<div dir="ltr">I have the Dell Venue Pro also. In fact I have two of them and an HP Stream 7. There are lots of Windows tablets on ebay. The cheapest I have seen is the toshiba encore series ~30USD. But they are almost identical to the Venue Pro<div>Debian runs very very well on them. But it was a pain to get the wifi recognized. </div><div>The problem wasn't so much getting it to work, but more of "ok now what? what can I do with this?"</div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 11:06 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <<a href="mailto:talk@gtalug.org">talk@gtalug.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">| From: Ansar Mohammed via talk <<a href="mailto:talk@gtalug.org" target="_blank">talk@gtalug.org</a>><br>
<br>
| Depending on what you want to achieve,<br>
<br>
Yes!<br>
<br>
| IMHO you can get a used HP 10 inch<br>
| tablet on eBay for $50 running Windows and flatten it with Debian.<br>
| <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/324124770651" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ebay.com/itm/324124770651</a><br>
| Windows on 7-10 inch tablets are all over ebay.<br>
<br>
Not a terrible idea, but there are problems with this particular<br>
example:<br>
<br>
- ebay.COM:<br>
US$50, not C$50<br>
unknown (to me) problems and expense getting it across the border<br>
unlikely to have a useful warranty (used, across border)<br>
<br>
- specs: <a href="https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04553375" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04553375</a><br>
<br>
- 1280x800 resolution<br>
<br>
- poor SoC<br>
<a href="https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/80274/intel-atom-processor-z3735f-2m-cache-up-to-1-83-ghz.html" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/80274/intel-atom-processor-z3735f-2m-cache-up-to-1-83-ghz.html</a><br>
SoC launched 7 years ago<br>
intentionally crippled on launch<br>
Intel's goal: compete against ARM but don't cannibalize x86<br>
Microsoft's goal: compete against Android/iOS but don't<br>
cannibalize existing Windows market.<br>
surely 32-bit UEFI even though CPU can do x86-64.<br>
<br>
- only one USB socket and that is only USB 2<br>
<br>
Linux support is mixed for this kind of tablet (I have a Dell Venue 8<br>
Pro of this generation). Typically the SoC has very odd bits. Like:<br>
audio is hooked up in a non-standard and non-obvious way. Like: UEFI<br>
cannot access SD card (so you cannot boot from it). I was defeated<br>
when I tried to put linux on it back in the day. I think that Linux<br>
mostly works these days (I tried booting the Venue 8 off a live Fedora<br>
stick a few months ago).<br>
<br>
There was a tremendous blossoming of Windows tablets then<br>
(Win 8.1 era). Evolution could have improved them but instead it<br>
killed them off (Intel and Microsoft threw in the towel). Windows<br>
tablets now are expensive and inferior. This is what currently passes<br>
as a good deal (yuck):<br>
<a href="https://forums.redflagdeals.com/best-buy-microsoft-surface-laptop-go-12-4-i5-1035g1-4-64-emmc-499-99-2520226/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://forums.redflagdeals.com/best-buy-microsoft-surface-laptop-go-12-4-i5-1035g1-4-64-emmc-499-99-2520226/</a><br>
<br>
Currently, there are often reasonable deals on reasonable laptops with<br>
touch. But they start at over $400 new. Ones that I've considered<br>
start at about $700 on sale.<br>
<br>
The Lenovo is not much more expensive than the HP (when you factor in<br>
cross-border friction and used versus new) and has usefully better<br>
capabilities. But the HP can probably run Linux natively rather than<br>
in a container.<br>
<br>
- USB 3.x with extras vs USB 2.0 (OTG?)<br>
- 4G RAM vs 2G<br>
- 64G eMMC vs 32G eMMC<br>
- 1920x1200 vs 1280x800 resolution<br>
- warranty support vs no support<br>
<br>
If you want a good tablet, and don't need Linux, it is hard to argue<br>
against iPads. Android tablets only seem to win when you consider price<br>
(which I do) or tinkerability.<br>
<br>
ChromeOS tablets are probably clunkier than Android tablets but they<br>
can run Android apps and they get support for many more years. Linux<br>
under ChromeOS is supported by Google but Linux under Android is not.<br>
<br>
Windows Subsystem for Linux is a potentially interesting thing on<br>
tablets. It will not run on 32-bit Windows, and so it won't run on<br>
this HP. Actually, the HP hardware is too limited to be officially<br>
supported by current Window 10, but I think it works. 32G of "disk"<br>
is a nightmare when running Windows Update.<br>
---<br>
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</blockquote></div>