I’ve gotten great value out of the several android tablets I’ve had. They’re relatively reasonably priced, have long battery life, are lightweight and pretty capable.

They get used for reading technical books, checking things on the web and social media and remoting into my bigger systems if I’m elsewhere in the house.

My most recent tablet is a google pixel-c that I bought shortly after they came out. It lacks a few features I would have preferred but overall with decent quality hardware and 64 GB of storage it has served me well.

It is still doing its job admirably, but I was curious to see what my options would look like if it ran out of steam. The result was a bit disheartening as it appears that android tablets are a dying breed. A relatively quick survey showed that most of the newer devices out there are either convertible PC type machines or incredibly low quality android tablets. Google appears to have discontinued the pixel-c without a successor device.

I’ve looked at the Microsoft surface line at times as a device that might be a tablet and laptop replacement. They’re rather expensive for configurations that would work as a laptop replacement. I’ve also been hearing some feedback from people that suggests there are quality problems with the devices…a major issue for such a premium priced machine.

I think I’m going to have to start looking around. It appears that I’ll have some work to do when I need a new tablet if I’m going to find something that meets my needs.  Currently I’m guessing that some sort of PC-like tablet would be the choice. It does appear that folks like Samsung are now making more and newer devices in that space.