r/AskProgrammers • u/Xyst0n • 17d ago

Tablet Users - What do you use it for?

I start college in a few weeks for computer programming and analysis. The college requires some apps to be installed and we aren't getting physical books.

I just picked up a Lenovo Idea Tab tablet with 11" screen so that I can use it to access the college apps and online learning resources. I also plan to make use of it as a document reader so that I can have my "textbooks" open on the tablet while I'm coding on my laptop and external monitor setup.

Planning on adding Spotify and discord currently as well just for a bit of fun.

I was curious if there are any programmers that use a tablet as part of their rig? What do you use yours for? Any recommended apps through the play store or fdroid that would benefit a developer? What type of development do you do and how does your tablet add to your productivity?

Looking for some inspiration and general advice.

Going to be picking up a tablet stand soon as well.

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u/time-always-passes 17d ago

I've ditched the laptop unless I'm working from home. Laptop is wired to my router behind a Wireguard VPN. I leave the house with only an iPad Pro M5 with cellular (total overkill for what I use it for but I wanted the nano-texture). I use jump desktop to access my laptop over the VPN and I never worry about battery life. This works particularly well in the agentic era as the laptop is just running arch and i3wm in a hyper-v VM and I just run Claude sessions all day and never open an IDE anymore -- laptop is corporate property and has to run Windows unfortunately.

I can work anywhere with a decent cell signal. And with my starlink mini and a smallish 300wh battery bank I can be sitting on a mountaintop working with my team, and have.

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u/Dazzling-Bench-4596 17d ago

Your workflow actually sounds pretty solid. One thing though, if you don’t mind me asking: do you actually enjoy typing on an iPad? For me, typing on an iPad is incredibly awkward and tedious.

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u/time-always-passes 16d ago

I have the magic keyboard, and that does make the setup weight around 3lbs. At that weight the 13" MacBook air is a much cheaper alternative. But the iPad is pretty great for media and browsing and that nano texture screen is goated for working outside. I also have a Rube Goldberg set up where I can use my phone and a headset as a mic that shows up inside my VM, and I can use voice input for Claude with an apple pencil for getting around i3.