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Tag Archives: Tablets
Get Ready for the $395 Tablet That Makes iPad Look Overpriced
Large Android tablets have long occupied an awkward middle ground. They’re capable enough to replace a laptop for basic tasks, but the best ones tend to carry prices that push them out of reach for most people. Apple’s iPad Pro remains the benchmark, but it demands a premium few can justify. Smaller competitors have tried to close that gap, though few have done so convincingly at the high end.
The Moto Pad 70 Pro takes a different approach by packing a flagship-grade experience into a price most people can actually stomach. It’s a 13-inch tablet running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, and it comes with the Moto Pen Pro stylus already in the box. That last detail is worth pausing on, considering that rival devices often charge extra for that same privilege.
Designer: Motorola
The display is the first thing that wins you over, and rightly so. The 13-inch screen hits a 3.5K resolution, runs at 144Hz, and supports Dolby Vision with 12-bit color depth. At 800 nits in HBM mode, it handles most well-lit rooms with little trouble. For streaming, sketching, or just browsing through a long article, the panel holds up comfortably.
Performance is handled by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, which Motorola claims scores around 2.5 million on AnTuTu. In practical terms, that means the tablet can run games at 120FPS without breaking a sweat. It ships with Android 16 and is promised updates through Android 18, alongside security patches until 2030. Storage goes up to 256GB internally, with a microSD slot supporting cards up to 2TB.
The Moto Pen Pro is included in the box, which makes a bigger difference than it might seem. It connects to AI tools like Sketch to Image, which turns rough doodles into finished artwork, and AI Live Transcript, which converts spoken audio to text in real time. Smarter Reader, meanwhile, summarizes long documents on the fly. These features feel genuinely practical when the stylus is already in your hand.
Audio on a tablet this size can either be forgettable or genuinely useful, and the Moto Pad 70 Pro leans toward the latter. Four JBL speakers tuned with Dolby Atmos make the difference noticeable, especially during video calls, movie sessions, or when someone’s presenting a slide deck to a small group. It’s the kind of audio setup that makes you reach for external speakers far less often.
Battery life is anchored by a 10,200 mAh cell with 45W charging, though Motorola bundles a 68W adapter in the box. The tablet’s productivity credentials go further with a PC Mode that gives the interface a desktop feel, and Smart Connect for file sharing between devices. A snap-on keyboard is available separately, and a USB Type-C 3.2 port lets you hook it up to an external display.
The Moto Pad 70 Pro goes on sale July 4 in India, starting at ₹36,999, roughly $395, for the 8GB/128GB variant and ₹39,999, around $425, for the 8GB/256GB model. It has no LTE option, and the single Pantone Titan finish doesn’t leave much room for personalization. But at 6.2mm thin, weighing 589g, and with a bundled stylus already in the box, there’s a lot here for the price.
The post Get Ready for the $395 Tablet That Makes iPad Look Overpriced first appeared on Yanko Design.
Wacom MovinkPad Pro 14 Review: The $900 Sketchbook Designers Needed
PROS:
- Minimalist design streamlined for focused work on the go
- Paper-like experience when drawing or writing
- Comes with Wacom Pro Pen 3 in the box
- Large, bright, color-accurate OLED screen with anti-reflective surface
CONS:
- Quite a significant investment
- Uncertain software update roadmap
- Instant Pen Display Mode is currently offered as a beta feature
EDITOR'S QUOTE:
The Wacom MovinkPad Pro 14 isn't another Android tablet. It's a sketchbook that happens to run one.
For decades, Wacom has held an almost unchallenged grip on the drawing tablet and pen display market. Its products are so trusted that studios and design firms often keep them running for years, sometimes long after they’ve been discontinued. Lately, though, its rivals have been gaining a lot of attention, pushing increasingly attractive prices and expanding into new product categories.
That doesn’t mean Wacom has been idling. The company is finally wading into standalone Android tablet territory with the MovinkPad 11 and the more premium MovinkPad Pro 14, a proper portable drawing machine aimed squarely at working creatives. We’ve been spending time with the larger of the two, along with the new Wacom Art Pen 2, and the question is whether it’s worth every dollar of its price tag.
Designer: Wacom
Aesthetics
Right out of the box, the MovinkPad Pro 14 doesn’t dazzle the way other tablets in its price range tend to. There are no flashy colors, no ultra-thin borders, no polished surfaces. The bezels are noticeably wide, the default wallpaper is a solid, flat light gray, and the whole thing carries a stubbornly plain look that feels almost out of step with the competition.
