Need a portable Lightroom editor...

[Nebell]

That also doubles as a tablet in bed. For reading, watching movies, etc.

I'm Android user so I figured I'll just buy Samsung Tab S7+, but then I saw the performance of new iPad Pro M1.
And honestly at the moment buying top end Android tablet is almost pointless, even though I hate the Apple ecosystem.
Investing into iPad Pro is still significant money. It will cost me around €1500. That's when we're getting into Surface Pro waters and I prefer Windows.
The problem with surface pro is that Lightroom for desktop seems a lot more resource heavy than the mobile version.

But then I found out about portable monitors. They are nowhere close to screen quality of S7+ or iPad Pro, but some of them are very interesting, like Lenovo Thinkvision M14t and the one I'm leaning towards, 6D Sharks Mako Pro.
The price of both is about €350. The screen is SIGNIFICALLY worse than the tablets, but the monitors are comparable or better to laptops and both have touch screens with a stylus
And then there's the price difference as well as those screens lasting me, well, until they die. The performance will be automatically upgraded anyway since I buy a new phone every 2-3 years. Samsung has a great desktop emulation.

But won't the new iPad Pro M1 with 16gb and 1Tb storage also last forever?

 

[Aurelius]

That also doubles as a tablet in bed. For reading, watching movies, etc.

I'm Android user so I figured I'll just buy Samsung Tab S7+, but then I saw the performance of new iPad Pro M1.
And honestly at the moment buying top end Android tablet is almost pointless, even though I hate the Apple ecosystem.
Investing into iPad Pro is still significant money. It will cost me around €1500. That's when we're getting into Surface Pro waters and I prefer Windows.
The problem with surface pro is that Lightroom for desktop seems a lot more resource heavy than the mobile version.

But then I found out about portable monitors. They are nowhere close to screen quality of S7+ or iPad Pro, but some of them are very interesting, like Lenovo Thinkvision M14t and the one I'm leaning towards, 6D Sharks Mako Pro.
The price of both is about €350. The screen is SIGNIFICALLY worse than the tablets, but the monitors are comparable or better to laptops and both have touch screens with a stylus
And then there's the price difference as well as those screens lasting me, well, until they die. The performance will be automatically upgraded anyway since I buy a new phone every 2-3 years. Samsung has a great desktop emulation.

But won't the new iPad Pro M1 with 16gb and 1Tb storage also last forever?

Using phones with portable monitors strikes as a kludge. Remember, they might work with DeX, but that doesn't mean they'll be great with a stylus and the underlying concept of editing photos on your phone.

I would lean toward the iPad Pro so long as you have a fairly easy way to get photos to and from the iPad (Adobe Creative Cloud, USB-C drives, that kind of thing). It'll be faster than all of the alternative tablets you suggested (yes, including all Surface Pro models), and it'll be a more enjoyable tablet the moment you switch from work to play. Keep in mind you don't have to go absolutely wild with specs for the iPad Pro to do the job well — I'd focus more on having enough storage (which might be less than 1TB if you're keeping some content in the cloud) than 16GB of RAM. If you need less, that'll make it easier to budget for an Apple Pencil and/or iPad Magic Keyboard.

My beef with the alternatives revolves not so much around performance as the ecosystems. Like you hinted, high-end Android tablets often feel pointless; I'd say it's due to both the dearth of tablet-native Android apps and Google's poor support for tablets as a whole. Windows would make some aspects of managing Lightroom easier, but it's not a great tablet OS and would saddle you with a bulkier device while you're in bed. Not that the Surface Pro is terrible... it's just more of a laptop that works as a tablet where the iPad Pro is a tablet that can double as a laptop.

 

[Nebell]

Using phones with portable monitors strikes as a kludge. Remember, they might work with DeX, but that doesn't mean they'll be great with a stylus and the underlying concept of editing photos on your phone.

I would lean toward the iPad Pro so long as you have a fairly easy way to get photos to and from the iPad (Adobe Creative Cloud, USB-C drives, that kind of thing). It'll be faster than all of the alternative tablets you suggested (yes, including all Surface Pro models), and it'll be a more enjoyable tablet the moment you switch from work to play. Keep in mind you don't have to go absolutely wild with specs for the iPad Pro to do the job well — I'd focus more on having enough storage (which might be less than 1TB if you're keeping some content in the cloud) than 16GB of RAM. If you need less, that'll make it easier to budget for an Apple Pencil and/or iPad Magic Keyboard.

