The Student Room Group

Best tablet for university?

Hey, I'm sure this has been asked and answered before but I was wondering if anyone could advise me on a tablet suiting my needs. I will be going to study Veterinary Medicine at university in September 2021, and am currently on a gap year so I will not be buying this tablet for a few months but thinking ahead.

I don't really want to spend a fortune so iPads are out of question, maybe £200 max but would really prefer lower (furlough pay is a pain when you aren't contracted many hours). I have a decent laptop and will also be buying a new phone so this tablet isn't the main thing I'd be using for work or entertainment etc, but in Sixth Form I quite liked having a lightweight tablet I could carry around in my school bag so I could access some of my textbooks online rather than heaving them around, and it would take up less space etc and be less hassle than taking my laptop everywhere but more useful than my phone.

My old tablet (unfortunately had an accident with spilling tea on it so no longer alive) was a Lenovo and had Microsoft Office stuff prebuilt onto it for free, which would be ideal - I only need basic version of word really. It had very good battery life, I only needed to charge it like once a week, though this isn't a must. Ideally I want to be able to have some non-school apps on it, e.g. some socials, basic games (just like phone-like apps since I don't like overloading my phone with it), be able to play videos on it, but camera quality etc isn't a necessity at all since I won't be using it for that.

So mainly just needs to be cheapish, lightweight, durable and ideally have word etc on it so I can do some basic work/notes on it.

Any suggestions? TIA
Thanks for the quick reply! Sorry to be on the daft side (technology in that sense isn't really my forte aha), but when you say no Google services what exactly do you mean? I have a gmail account so I'd ideally be able to access it, and does this mean you can't use Google as your search browser etc? What does it have instead?
Thank you for clarifying! I will definitely look into those. Do any of these have preloaded MS Office into them?
Best tablet I used in uni was probably adderall
Original post by RambleAmple
Hey, I'm sure this has been asked and answered before but I was wondering if anyone could advise me on a tablet suiting my needs. I will be going to study Veterinary Medicine at university in September 2021, and am currently on a gap year so I will not be buying this tablet for a few months but thinking ahead.

I don't really want to spend a fortune so iPads are out of question, maybe £200 max but would really prefer lower (furlough pay is a pain when you aren't contracted many hours). I have a decent laptop and will also be buying a new phone so this tablet isn't the main thing I'd be using for work or entertainment etc, but in Sixth Form I quite liked having a lightweight tablet I could carry around in my school bag so I could access some of my textbooks online rather than heaving them around, and it would take up less space etc and be less hassle than taking my laptop everywhere but more useful than my phone.

My old tablet (unfortunately had an accident with spilling tea on it so no longer alive) was a Lenovo and had Microsoft Office stuff prebuilt onto it for free, which would be ideal - I only need basic version of word really. It had very good battery life, I only needed to charge it like once a week, though this isn't a must. Ideally I want to be able to have some non-school apps on it, e.g. some socials, basic games (just like phone-like apps since I don't like overloading my phone with it), be able to play videos on it, but camera quality etc isn't a necessity at all since I won't be using it for that.

So mainly just needs to be cheapish, lightweight, durable and ideally have word etc on it so I can do some basic work/notes on it.

Any suggestions? TIA


The Galaxy Tab A7 2020 gets my vote- excellent screen in terms of resolution and quality (I personally would not purchase an 8" or larger device with resolution below 1920 x 1080), solid performance, well built and running Android 10 where most tablets at this price point will be running Android 9.
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/tablets-and-ereaders/tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab-a7-10-4-tablet-32-gb-grey-10214675-pdt.html

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