacom pen, dropbox/drive backups, screencast support, USB transfer, no backlight. (.xps) formats".
10.3" device replacement "in development", for now 7.3" device available (Supernote Nomad) for 300$USD:
- 191.85 mm x 139.2 mm x 6.8 mm
- 266g
- 7.8" display, 300 PPI, 1404 × 1872
- 4GB RAM
- 32GB storage
- MicroSD card support
- CPU: RK3566 Quad-Core 1.8 GHz
- battery: 2700 mAh
- Android 11
- USB-C 2.0, support Charger/Earphone/OTG
- Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz + 5 GHz, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
- Bluetooth 5.0
- Note (.note), PDF, EPUB, Word, Text (.txt), PNG, JPG, WebP, CBZ, FB2 and XPS, and integrate with Kindle app which supports MOBI and other formats
- pen is an extra 60-90$USD depending on model
- 50-70$ extra for case
Tablets
Tablets are basically like ebook-readers, except they use a normal, backlit color display which uses more power and is less readable in direct sunlight. It's also not good for your eyes and your sleep, but those are generally cheaper and more powerful than ebook readers because the technology is more common.
2024 update
Right now, I am considering a new tablet since I bricked the Samsung (!). My main concern with that tablet was that it was stuck in Samsung's crap Android OS, and updates were locked behind a login wall. It was also annoying not to be able to install my own firmware or at least clean up the spyware.
Besides, now I'm considering perhaps using a normal Linux distro as a base for a tablet, now that Organic Maps is available in Flatpak... (My biggest blocker was pretty much missing OSMand, but OM is a good replacement.)
I wrote a spec on reddit, and it looks like the intersection of "OLED" and "mainline linux" is pretty much impossible except perhaps the ASUS T3300 although it's not clear if that runs mainline or not. According to this thread, Ubuntu works except for the camera, and ChromeOS works except the camera and fingerprint reader. Similar report from Arch Linux. Pen requires charging unfortunately, so probably not great.
Alternatively, I've been told Samsung is not that bad and perhaps it's worth giving them a try again, with the understanding it will never be flashed with a proper OS...
Why can't we have nice things?
Star Labs
https://ca.starlabs.systems/pages/starlite
Linux tablet, fanless, 3k display, attached magnetic keyboard, micro HDMI, 2x USB-C, micro SD, headphone jack, secure boot, LVFS, coreboot, 512GB - 2TB SSD, 16GB DDR5, 2x 2k camera, 12h battery life, ubuntu supported out of the box, 600-900$, not yet available.
pollo called it "underpowered"
Minisforum
https://www.minisforum.com/page/v3/
touch screen is not wacom, so less reliable, otherwise nice tech, high-end AMD CPU, can be used as an external monitor.
Sony
Sony has a Xperia Z2 tablet that was recommended on the #tech
channel. Apparently, it "runs mainline" (thanks to postmarketOS),
although that's without cameras or sound) and there are builds
for Sony tablets on LineageOS (LOS).
- 10.1" display
- water/dust proof (IP55 / IP58, which are actually quite different)
- 3GB RAM
- 16GB storage, expandable to 128GB with micro SD card
- Android 6
- 2.3 GHz quad-core (Qualcomm snapdragon)
- 8MP camera
- Wifi dual-band, BT 4, NFC, Miracast, 4G LTE
- 172mm x 266mm x 6.4 mm
- 439g
- Non-removable 6000 mAh battery
- GSMArena specs
The Z2 doesn't seem to be on sale anymore (nothing on BestBuy or Amazon) but the next generation is the Z4 which is also supported by LOS. The Z4 has better dust protection (IP65 instead of IP55), is lighter (389g), a better screen and processor.
But even the newer Sony machines are seemingly hard to find in Canada: nothing at Monoprice, BestBuy, Canada Computers, and Amazon has weird stuff at 2000+$.
Samsung
The Galaxy tab S2 (LOS page for 8.0 and 9.7") were recommended on Reddit as "pretty much the only recent tablet that's also capable of running official LOS":
- 8" or 9.6" display 1536x2048 (320/264 PPI) HD super AMOLED
- 1.4/1.8GHz snapdragon quad-core
- 3GB RAM
- 32/64GB storage, expandable to 256GB with microSD
- Accelerometer, Compass, Fingerprint reader, GPS, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor
- 8MP, no flash
- non-removable 4000 mAh battery
- 198.6mm (h), 134.8mm (w), 5.6mm (d) / 237.3mm (h), 169mm (w), 5.6mm (d)
- 265g / 389g
- GSMArena specs (8.0), 9.7
Bestbuy: 380$ for 32GB S2.