My beef with the alternatives revolves not so much around performance as the ecosystems. Like you hinted, high-end Android tablets often feel pointless; I'd say it's due to both the dearth of tablet-native Android apps and Google's poor support for tablets as a whole. Windows would make some aspects of managing Lightroom easier, but it's not a great tablet OS and would saddle you with a bulkier device while you're in bed. Not that the Surface Pro is terrible... it's just more of a laptop that works as a tablet where the iPad Pro is a tablet that can double as a laptop.

I have never used an iPad but the problem is that I suspect I will hate it and that would be a lot of wasted money. I'm not a fan of the Apple ecosystem.
My girlfriend has a Macbook Pro and I absolutely hate using it. At work, I'm forced into iPhone and I... hate the one I'm using. So much that I forwarded calls to my Samsung Note 10+.

I already have a Dex station that I got when I preordered Note 10+ and I tried it out with the phone and desktop monitor. It's not optimal like my desktop, but it's manageable on the fly. I won't be editing a ton of photos when I'm away, mostly just to send some stuff away quickly.

But since we're all tech junkies here, heh, I want something cool.
I've been looking into big names like Asus and Lenovo, but then for the same price I can buy these two:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001757451101.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001836581789.html
The specs seem not just fine but better than the big names and I could have the smaller one in the bedroom and the bigger one with me.
The optimal portable monitor would be the one with a battery and Miracast but those don't exist (I looked really hard), which is probably because it would almost be a tablet.

 

[Aurelius]

I have never used an iPad but the problem is that I suspect I will hate it and that would be a lot of wasted money. I'm not a fan of the Apple ecosystem.
My girlfriend has a Macbook Pro and I absolutely hate using it. At work, I'm forced into iPhone and I... hate the one I'm using. So much that I forwarded calls to my Samsung Note 10+.

I already have a Dex station that I got when I preordered Note 10+ and I tried it out with the phone and desktop monitor. It's not optimal like my desktop, but it's manageable on the fly. I won't be editing a ton of photos when I'm away, mostly just to send some stuff away quickly.

But since we're all tech junkies here, heh, I want something cool.
I've been looking into big names like Asus and Lenovo, but then for the same price I can buy these two:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001757451101.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001836581789.html
The specs seem not just fine but better than the big names and I could have the smaller one in the bedroom and the bigger one with me.
The optimal portable monitor would be the one with a battery and Miracast but those don't exist (I looked really hard), which is probably because it would almost be a tablet.

That's fair... a bit of a shame if so, though, since the iPad really does have the better tablet ecosystem and might hit the spot for Lightroom. Maybe an iPad Air so that you're not pouring quite so much money into the ecosystem, especially if you're only going to be periodically tweaking photos. It's still going to be faster than the Galaxy Tab and should handle Lightroom gracefully.

I have to admit I'd be wary of those Aliexpress screens. Not that they'd necessarily scam you outright, but that the quality and after-sale support might be... not so ideal.

 

[Epos7]

I would lean toward the iPad Pro in this situation.

That said, I exclusively use the desktop version of Lightroom. It offers a lot more features than the mobile version from my understanding. Looking at it from that perspective, the cost of an iPad Pro is quite a bit to not have access to the features of the desktop version.

 

[Mchart]

If you don't care about also carrying around an external drive, you could save a lot of money by getting the iPad Pro with only 128GB internal storage, and then just connect a USB-C storage device to it externally.

As for the iPad itself, I can't imagine using any other tablet at this point. It's not like the phone market, or the laptop market. iPad & iPad iOS is just so far ahead of everything else at this point.

 

[Nebell]

Well I might as well put an update here since the post is a few days old
I ordered this one:
https://gmktec.com/products/xpanel-14-inch-4k-uhd-portable-touchscreen-monitor

They also have a really cool NUC computer, it's very very tiny, but not very powerful, especially for RAW editing. The bigger one with i5 is probably fine for editing (and you can stick 32gb ram in there), but I might as well keep my phone and just use a Dex station.
I might actually get the small one for the bedroom so I don't have to use my phone and can basically have a 14" 4k Windows tablet.