It’s all very much by design. Wacom’s intent is to mimic the look and feel of a physical sketchbook, the kind artists, designers, and architects carry everywhere. The device comes in one color, light gray, which echoes the tone of most sketchbook paper. Its rectangular form, wide borders included, also closely mirrors the footprint of an A4 pad, binding and all.
The sides of the device carry that same restraint. One long edge holds the power button, volume rocker, and microSD slot, while the opposite edge features connectors for the optional cover accessory. The short edges house the speakers, and the bottom is reserved for branding, regulatory inscriptions, and four rubber feet. There’s nothing extraneous, nothing decorative, and nothing that distracts from the task you’re there to do.
The included Pro Pen 3 follows the same philosophy. It’s all black, slim, and cylindrical, with a body so uniform it almost looks like a high-end mechanical pencil. The three side buttons are barely raised, sitting nearly flush against the barrel for a cleaner look. Unscrewing the rear half reveals three replacement nibs tucked inside: a Carbon Shaft nib, a Felt nib, and a POM nib.
Wacom’s vision for the MovinkPad Pro 14 is to replicate the feeling of picking up a sketchbook, flipping to a fresh page, and getting straight to work. That intent comes through clearly because the tablet removes just about every visual, physical, and digital distraction it can. It doesn’t try to be the slickest-looking device in the room. It tries to be the one you reach for first.
Ergonomics
At 14 inches, the MovinkPad Pro 14 isn’t something you’d hold up one-handed for long, but at just 699 grams and 5.9mm thin, it slips easily into any bag. Resting it on your arm or lap doesn’t feel like a chore either. For creatives who move between locations throughout the day, that combination of size and lightness goes a long way toward making it a genuinely portable tool.
The four rubber feet on the underside keep the tablet from sliding around on a desk and slightly raise the back off the surface, which helps with airflow. There’s no built-in kickstand or angled stand, so if you prefer working at a tilt, you’ll need to source one separately, either from Wacom’s own accessory line or from a third-party option. It’s a small gap in an otherwise thoughtful package.
Those wide bezels, which might seem like a design quirk at first, actually earn their place here. They give you a comfortable inactive area to rest your palm or fingers when gripping the tablet from the sides, so your touch input doesn’t accidentally interfere with whatever you’re drawing. It’s the kind of practical thinking that tends to reveal itself only once you’re deep into a long session.
That said, the MovinkPad Pro 14’s footprint means it isn’t something you’d pull from a bag and start sketching on at a moment’s notice. For that kind of spontaneous work, the smaller MovinkPad 11 is probably the better fit. The Pro 14 is better suited to longer, more involved sessions away from the desk, as long as you’ve found a comfortable spot to settle in.
The Pro Pen 3 is well-balanced and comfortable enough in the hand, though your experience will vary depending on what you’re used to. Its slim, pencil-like build can lead to some cramping over long sessions for those accustomed to thicker tools. Official grips are available but aren’t cheap. The nearly-flushed buttons are also too easy to press accidentally. The Art Pen 2, which we’re also reviewing, offers a wider barrel as an alternative but is sold separately.
Performance
Under the hood, the MovinkPad Pro 14 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, expandable via microSD up to 2TB. The processor isn’t the newest available, but it handles everything thrown at it with ease. Multitasking is smooth, app switching is fluid, and there’s no sense that the hardware is struggling to keep pace with anything.
The 14-inch OLED display runs at a 2880×1800 resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate, treated with anti-fingerprint, anti-reflective, and anti-glare textured glass. The wide rectangular aspect ratio works in favor of drawing apps that line their UI panels along the sides, something squarish iPad screens can’t accommodate as cleanly. The textured coating adds a satisfying scratchiness to each stroke, and pen accuracy is, naturally, exactly what you’d expect from Wacom.
There are no cameras on the MovinkPad Pro 14, front or back. That’s a deliberate choice. There’s no temptation to flip over to social media, no accidental video calls, nothing that pulls focus away from what you’re there to do. Passively watching a tutorial in a corner of the screen is about as off-task as it gets, which, honestly, isn’t a bad thing for anyone prone to distraction. Split-screen functionality makes it easy to have a reference off to the side while you work.
