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Can anyone suggest such a tablet? It seems that many newest tablets don't have a 3.5 mm headphone port, and others cannot connect to an external monitor or TV via their USB-C port.
My goal is being able to watch downloaded movies when I travel in hotel rooms. I have been using a 14" laptop to do it, but it weighs more than 3 lbs. . . was hoping for something lighter. Still, I don't want to pay more than $500 to be able to save a couple of pounds in weight.
No tablets, AFAIK have an HDMI port -- it's too thick to fit on the tablet. That S8 has is a regular USB-C port. Yes, with a USB-C port and a USB-C-to-HDMI connector it might be possible to attach a TV to the tablet via their DeX service.
But S8 doesn't have a 3.5 mm headphone port. Again, it is probably possible to buy a 3.5 mm-to USB Type C connector for the headphones, but now I'd need to travel with these two dongles, and it's far from clear that any hotel TV will work with this DeX.
In any case, S8 costs $599 on sale -- more than I care to spend on a piece that could be damaged or stolen in travel. . . . I could buy two laptops for this price.
We just pack our Roku stick and take it with us. Connect to TV, hop on the wifi and we're streaming. We were in a hotel last fall that actually had this new system installed. They had Netflix and Hulu ready to login to on the hotel TV. They needs to become more common and I'm sure it will.
I do have the adapter mentioned for iPads at the office and that works pretty flawlessly too.
I remember when Micro-HDMI used to be included standard on most older Android tablets. Unfortunately today HDMI over USB-C is mostly only limited to high-end models.
In the last few days I have studied just about everything there is on the market. (I was hoping somebody here would save me the trouble.) Recall what I was looking for in a device:
1. A 3.5 mm headphone jack for lightweight small headphones. Need a reliable wired low-tech, not Bluetooth.
2. A true HDMI port, or at least a USB-C port where a connector would go.
3. Light weight -- less than 3.1 lbs my 14" laptop weighs.
4. Cost less than a $399 laptop.
I presume many world travelers have been looking for the same thing, and I'm surprised there is no ready answer.
In my travels I have encountered all sort of TVs in rental apartments; I wouldn't expect them to be "Smart", so no Apple TV or Roku for us. Also, we are not interested in streaming Netflix or Amazon Prime -- we typically run screaming from anything they offer. Instead, we mostly watch downloaded foreign serials.
So far, I've found no device that satisfies all these criteria. The following laptops would work, but are more $$ than my limit:
1. HP Pavilion Aero 13.3" Laptop 2.2# $520 at HP.com
2. HP Chromebook 11 2.7#, $260, but it's really stripped down and not much lighter than my HP (3.1#)
3. Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (12.3" screen) 1.7#. A stripped-down model at AMZ is $520, so Aero is a much better value.
4. IPad 10.2 (9th gen) 1.1 # headphone jack, “lightning connector” supports only 4G LTE cell Costco $249 (+ all sorts of adapters) thru 7/23. Later iPads don't have a headphone jack.
So, thoroughly disappointed so far with the options. Looks like that Aero is the best bet, unless someone comes up with a better low-tech idea.
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