Much cheaper alternatives are available as well, like the Galaxy Tab E 9.7" (LOS page) at 200$:
- 9.6" display, 800x1280 (157 PPI) TFT
- 1.4GHz quad-core Snapdragon
- 1.5GB RAM
- 16GB storage, expandable to 256GB with microSD
- Wifi dual-band, BT 4, GPS, GLONASS, USB OTG, Accelerometer, Compass
- 5MP camera, no flash
- 241.9 mm x 149.5 mm x 8.5 mm
- 490g
- removable 7300 mAh battery
- GSMArena specs (9.7") (there's also a 8.0" version, apparently)
Update: The S2 is obviously not on sale new anymore (2020). But the S5e is on sale (~500-600$CAD at Bestbuy, and it's also one of very few tablets supported by LOS (gsmarena):
- 10.5" display, 1600 x 2560 pixels 16:10 288ppi Super AMOLED
- Qualcomm Snapdragon Octa-core 2x2.0 GHz + 6x1.7 GHz
- 4GB RAM
- 64-128GB builtin, expandable to 512GB
- camera; f/2.0, 26mm, 1/3.4", 1.0µm, AF, no flash, 2160p@30fps video
- front camera: 8 MP, f/2.0, 26mm, 1/4", 1.12µm, 1080p@30fps
- no headphone jack
- Wifi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2.4G+5GHz; VHT80 MU-MIMO, BT 5 A2DP, LE, GPS
- USB-C magnetic
- 7040 mAh (13h) non-removable, fast-charging (18W)
- Accelerometer; Fingerprint Sensor; Gyro Sensor; Geomagnetic Sensor; Hall Sensor; RGB Light Sensor
- 245 x 160 x 5.5 mm
- 400g
See gts4lvwifi for notes.
Asus
Another player in the tablet market is Asus. The only one supported by LOS is the ZenPad 8.0:
- 8" display, 1280x800 Gorilla glass
- MediaTek MT8163 Quad-Core
- 1 or 2GB RAM
- 8 or 16GB storage, up to 128GB microSD
- Wifi dual-band, BT 4, Miracast
- 5MP camera
- accelerometer, compass, GPS
- 208.8 x 122.9 x 8.4 mm / 8.22 x 4.84 x 0.33 inch
- 349g / 0.77lbs
- Android 6.0
- non-removable 4000 mAh battery
- GSMArena specs
Bestbuy: 200$ for 16GB, 250$ for 32GB.
Definitely on the cheaper end of the market.
iPad 4
Donated by family. Specifications:
- 9.7" retina display (2048x1536 / 264 dpi)
- 1.4 GHz
- 1GB RAM
- 32GB storage (16-128GB)
- 241.2 x 185.7 x 9.4 mm
- 652g
- "lightning" connector
- 5 megapixel camera
- dual-band wifi, bluetooth 4
- ~10h battery
- discontinued 2014, but still supported by Apple (10.3.3 update recently, but not iOS 11 which is required for many apps, e.g. Jitsi or Whereby)
Downsides:
- Apple walled garden
- heavy
Originally priced at 500-700$USD, now at around 250-350$USD.
Lenovo
Lenovo made a weird mix between a tablet, a laptop and a e-reader that we should mention her. The Verge has a good review of the thing called the Yoga Book C930: it's basically a folding tablet/laptop mix that has a dual e-ink and normal display, where the e-ink display doubles as a keyboard.
Insane.
Pine64
Those guys known for their cheap laptop are making a cheap tablet as well, running Ubuntu.
Update: this is in pre-order now, at 100$ a pop (plus 20$ for the magnetic keyboard), it looks real promising.
Jingpad A1
https://en.jingos.com/jingpad-a1/
Microsoft
I feel really odd suggesting people buy anything from Microsoft, but there you have it, some fellow Debian Developer did, so I can't help but adding it to the pile:
https://changelog.complete.org/archives/10396-i-finally-found-a-solid-debian-tablet-the-surface-go-2
Pretty bad iFixit score (3/10):
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Surface_Go_2
Google made a tablet. I think it's bad, see this blog post.
Phones
When a tablet goes below 9", it's not a tablet anymore. See phone instead. Some people wish they had those without a baseband, but unfortunately that's not possible right now.
A word on sizes
As usual, sizes can be confusing. Here are a few examples of diagonal sizes:
- 14.3": A4 paper
- 13.9": US letter paper
- 13.3": Onyx Boox Max, Sony DPTS1, DPT-CP1, Dasung e-ink monitor
- 12.9": iPad Pro
- 10.3": Onyx Boox Note, Sony DPT-RP1, reMarkable
- 10.1": Galaxy Tab 10.1
- 9.7": original iPad (Steve Jobs reportedly said that "10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps")
- 8": Galaxy Tab 8
- 7.9": iPad Mini series
- 7.8": Dasung not-ereader
- 7": Kindle Fire, original Samsung Galaxy Tab, Google Nexus 7), Nook Tablet
- 6.8": Kobo Aura
- 6": Kobo Glo HD, and most e-readers. lower range for tablet sizes, according to Wikipedia, below which it should probably be called a Phablet or a phone
Most recent Samsung tablets are either 7" or 10" in diagonal, but they basically made so many sizes we can't keep track anymore. Apple iPads are either 10" or 12".
References
- GSMArena has a good directory and complete specs for many (but not all) tablets (and no e-readers)
- Wikipedia has a pretty exhaustive table of e-readers' specifications
- Ewritable has good reviews and comparison charts of e-readers