The software side is equally stripped down. Android 15 comes installed with zero bloatware and just three Wacom-made apps: Shelf for your gallery, Tips for settings, and Canvas, a quick sketching surface that wakes directly from sleep with a tap of the pen. It’s intentionally bare-bones for capturing fleeting ideas, though a few more brush options would genuinely be welcome. From Canvas, you can instantly send your sketch to an Android app, though it seems to be limited to Clip Studio Paint, iBisPaint, and Autodesk Sketchbook. Hoping it will offer some flexibility in the future.
Speaking of apps, desktop-grade drawing applications like Clip Studio Paint and Krita run without issue. The broader Android ecosystem opens up a decent range of options, though it’s worth remembering that anything exclusive to Windows or Mac won’t be available here. Customizing the pen buttons is also off the table, a limitation of the Android platform rather than any fault of the hardware itself.
The Instant Pen Display Mode is arguably the most intriguing feature here. It converts the tablet into a secondary display for a Windows or Mac computer, via USB or Wi-Fi, turning it into a portable, makeshift Cintiq. It’s part of Wacom Lab, an experimental creator community that lets users explore and provide feedback on new creative possibilities through beta features. As of this writing, the setup process involves quite a number of steps, and pen button support is currently limited to toggling a small side panel for common modifier keys. It definitely shows promise, so hopefully development will be quick.
Battery life is genuinely impressive. The 10,000mAh cell can sustain nearly five days on standby and supports 65W fast charging, though you’ll need to bring your own charger since none is included in the box. The USB-C port is only 2.0, so it doesn’t charge as quickly as the spec might suggest, but an hour or more of active drawing barely makes a dent in the battery.
Sustainability
Wacom doesn’t use recycled or notably sustainable materials in the MovinkPad Pro 14 itself, but the company does meet several other environmental benchmarks worth noting. Its packaging is compact, minimal, entirely plastic-free, and fully recyclable, while the device is built with the kind of durability Wacom products are known for, the sort that keeps them in active use long after most gadgets would have been binned.
That longevity argument holds well for Wacom’s drawing tablets and pen displays, which tend to outlast their useful lives many times over. A standalone Android tablet is a different matter, though. Apps like Clip Studio Paint have already dropped Android 12 support, making regular OS updates critical. Wacom has committed to keeping the MovinkPad Pro 14 current, but no clear update schedule or roadmap has been shared publicly yet.
Value
At $899.95, the MovinkPad Pro 14 isn’t an impulse buy, but it’s a reasonably grounded one. An equivalent iPad would require buying the Apple Pencil separately, while a comparable Samsung Galaxy Tab tends to run noticeably higher. For a tablet built specifically around the drawing experience, with Wacom’s pen technology at its core, the price lands in a range that’s genuinely difficult to argue against.
The large screen and capable hardware make it a compelling option for creatives who frequently work away from their desks. It doesn’t sacrifice quality for the sake of portability. With the right app installed, it functions as a capable mobile workstation wherever you happen to be. And when a PC or Mac app becomes unavoidable, Instant Pen Display Mode is there to bridge the gap.
There are caveats, of course. The beta status of Instant Pen Display Mode means it’s not quite ready to be a daily driver feature. You’ll also need to feel at home with Android’s drawing ecosystem for this workflow to really make sense. And the uncertainty around long-term Android updates is a concern that Wacom will need to address more concretely before most buyers can put it fully to rest.
Verdict
The MovinkPad Pro 14 isn’t Wacom’s first stab at a standalone portable device. Veterans will remember the Windows-based Cintiq Companions and the MobileStudio Pros. But this is by far the most portable and clearly focused version of that idea. It doesn’t try to cram Windows into a pen display. It’s a purpose-built mobile experience that happens to carry a Cintiq-like trick discreetly tucked away.
At the same time, it doesn’t operate like an Android tablet with a Wacom digitizer tacked on, which is essentially what Samsung’s Wacom-enabled slates are. Wacom has built something around a specific, coherent idea: a true digital sketchbook. Some software edges still need ironing out, but for artists and designers craving genuine creative freedom outside the studio, the MovinkPad Pro 14 offers something few tablets in its class can match.
The post Wacom MovinkPad Pro 14 Review: The $900 Sketchbook Designers Needed first appeared on Yanko Design.
iOS 27 beta 2 is out now, here’s what’s new
Spoiler: It's more Siri stuff.
How to personalize the screensaver on your Kindle
Once you remove lockscreen ads and toggle on book covers, here's what else you can do to customize your Kindle's screensaver.
Microsoft Just Raised Surface Prices $500: Here’s What Changed
The premium laptop market has spent the last few years in a quiet but intense competition. Apple keeps raising the performance ceiling with each new M-series chip, and Windows-on-Arm devices have been working to close that gap one generation at a time. The question for most buyers has stopped being which platform is faster on paper and started being which one actually earns the asking price when you sit down to use it.
