Best Netflix Tablet < $500

Looking at getting a tablet to watch Netflix and the like while catching public transport to work. Don't really care much about it's gaming performance, doesn't need a lot of storage and don't want to pay for feature I don't use.

Hoping to keep the budget under 500 and priorities really are
- Bright screen so it can be viewed when outside
- Widevine L1 so that video is in HD
- Good looking screen
- half decent battery but can be charged daily and at work.

What do people reckon is a worthwhile tablet?

Edit - For clarity
1 - No I won't be using the speakers on it, I'll use headphones.
2 - I don't need 4/5G on it and won't be hotspoting as almost every service these days allows you to predownload episodes

Poll Options

  • 11
    Lenovo P11 Pro
  • 29
    Ipad 2021

Comments

  • +4

    your phone

    • +1 Your phone

  • +2

    Plenty of sub $100 Android tablets that will play Netflix.

    Also maybe consider a chromebook, because you’ll get decent sound quality.

    • +5

      Speakers are irrelevant on public transport…I hope.

      • +3

        I missed that bit. Then the first answer is correct, OP should just use their phone.

        I have lugged a tablet and a laptop around for this purpose at various times in my life and I always revert back to my phone.

      • As do we all. I am convinced thoughts that playing music via speakers on pubic transport is appropriate are inversely proportional to taste in music.

        • I was on a train once. Some kids were blasting some trash. Then some other guy blasted Coldplay back at them. A second guy told them both of them to knock it off. Coldplay guy did… the kids didn't. It was a fairly entertaining ride.

    • +3

      Not sure why you were downvoted originally.

      An ipad for OPs purpose is a waste of money. Just buy a cheap android tablet or use your phone.

      • Even cheaper would be going to the public library and borrowing the book versions of popular Netflix shows.

        • +1

          Even cheaper would be to move into the roof cavity of my workplace and only eat my coworkers lunches….

  • -1

    This is like asking "for the same price which is better, Arnott's Tiny Teddies or Aldi Mini Bears?"

    • +6

      Arnott's Tiny Teddies

      • +3

        Arnott's Tiny Teddies

        *adds to shopping list

  • +1

    Good looking screen

    Ensure to get an anti-reflective screen

  • +1

    Wait for 10th gen ipad, as hopefully Apple will have usbc.
    Otherwise, go all out and buy a fold. Best thing I ever did.

  • +5

    OP please read this before buying anything, for your use case an iPad is the worst idea.
    iPads are 4:3 screen ratio meaning when you play TV shows you will have huge black bars on top and bottom and for movies that are 21:9 it will be even worse.

    https://i.ibb.co/Y8RFg9n/Capture.png
    ^This shows what a 16:9 video looks like on an iPad 10.2" vs a 11" 16:10 tablet (specifically the tab S8 but the lenovo in your poll is also 16:10 aspect ratio)

    https://i.ibb.co/7jQSGy8/IMG-0639.jpg
    ^This is a 21:9 aspect ratio Netflix movie on my iPad pro 11", it's not exactly how you'd see it on the cheaper iPad as this is a wider aspect ratio at 10:7 so the black bars will be even larger on the 10.2" iPads but it's still close enough to show you what a terrible movies/tv shows watching experience it is.

    This will probably be downvoted by some neg happy person so i hope you see this.

    • Fair point. Will definitely need to consider this. Having to choose black bars or potentially trimming the sides off of a show is an annoying compromise when you are spending this much money on a tablet.

  • You were talking about using it on public transport right? So are you gonna hotspot it from your phone? If so then why not just use your phone.

    • Nah, won't hotspot, will download shows before I leave.

      As for why not use phone main reason would be the smaller screen can make watching media less enjoyable. Display wars suggest when used on 16:9 media the screen on the P11 would be almost 400% larger than my phone.

  • -1

    As someone with 3 tablets.

    Your phone.

    Now I want to sell my tablets but scared hackers will do their hacker thing and break into my financial details using the power of hackers.

    • I would be interested to know why you say that. Is it carrying it around, needing to charge it or concerns hackers will smell it on you, steal it and hack your financials?

      • -1

        I know you can retrieve files from clean wiped devices aka data recovery. So being able to retrieve sensitive data from used phones and tablets is also a possibility I'm not game to chance especially since a lot of passwords and data is on there.

        As for using my phone as a media device it's perfect and I occasionally do it in bed when I get tired of my desktop.

        Honestly the comfort and luxury of lying in bed and just streaming everything is pretty hard to top for me.

        I mean I will probably get over the hacker thing some day but right now it's not worth the potential headache and risk and hypothetically I could only really sell them for maybe $200 each which is like less than a weeks work so they are just backup emergency devices now if worse comes to worse.

        • Not sure where data like that is stored on Android, but if it's stored in the bit you can mount on a laptop, just securely wipe it. There are tools out there https://www.groovypost.com/howto/7-free-ways-securely-delete…, but I use Linux at home, so I just do a shred.

          But the other thing is… flash memory works differently to magnetic disks. Apparently simply deleting it is enough… but I'm paranoid. I run a shred anyway.

  • +1

    As someone who has both iPad and Android tablets. I haven't used either for the last 2 months since I bought the Samsung folding phone.
    But before that I liked it better on iPad. Mainly because of longer software compatibility and battery life.

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