All iPads Are you tempted by other tablets?

[Sensamic]

I've been thinking about buying a Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, which supposedly will be announced next month. It could be a sort of replacement for the iPad Pro 13, which I want to buy but is way expensive.

For example, with discounts, I could buy the base 256GB 5G Tab S10 Ultra + official keyboard (comes bundled with the S Pen) + 512GB MicroSD for almost 1.000€ less than the equivalent iPad Pro 1TB 5G + Apple pencil + MK.

The problem is app support, as always, which is not ideal on Android tablets. Anyone tempted by other brands? Maybe because they offer good alternatives for way way less money? The long term support is still better with Apple, but Samsung does offer 7 years of OS updates.

 

[aperfectcircle]

Nope. I don’t like Android (and dislike Google even more) for a start, and the ecosystem integration across my Apple world is something I wouldn’t want to lose. I use my iPad a lot for work, as a secondary device, and everything is synced to iCloud Drive. If I was to consider a non-iPad tablet, it would be in addition to rather than replacing my iPad. I may consider a mid-tier Android tablet for my daughter at some stage but will probably end up getting an iPad mini (used as it will no doubt get damaged by small hands!).

 

[maflynn]

Google has yet to really find traction in the OS, apps or a marketing approach that highlights any elements of an android tablet's superior aspects.

I think Apple has not rested on its laurels and continues to improve both the hardware and software of the iPad to the point that the most of the tablet buying consumers don't even consider anything other then Apple.

 

[TechRunner]

When my phone was an Android I occasionally thought about jumping to an Android tablet, but now that I have an iPhone I wouldn't consider it as my desired ecosystem is complete.

 

[edubfromktown]

Google has yet to really find traction in the OS, apps or a marketing approach that highlights any elements of an android tablet's superior aspects.

I think Apple has not rested on its laurels and continues to improve both the hardware and software of the iPad to the point that the most of the tablet buying consumers don't even consider anything other then Apple.

Agree.

Since iPad 2 days Apple has dominated the tablet market and continues to do so now.

I won an original iPad just before the 2 was released and sold it to buy a deuce on the 1st day of release.

Also purchased a discounted Google tablet via the developer program which lasted a few weeks and then sold due to its lackluster performance and limited features.

 

[Basic75]

Are you tempted by other tablets?

No.

 

[Just_Kevin]

Not even close. I would go back to an Android phone before going back to an Android tablet over the iPad.

 

[JemTheWire]

Nope, too far into the Apple eco system - which just works [for me anyway!]

 

[Ludatyk]

You are bringing up this topic in a Apple-centric forum… most likely dominated by iPad users, so you are going to get a iPad favored point of view.

I suggest trying it out for yourself… check out reviews of Galaxy Tabs to get an understanding of the device, but you have a Samsung phone. So, you have a sense of what you get out of the Galaxy Experience… personally, I think app support is exaggerated. There’s no doubt that there are more optimized tablet apps on the iPad.

But you will find that most of the popular apps… have a tablet optimized presence on Android. And Google is making an effort to building a system around apps that support various display sizes. Especially with rumors that Android and ChromeOS is merging.

 

[Viridian5]

I am, because of the aspect ratio and what that does for media. But I’m not going to leave the ecosystem. I’ll probably get an M4 Pro once the M5 comes out.

 

[klasma]

I use both. There are some things I prefer on the Samsung, and other things I prefer on the iPad. You’ll have to try and see for yourself.

For a 13” tablet, there’s also the iPad Air. You didn’t say why you’re not considering it.

 

[okkibs]

You are bringing up this topic in a Apple-centric forum

Yet the fact remains there is no tablet that can match my 1TB/16GiB nano texture M4 iPad Pro. Unless the competition can match the flagship hardware I certainly don't see why I would want to downgrade to worse hardware. Samsung has the most flagship tablets when it comes to Android yet from 9" to 11" there is not a single tablet they offer with 1TB and 16GiB of memory and they all run the slow Samsung Exynos chips. No 1000 nits OLED. They do offer microSD card slots though which is something iPads obviously lack.

And looking at the software I am not all that interested either since Android does not have a tablet UI that can match iPadOS and especially plugged in at my desk they don't have anything to match the desktop UI that iPadOS 26 brings. Since apps aren't forced to be optimized for tablets you might end up running smartphone optimized apps blown up on a bigger display. This can happen with a few iPad apps too though and the biggest issue is really just that I run Stage Manager both on Mac and iPad and value the window management.

And consider that I already own the iPad. To switch from the iPad to any Android tablet it would have to do more than merely match the iPad. It would have to offer me a better experience than what I already got. Likely a substantially better experience that makes the hassle of replacing the iPad worth it.