The Surface Pro 12 and Surface Laptop 8 are Microsoft’s answer, both powered by Snapdragon X2 processors and coming with more performance, longer endurance, and more refined hardware than the generation before. They’ve also gone up significantly in price, starting well above where their 2024 predecessors landed, making these among the most expensive consumer Surface devices Microsoft has put out in the lineup’s 13-year history.
Designer: Microsoft
The Surface Pro 12 packs a 13-inch OLED PixelSense Flow display at 2880×1920 resolution, with a 120Hz dynamic refresh rate, 600 nits in SDR, and 900 nits at peak HDR brightness. Dolby Vision IQ is supported, and the panel is individually color-calibrated. It’s configured with either the Snapdragon X2 Plus or the X2 Elite, with up to 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM and a 1TB removable Gen 4 SSD.
The Surface Laptop 8 comes in 13.8-inch and 15-inch sizes, with the 15-inch getting the more notable display upgrade. That model gains a 262 PPI screen at 3,270×2,180 with Dolby Vision IQ and 600 nits in both SDR and HDR modes. The 13.8-inch arrives in a new Jade colorway and earned the top spot in DXOMARK’s integrated laptop webcam rankings. Both Laptop sizes gain a new haptic trackpad.
Both devices run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 chip family, delivering 80 TOPS of AI processing through the Hexagon NPU. On the Laptop, graphics performance is up by as much as 58% over the previous generation based on Microsoft’s 3DMark testing. Battery life reaches up to 20 hours on the 13.8-inch Laptop and 19 hours on the 15-inch, while the Surface Pro 12 is rated at 15.5 hours.
The price increases are hard to miss. The Surface Pro 12 starts at $1,499 and the Surface Laptop 8 at $1,599, which are $500 and $600 more, respectively, than what those lineups cost when they launched in 2024. The higher cost is largely tied to rising component prices driven by AI hardware demand, which has pushed up what it takes to build premium Arm-based PCs at this tier.
Both devices now offer a 24GB RAM option that didn’t exist on the previous generation, filling the gap between 16GB and 32GB for users who find the former too limiting but don’t want to jump all the way up. Storage on the Laptop scales up to 2TB, and all drives across both devices are removable PCIe Gen 4 SSDs, which is a meaningful detail at this price point.
To soften the sticker shock a bit, Microsoft is bundling a free Surface Pro Keyboard with Pro purchases made before June 30, while Laptop buyers get a free Arc Mouse and 50% off Microsoft Complete. Trade-in credits of up to $900 are also available for those looking to swap out an older device. Both are on sale now for consumers, with Surface for Business variants shipping on July 14.
The post Microsoft Just Raised Surface Prices $500: Here’s What Changed first appeared on Yanko Design.
This $399 Tablet Has 9 JBL Speakers and Works as a Bluetooth Speaker
Entertainment tablets have always been a bit of a compromise. They’re large enough to make video look good, but the speakers are almost universally disappointing, and most people end up propping them against a pillow or a water bottle to get a decent viewing angle. The hardware has gotten better over the years, but the experience still feels like it’s designed around the screen and nothing else.
Lenovo’s Tab Plus Gen 2 is built around a different set of priorities. It leads with audio in a way that most Android tablets don’t, pairs that with a display that can actually do the sound justice, and backs both up with a mechanical kickstand that rotates 360 degrees so the tablet can sit, stand, lean, or hang in whatever configuration makes the most sense for the moment.
Designer: Lenovo
The 12.1-inch 2.5K LCD display carries Dolby Vision and HDR10 support, a 120Hz refresh rate, and up to 800 nits in High Brightness Mode for watching in brighter environments. At 249ppi, the pixel density stays sharp at this screen size, which matters when you’re switching between films, reading articles, or navigating something that would look noticeably soft on a lower-resolution panel.
The JBL 9-unit Pro speaker system is tuned with Dolby Atmos and includes dedicated bass units that give the sound a physical weight most tablet audio simply doesn’t have. Dialogue stays clear, bass doesn’t disappear, and the whole thing scales with the content. Dolby Audio processing lets you switch between Dynamic, Movie, and Music modes depending on what you’re watching or listening to.
There’s also a built-in Bluetooth speaker mode that turns the Tab Plus Gen 2 into a standalone speaker you can control from your phone. That means you can set the tablet up in the kitchen, hit play on a playlist from across the room, and use it the same way you’d use a Bluetooth speaker, without needing a separate device sitting on the counter.
