Small quality Android tablets?

[j26]

My daughter's taken my iPad Mini 6 for college to take notes, so I'm in need of a replacement. Before I get another one, is there a decent quality Android tablet that has about the same footprint out there? I don't want a large tablet, but decent power and pen support are a must.

I know it's niche, but I love the size of the iPad Mini, and importantly, it fits neatly in a hip bag for taking to work on a motorbike. I'm tired of running 3 operating systems that grumble when you try to make them play nice, so some element of consolidation would be great - either 2 Apple and one Android, or 2 Android and one Windows would make life a bit easier.

The rest of my line up is a Samsung S22 Ultra (I'm staying with Android phones) and a Windows desktop, although I may consider changing that up for a Mac Mini in the future.

 

[DaveOZ]

Would you consider trading your phone for a Fold 5? It's almost the size of the iPad mini and much more convenient.

 

[j26]

I had thought of that, but I like the pen - I tend to handwrite notes. Does the fold work well with a pen?

 

[DaveOZ]

The Fold is excellent with the pen. I'm an architect and I use the pen for notes, marking up PDFs and drawing in Concepts. I love it. Try one at a shop if you can.

 

[j26]

Will do, thanks.

 

[ozaz]

@j26 did you decide to go for the Fold?

If not, you might want to consider Lenovo Legion Y700. It's the only Android tablet I can think of that's powerful, small ( < 9"), and has stylus support.

Alternatively, if you want to try something a bit different, there are some Android tablets with e-ink screens that have stylus support and come in under 9". Boox, for example, sell a few such tablets. You would have to sacrifice power and video viewing experience, but they may be better for reading and note taking.

 

[j26]

The Y700 looks interesting, thanks, but availability in Ireland is the problem. The fold is too much. I'd be replacing a fully adequate S22 Ultra, which seems pointless since we t does everything I need in a phone. I also like having 2 screens available at times (read from one, write on the other etc)

It looks like I'll have to go with the iPad Mini. That's no big sacrifice as it is a great device. However, it's a shame Samsung doesn't do a S9 Mini - I'd be very interested in that.

 

[ozaz]

The Y700 looks interesting, thanks, but availability in Ireland is the problem

It's available for purchase through places like AliExpress. It would be from China but I've read its easy to get rid of any local Chinese apps and install Google stuff. It's a shame they don't give it an official global release as I think it would do well.

 

[Oohara]

This is currently my holy grail as well. I have an iPhone 12 and and iPad Pro 12.9 which serve me very well. But I'd love to have a small tablet for everything I used to use large phones for (I had to stop using those because of a wrist issue). It would also generally be a perfect size device for stuff on the go, note taking, browsing and media consumption while commuting, gaming. Caveat: it needs to have a top quality display, preferably OLED. Meaning the current iPad mini is out. Oh and I'd love for it to have Android to play around with.

I'm really disappointed that no one cares about this format anymore. I guess it's just huge phone syndrome. Man do I miss the glory days of my trusty old Galaxy Tab S 8.4.

Bonus upvote for Flat Eric.

 

[j26]

Bonus upvote for Flat Eric.

My wife gave him to me 25 years ago, and my daughter appropriated him as her teddy. He's currently living in with my daughter in Wales in college, but I still get occasional visitation rights...

 

[Oohara]

My wife gave him to me 25 years ago, and my daughter appropriated him as her teddy. He's currently living in with my daughter in Wales in college, but I still get occasional visitation rights...

Oh that's awesome, sounds practically like a family member! He's irresistible. I never had the actual plush version but man was I hooked on those Levi's ads back in the day. I used to have them as little .mov files that I watched over and over on my graphite iMac.

 

[TurboJobo]

Only premium small tablet I can think of is either the 2022 or 2023 Lenovo Y700!
Perfect lil champion.
If I find a cheap one will pick one up!