Just bought a tablet for HLO

[WatersLethe]

I just picked up a Samsung Tab A 8" 2019 tablet from Costco for $110 (it also came with a 32 gb sd card as part of the promotion, which I'm going to put my PDFs on)

The goal is to have a device I can hand off to those with a dead phone, an underpowered phone, or if they forgot their laptop. I also plan to use it myself when gaming in a location where my 17" laptop is too unwieldy. This is all as we're pursuing using HLO more as our in-play character sheet solution at the table.

Setup:

I uninstalled everything I could and added:
Firefox
Dice Roller App
Pathbuilder 2e
Starbuilder
Calculator

I then unlinked my Google account, removed the second home screen page, and made sure the device doesn't require a password after it goes to sleep. I made a home screen "app" for Hero Lab Online using Firefox and hid the navigation bar. I enabled swipe navigation, and enabled gesture for zoom for the visually impaired.

My experience:

In landscape mode, it's a comfortable experience. The form factor of the device is about as minimal as I can go for a visually impaired member of my gaming group to comfortably navigate without excessive zooming.

The device is underpowered, and there are noticeable delays when clicking through the HLO menus, particularly when a lot of information needs to appear. Only some of this is from HLO's side, there's significant different between my expensive phone and this tablet in response times.

The other apps run well, and are perfectly snappy. Transitioning between apps is decently fast.

My verdict:

I was determined to return the device if it didn't do a good enough job. I'll be keeping it because the input lag in HLO isn't that often a big issue, I don't tend to flip through tons of menus during play, preferring to stay on the skill page as default out of combat, and the combat page during.

I 100% would not go to a lower powered device. This is the bare minimum I would accept as a HLO interface device.