The 360-degree rotating kickstand handles four distinct positions: lean, theater, stand, and hanging mode. That covers everything from reclining on a couch to hooking onto a cabinet door in the kitchen, across both portrait and landscape orientations. When the tablet isn’t being actively used, a standby mode turns it into a digital picture frame, which gives it a purpose even when nobody’s watching anything.
AI Live Transcript handles real-time translation across more than 40 languages, which makes foreign-language content far more approachable without having to hunt for subtitles. AI Notes with Lenovo Notepad handles notetaking, and Smarter Reader makes navigating longer articles less of a chore. The 10,200mAh battery is rated for up to 15 hours of YouTube streaming, backed by 45W fast charging.
The Tab Plus Gen 2 starts at $399.99 and is available in Celestial White. It works with the Lenovo Tab Pen Plus and Lenovo Wireless Keyboard, both sold separately, and comes with a Sleeve Suite that includes a carrying sleeve and a shoulder strap for getting the tablet from room to room or out the door without digging around for a bag.
The post This $399 Tablet Has 9 JBL Speakers and Works as a Bluetooth Speaker first appeared on Yanko Design.
Lenovo Just Built a $499 Rugged Tablet You Can Run Without a Battery
Consumer tablets have gotten remarkably thin and capable, but the categories of people who actually use tablets on a job site, in a warehouse, or out in the field have largely been served by a different and considerably more expensive tier of hardware. Most rugged tablets come either from enterprise-only brands with steep price points, or from consumer devices pressed into duty they weren’t really designed for. The gap between those two extremes has rarely been addressed cleanly.
The Lenovo ThinkTab X11 is an attempt to close that gap. It’s the first device to carry the ThinkTab name, extending Lenovo’s Think portfolio into rugged Android territory for frontline workers in logistics, manufacturing, construction, transportation, and energy. Starting at $499, it lands well below what comparable enterprise-grade rugged tablets typically cost while bringing credentials that those environments actually require.
Designer: Lenovo
The most unusual thing about the ThinkTab X11 isn’t its durability ratings, which are genuine rather than decorative, but rather its battery design. The 10,200 mAh cell removes without tools, using a screwless mechanism that lets a worker swap a depleted pack for a fresh one mid-shift and keep going. That’s a design decision that most tablet makers abandoned years ago in pursuit of thinner profiles, and it matters enormously when a dead device means halting an entire workflow.
It goes further with a battery-less operating mode. When the tablet is mounted in a vehicle or bolted to a fixed workstation, it can run directly from DC power with no battery installed at all. This reduces heat buildup during continuous use, extends the long-term health of the device, and removes the battery’s natural degradation from the equation entirely for fixed deployments. Dual USB-C ports handle simultaneous charging and peripheral connectivity alongside all of that.
The rest of the hardware is built around the same operating logic. The 10.95-inch display runs at 90 Hz with up to 800 nits of peak brightness under high brightness mode, and it’s coated with Corning Gorilla Glass. The touch layer is calibrated to work with gloved hands and wet fingers, which matters on a construction site or loading dock more than any raw spec comparison might suggest. The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 handles processing, with up to 12 GB of RAM and up to 512 GB of UFS 3.1 storage available.
The included rugged case brings MIL-STD-810H certification for drops and vibration, while the device itself carries an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. The case can be swapped out for a plain back panel when the environment is less demanding, which keeps the device from feeling like overkill in lighter contexts. Front-mounted NFC handles inventory scanning, access control, and field authentication without requiring the tablet to be flipped over.
The ThinkTab X11 ships with Android 16, guaranteed to receive two major OS upgrades reaching Android 18, along with four years of security patches. Lenovo’s ThinkShield security layer sits underneath the consumer-facing OS, giving IT departments the kind of centralized device management tools they already use for ThinkPads. An organization that runs the Think ecosystem at the desk can now extend the same infrastructure to the field, with the 256 GB model available at $579.
The post Lenovo Just Built a $499 Rugged Tablet You Can Run Without a Battery first appeared on Yanko Design.
Boox’s new Go 6 ereader offers stylus support for note-taking
Boox's new Go 6 ereader offers stylus support for note-taking.
AT&T now offers $3 day passes for ‘unlimited’ iPad cellular data
If you've ever needed iPad data for a day or two without signing a contract or paying for an entire month, AT&T has a new option.