If there was a better tablet in 2024 I would have bought that instead of the iPad. I am not locked into the Apple ecosystem and don't use iCloud at all and in fact I would have prefered a foldable smartphone over buying a dedicated tablet. I ended up with the iPad because there simply wasn't a better option available. And there still isn't one.

For example, with discounts, I could buy the base 256GB 5G Tab S10 Ultra + official keyboard (comes bundled with the S Pen) + 512GB MicroSD for almost 1.000€ less than the equivalent iPad Pro 1TB 5G + Apple pencil + MK.

It doesn't match the iPad at all though. Brightness is considerably lower for example and limited to 600 nits. It has a slower mediatek SoC combined with less memory as well. And then you have a worse software experience on top of that. But for a grand worth of savings this might be a better deal for you if you don't need matching specs.

But if you want the same software experience as on the M4 iPad you could just get an older iPad Pro model on sale. The 13" miniLED iPad Pro either with M1 or M2 has similar specs as the Samsung.

 

[Sammael]

There are certainly other tablets that compete with, if not better the iPad as a stand alone device. But as it has been mentioned here several times, the ecosystem is where Apple truly shines. No one can compete with them in this aspect.

 

[baconcat_8964]

The only thing I'm tempted by is the Pixel Tablet's dock. I wish Apple would make something like that. I mean, all iPads now have smart connectors. Why not make a dock that can charge the tablet and double as a speaker at the same time?

 

[rui no onna]

I have an Android tablet that’s used for emulation and occasionally videos.

For general use though, I stick to iPads. I prefer the iPad aspect ratio (closer to A4 and letter-size AR) over the media-centric 16:9 or 16:10 of Android tablets. Also, I’m just more used to the apps on iOS. I use Chrome on my desktop but I often find browsing with Chrome for Android to be a chore.

 

[Ludatyk]

Yet the fact remains there is no tablet that can match my 1TB/16GiB nano texture M4 iPad Pro. Unless the competition can match the flagship hardware I certainly don't see why I would want to downgrade to worse hardware. Samsung has the most flagship tablets when it comes to Android yet from 9" to 11" there is not a single tablet they offer with 1TB and 16GiB of memory and they all run the slow Samsung Exynos chips. No 1000 nits OLED. They do offer microSD card slots though which is something iPads obviously lack.

And looking at the software I am not all that interested either since Android does not have a tablet UI that can match iPadOS and especially plugged in at my desk they don't have anything to match the desktop UI that iPadOS 26 brings. Since apps aren't forced to be optimized for tablets you might end up running smartphone optimized apps blown up on a bigger display. This can happen with a few iPad apps too though and the biggest issue is really just that I run Stage Manager both on Mac and iPad and value the window management.

And consider that I already own the iPad. To switch from the iPad to any Android tablet it would have to do more than merely match the iPad. It would have to offer me a better experience than what I already got. Likely a substantially better experience that makes the hassle of replacing the iPad worth it.

If there was a better tablet in 2024 I would have bought that instead of the iPad. I am not locked into the Apple ecosystem and don't use iCloud at all and in fact I would have prefered a foldable smartphone over buying a dedicated tablet. I ended up with the iPad because there simply wasn't a better option available. And there still isn't one.

I agree with you for the most part, but the Galaxy Tablet is a viable option to those who want something different to an iPad.

If anything, Samsung pushes Apple to improve on the iPad... if Samsung didn't compete in the premium sector there would be little reason for Apple to make the iPad Pro better. I'm a iPad user, but I wouldn't fault anyone for choosing Galaxy Tablet over an iPad. It has DeX, a nice multitasking experience, more ways to customize it.

And then there's the cost factor... some people are not willing to spend that much for a tablet just to be a consumption device.

 

[GioGiusi]

I have 4 different Android tablets on my desk right now (for development purposes) and 1 iPad. Android is an unmitigated disaster. It is an imitation OS. I would never use one of these things if not absolutely forced to for development reasons. They are garbage.

 

[GuruZac]

I had 3 iPad Pros, the last 2 were 12.9 M processors. Now that I have my iPad mini 7, there's no going back. It's the perfect tablet for me, and with Apple Pencil Pro support, best of all worlds. So short answer, no.

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

if they use a different aspect ratio than 16:10, yes

 

[foggygray]

The only Android tablet that tempted me into buying it was a Boox ereader/tablet but it’s really only for reader apps.

 

[Hajj.david]

I have tried many times over the years and always went back to iPad. Ignoring the ecosystem (since that's an obvious advantage) here is my experience:

Android Tablets
I used to work for Google so we were issued the Nexus tablets, and I personally owned a few including Microsofts foldable phone tablet thing.

The devices are... fine most have worse specs then iPad but some of the top ones are similar or even better in some aspects (bigger or better screens (before the latest OLED in the M4).

