The tablet

So how is it?

If you remember I bought a Samsung S9 as a replacement for my travel laptop a Microsoft Surface Go (it won't upgrade to windows 11). As I said before I was going to buy the latest version of the Surface Go but Microsoft made that business only. OK I didn't need to upgrade yet but the Surface is a little slow these days

I liked the Surface Go it is small fits in a very small bag so making it ideal for travel including flying and the workflow is identical to my main laptop, I have tried travelling and just using the phone but even a 6.7 inch screen feels small and is awkward for blogging/editing photos. I mostly travel on my own so on holiday I often sit in the bar of the pub/hotel and edit photos. In Guernsey I could be found in the bar with a pint whilst editing. 

I could have bought an Ipad  but I have no other apple devices and my phone is android so I decided an android tablet it had to be and a Samsung was my best choice. Apple seems a pretty closed eco system, even if it is excellent. It was potential  compatibility issues that made me go Samsung, It wasn't until Sunday that I found out Apple won't allow you to transfer photos by bluetooth for instance! I tried it on a friends Ipad.

The Samsung is a brilliant device to view content. The screen is lovely. From a web surfacing perspective it is  good. The screen ratio is not ideal though and is more optimised for video. 

On a laptop I  use adobe photoshop elements to edit photos and faststone to bulk reduce. Neither is available for android (well Elements is in Beta). I have used Snapseed on my phone for ages so I am using that. It seems to do what I need and I am not a big editor. I haven't used it for wildlife pics yet and I edit them more. I downloaded 2 apps to reduce photos and the one I have kept is the free version of Photo & Picture Resizer. It wasn't the best BUT the other renamed files and this doesn't. It wasn't quite as slick but it does what I need it to do. Snapseed reduces photo but there is no bulk option, which is essential when you add as many photos as I do ;)

I need to use it more for editing and blogging though. At the moment I am still getting used to a different workflow. 

Processing speed? Well it is MUCH faster than the surface go! I am sure if you use some heavy duty things like excel spreadsheets etc it may have issues but  for me more than faster enough. 

The keyboard is fine. Obviously not as good as a normal laptop keyboard but pretty good. 

Could it replace my main laptop? Interesting. My dell laptop has had the odd issue and I have yet to upgrade to windows 11. When Windows 10 goes out of support it will be over 5 years old and that might be time to upgrade! 

I think the answer is no to the S9. An 11 inch screen is not quite big enough. When I first looked at the S9 I saw it next to the S9+ (12.4 inch screen) and S9 Ultra (14.6 inches) and it seemed tiny! My laptop is 13 inches which I find fine.  Amusingly after using the tablet my phones 6.7 inch screen seems small. Maybe at the end of the 2025 I'll decide a bigger tablet is the way to go. Who knows. It will be interesting to see if I miss windows. I need to use the tablet more to get used to it to see what, if anything, I miss. I ought to add that these days I am not a heavy duty user. When I was at work I'd have said android was no where near flexible enough but now I watch content, surface the web and use social media apps and send emails so it may work.

That being said the S9 seems to be the travel device I needed. Perfect ? No. But it works for what I need.