The S7 is a perfect machine and a complete machine running Android, but equipped to do much more, for example running Linux. In part 2 more about this.
The screen is the computer, the keyboard is just a cover which connects to the screen using a magnetic connection. Separated from the keyboard the touch screen works OK and reading newspapers etc is a pleasure. It has high resolution and is fast; all apps are running smoothly. With the pencil you can make drawings or notes; writing is an experience just like writing on paper. And the character recognition is doing a nice job too.
It has no audio output. So I had to buy earbuds. A new world opened up, after the headphone with a cable. I walk now freely around listening to music or radio stations as apps. Then I found all these podcasts produced by the radio stations. I have almost an overload of information.
It took me some time before I made this decision. Question was: buy again a Android machine or a machine with Chrome OS. For example the Lenova IdeaPad Duet Chromebook Tablet. Much cheaper than the Samsung S7+. You can run apps on the Chrome book, in separated container. And it was possible to install Linux in a container as well. Question is which of the operating systems will win? I choose the Android for the extra’s.
Doing serious work like writing a story, do some calculations in Excel all possible with the Office app. For reading on the Tablet the touch screen and virtual keyboard are nice. But for more serious work I need a keyboard and a mouse. Attaching the keyboard is one click and the mouse connects easily to the new USB3 port, using an adapter to connect a mouse with USB2.
Of course you can connect the Tablet to a printer or install a VNC client for connecting to another machine for example a Linux desktop to do an odd job. However, what intriged me was, can I run Ubuntu and R for statistical analysis of data for some data journalism project? The answer is in the next post.