The software blows, hardly anything is optimized for tablets and most are blown up phone apps or 'tablet apps' with tons of wasted space that is used much better on iPad. Battery is worse in my experience and the performance is really poorly optimized. I never had a good experience with any android tablet, the closest one was Microsofts but again the core experience is janky and breaks randomly.

Windows Tablets
I owned several surfaces including the RT, Pro, and various iterations after. It's great because you can run full windows apps on them with minimal fuss, I actually liked the Windows 8 start menu for the tablet was nice and easy to use. The problem is Windows is extremely disjointed with a bunch of ancient cruff mixed in with modern sleek stuff. The UI scaling is and continues to be atriocus with some apps obeying it and other apps doing its own thing, so some elements are gigantic others are microscopic. Again it reminds me of Android where the experience is just NOT polished at all.

That being said if I had to choose a non-apple tablet it would continue to be the surface, I can even run android apps on them to a pretty good degree and I love the built in stand and ability to expand storage. I hate the Microsoft keyboard because it uses the rat fur material which gets so dirty and nasty but I do like the technology built into it (ability to use it disconnected from the surface, and its different attachment points)

Apple Tablets
the iPad is a phenomenal device for having a really solid and well thought out core experience. I find it to be ironically less stable and reliable then a Mac once you start doing Mac things like using an external display and multi tasking a bunch of apps it would regularly crash the whole windowing experience which is a huge disappointment. iOS 26 beta 6 so far seems to have fixed some of the poor experiences I had when using an external display. Apple's latest updates (namely the changes to Files (like adding it to the dock, 'Open with'), as well as adding Previews (finally) really make it a solid device for me since I use previews constantly for work. I use my iPad daily in addition to my Studio M4 for development, working with clients, demonstrating our app, reading the news while in the bathroom, etc.

tl;dr
No iPads are a solid 1st choice for me, if you twisted my arm I'd get a surface. Android is not competing at all in the tablet space as far as I am concerned. It's really a half thought that is poorly baked together. Even Google is giving up which doesn't bode well for the future of android on tablets: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...uits-on-making-its-own-android-tablets-again/

 

[Eric_WVGG]

E-ink tablets, absolutely.

I bought a Boox E-ink tablet that runs Android for a friend recently… honestly it was remarkable (no, not that tablet).

Marco (a pretty serious Apple guy) did a video review of a couple e-ink tablets, they're an entirely different vertical.

 

[Jumpthesnark]

Are you tempted by other tablets?​

Nope. My iPad works fine, and I don't feel the urge to buy every shiny new thing I see.

I have an Android phone as well as an iPhone, and I am much happier with Apple devices and the OS. The Android feels like an also-ran, so no reason to buy a tablet version.

 

[Hajj.david]

I have 4 different Android tablets on my desk right now (for development purposes) and 1 iPad. Android is an unmitigated disaster. It is an imitation OS. I would never use one of these things if not absolutely forced to for development reasons. They are garbage.

Exactly.

E-ink tablets, absolutely.

I bought a Boox E-ink tablet that runs Android for a friend recently… honestly it was remarkable (no, not that tablet).

Marco (a pretty serious Apple guy) did a video review of a couple e-ink tablets, they're an entirely different vertical.

I bought the reMarkable and while it was a great tablet for what it is I hated the fact that I had to pay monthly to sync it to the cloud. Ultimately the iPad with the pencil was good enough.

 

[Boyd01]

I'm not much of a "tablet person", bought a couple for my daughter's family, didn't get one myself until the 6th generation in 2018. It's still my only iPad, have used it for several things but it's mainly just for watching streaming video these days.

I also use it to test a GPS/mapping web app I'm developing and got an inexpensive rugged Android tablet for that as well. It has a rugged shell, huge battery, water and shock resistant with ip68 and other ratings. I also installed a Linux subsystem (termux)

This lets me run Apache and serve my web app locally for use on the tablet with no internet connection. It works surprisingly well, accessing localhost with Chrome. Performance is about the same as my real webserver on a cellular connection. Now, sometimes Apache just stops working and needs to be restarted, so it's not completely user-friendly, but it works well enough for my purposes.

This doesn't seem possible on an iPad. I played briefly with ish and some other apps but it was really slow and a bigger problem is that iOS and iPadOS don't seem to allow web servers to run in the background.

I wouldn't want to use Android for general, everyday stuff and don't care for the user interface. But there are some advantages for niche applications like mine. Also, from what I have seen, Android appears to treat tablets the same as phones. Many of the menus on my tablet refer to it as a "phone" and I assume it could be used just like one with a sim card. It's also nice to have a lot of different brands to choose from and specialized, rugged devices.

So... to answer the original question, I'm not tempted to replace my iPad with an Android tablet. But I did give in to the temptation to use it for more specialized, technical applications.