I opted for a portable monitors for a few reasons:
1) I get free performance boost with every new phone I buy (and I buy one every 2 years on average). My Note 10+ also has twice the ram of Tab S7+.
2) The screen is comparable to high end laptops.
3) The price! The whole thing cost me $250. Inexpensive to try and if I don't like it, I won't lose much money by reselling it.

 

[Aurelius]

Well I might as well put an update here since the post is a few days old
I ordered this one:
https://gmktec.com/products/xpanel-14-inch-4k-uhd-portable-touchscreen-monitor

They also have a really cool NUC computer, it's very very tiny, but not very powerful, especially for RAW editing. The bigger one with i5 is probably fine for editing (and you can stick 32gb ram in there), but I might as well keep my phone and just use a Dex station.
I might actually get the small one for the bedroom so I don't have to use my phone and can basically have a 14" 4k Windows tablet.

I opted for a portable monitors for a few reasons:
1) I get free performance boost with every new phone I buy (and I buy one every 2 years on average). My Note 10+ also has twice the ram of Tab S7+.
2) The screen is comparable to high end laptops.
3) The price! The whole thing cost me $250. Inexpensive to try and if I don't like it, I won't lose much money by reselling it.

Curious to know how it works!

 

[Nebell]

Curious to know how it works!

Might take 10 days or so to get to Sweden.
There are quite a few videos on the screen, like this one:





Anyway, I as thinking about buying a NUC which can be found fairly cheap, around $200 for Celeron J4125 and 8gb ram or around $400 for Core i5. But then I found out about Android TV/Chrome OS boxes which perform better. Some Android TV boxes are full Android, but usually with poor update support. But very cheap, at about $80-$130 for a reasonably powerful device that runs better than a Celeron NUC.
Buuuuuuuuuut, for some $150 I could buy Samsung Galaxy S10 with a cracked screen which is like, 4-5 times faster than what comes with Android TV boxes and which I can keep connected to a Dex station and use that on my portable screen.
However, I already have a Samsung phone... I could just connect external storage to a Dex station and use my own phone.
OR, I could just get a 10m HDMI cable and connect it to home pc, lol. Although I'm not sure if touch will work.

Jeez, the more I dig into this the more more I descent into a downward spiral. But a $40 256gb sd card sounds a lot better than a $400 computer and it's nice to see how many options we have!

 

[Nebell]

Alright, so the first impression - LOVE IT!

There were some unexpected things that I completely didn't think about, that is HDMI connections don't support touch, and Samsung Dex Station has HDMI output. It also has USB-A, but I didn't test that because - USB C (phone) > USB C (monitor) fires up Dex so I don't need the damn station unless I want to connect an external keyboard.
The brightness is plenty bright. The viewing angle is even better, it's as good as my high-end phone. Basically no loss even at extreme angles. But the screen is very glossy.

I was able to connect the monitor to my power bank and then my phone, so two cables and 2 miniature devices, not very bulky.
When it's connected to a power bank (18w output), the resolution output is 1080p, and when connected to a power outlet the resolution is set to 1440p, which is pretty sure Samsung Dex limitation (I read it supports max 1440p).
It can even be powered by my phone but then the brightness is set to 10%, almost unusable.
The monitor also has passthrough so it can charge my phone at the same time.

The big thing I wanted to test but couldn't is my camera being connected to the monitor so I can scroll through the photos on the big screen without transferring them anywhere. USB C > USB C didn't work, even though my camera detected it. I probably have to use its Micro HDMI port and I don't have that cable, but I'll order it today.


I took this photo with my camera which was connected to the tablet. Kinda stupid that the camera shutter button shows only on the monitor and not on the phone, so that's why you see my finger in the photo, haha. I didn't think of a delayed release at that time.

 

[Mchart]

With the amount of cables and bulk it doesn't make sense to me, but i'm glad it works for you.

 

[Nebell]

With the amount of cables and bulk it doesn't make sense to me, but i'm glad it works for you.

Erm, it's a 14" screen that weights a bit over 1 pound (750g) and I need 2 cables with me and either a powerbank or an adapter. Something I take with me anyway if I'm going on a longer trip. It has passthrough so I don't need 2 chargers.
With my phone it's more powerful than a high end tablet but with a larger screen (or one of those slim laptops), all that while costing a fraction of the price.