I’m sure you’re not going to like this but … 

If you value your time, an iPad would be perfect. It runs a version of Unix under the hood, although it’s generally inaccessible. The apps available for use with stylii are pretty amazing.

Get a used one that takes the first version of Pencil. You can also use 3rd-party stylii as well.

Other than that, I’d say Samsung has been supporting a stylus in their Note line of phones for nearly a decade and they’re far more experienced with that sort of technology than Dell IMHO. But that’s mostly on Android.

There was a company that made awesome pen software for Windows, but Microsoft bought them and I could never tell if they just hid them in a closet or revised their stuff to the point where it’s unrecognizable. (Whenever I hear of MS buying something, I figure it’s just a competitor they want to get out of the way and it won’t be around much longer.)

As far as “how much” to get … I keep most of my machines for several years, so when I get a new one, I like to max it out because the tech curve moves fast.

The upside to that is you can get a 2-yo model with decent quantities of transistors for pretty decent discounts. Probably great to use as martyrs for those drop tests.

Remember when Bill Gates said somethign like, “Nobody will ever need more than 640k of RAM”? You sure wouldn’t get much out of that today, eh? :)

-David Schwartz

On Oct 11, 2021, at 10:06 PM, der.hans via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

moin moin,

I picked up an Acer 2 in 1 with touchpad for kid. We really needed to
finally replace the laptop that had been gravity tested a few times at the
beginning of the pandemic.

First thing kidling wanted was to install Krita ( much disappointment that
it wasn't on there by default ). Many hours have now been spent
discovering how to use a stylus.

My wife is an analog artist, but likes what she's been seeing, so now I
need two devices that can use stylii.

I had picked up the Acer from Woot and they immediately ran some Samsungs
for less money. The Acer requires a little bit of a bios dance to get
running with debian ( and a non-free ethernet driver ), but has otherwise
been great and much better than the dell we're replacing.

A similarly priced Samsung is similar for features, but I don't really
compare hardware specs anymore since I don't often buy hardware.

Acer:
* 10th Gen Intel Core i5-1035G4
* 8GB LPDDR4
* 256GB NVMe

Samsung:
* 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8565U
* 16GB
* 512GB SSD

There's also a Samsung for $200 less

10th Generation Quad-Core i7-10510U 12GB DDR4 SDRAM
512GB SSD
no USB C :(

I like the idea of more RAM, but the family doesn't really need that. They
don't run containers and databases and test deployments on laptops. Seems
a waste to me :).

They need pretty decent hardware ( we should have far less drop-testing as
that lesson has been learned ), with a decent touchscreen that will work
for a while. They do need computers they draw on rather than tablets they
compute on. They will be running debian ( or derivative if we must ).

Links:

https://computers.woot.com/offers/acer-spin-5-convertible-laptop-3?ref=w_cnt_wp_3_6

https://computers.woot.com/offers/samsung-notebook-9-pro13-3-i7-2-in-1z?ref=w_cnt_wp_5_8

https://computers.woot.com/offers/samsung-galaxy-book-flip-fold-laptop?ref=w_cnt_wp_5_3

Also, an opportunity to podcast as root:

https://computers.woot.com/offers/sudotack-usb-streaming-podcast-pc-microphone-1?ref=w_cnt_wp_3_1

ciao,

der.hans
--
#  https://www.LuftHans.com   https://www.PhxLinux.org
#  "Civilisation is a race between education and catastrophe" -- H.G. Wells

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