I'm interested to hear how that performs. Not really in the market for a tablet, but could be tempted by the right price/performance.
Just got it- coming from the 2020 model, there's noticeable improvements. The screen is a bit bigger and higher resolution (2K now versus 1080P), the bezels are a bit thinner, and there's now two USB-C ports on the left and right sides for charging and peripherals instead of just one. The back cover (has a kickstand) and keyboard cover are also improved and feel like they're made of better, sturdier material. The keyboard is more solid and better for typing on, although it's also heavier. With both covers on, it's laptop-heavy, but they pop right off so no big deal- the magnets are also much better and stay on pretty well. The older model's keyboard cover flopped open all the time. But as soon as a smart folio cover is available for sale, I'll definitely pick one up, since I tend to only use the keyboard cover if I travel. The back cover also has an opening that's for a stylus holder. I saw some early reviews complaining that they didn't get one, but it was in the box, so dunno. Apparently this uses some new standard for styluses and older ones don't work? Dunno because I don't use them, but if one is for sale cheap enough, I'll probably give it a try.
I don't generally use an external display with tablets, but the first gen model had problems with anything over 1080P and would often run at 30hz. This new version supposedly fixes this and works just fine up to 1440P at least- will definitely test this out. Curious how it works on a 4K TV. If I can get even 1080P/60hz, I'd be be fine with it since that would mean it could be used to play back streaming video on trips.
The setups on these things are so incredibly fast that it was ready to go in a couple of minutes- tried going to Youtube and the playback speed/switching to full-screen was faster, plus sites that had performance issues on the old model like Discord now run normally, so I'm pretty happy. Definitely runs better with the newer Snapdragon processor upgrade from the older MediaTek one. Battery life is supposed to have taken a hit from the original, but it's like 10+ hours instead of 12, so not a big deal.
This model only has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space- there is an 8GB RAM model coming out in Europe, possibly with 128GB of space, but they haven't said anything about the States. The previous model was also 4GB and I never really had a problem with it up until things got slow with the Chrome OS v100 update. If people say that 8GB makes a huge difference, I might just give this model to my wife and buy another one (if they come out here), but for my uses, it probably won't matter much. The storage space also doesn't bother me since I don't save anything locally- this is pretty much just used as a portable (desktop) Chrome Browser, with a couple of apps for streaming, and for that purpose, it's awesome.
