Indeed! A Waveshare portable e-ink monitor is $499.99 for the 10.3" size, almost identical to the Daylight's 10.5" display. The external display would also outlast this tablet device for sure.

And if I'm reading the MediaTek Helio G99 specs correctly, it seems to have similar raw performance to a Raspberry Pi 5. One could easily put together a little "productivity PC" using a Pi (or a Windows mini PC), a power bank, and have the added benefit of full-fledged desktop apps rather than Android versions of them.

I wanted to want to impulse buy this thing. But the above analysis, as well as the lack of any real hands-on 3rd party video-based reviews will be a no from me.

if you make something comparable for $729, i will buy it from you x 10

not kidding

its hard to get things made at low batch sizes with good economics!

(third party video based reviews coming in the weeks ahead! youtubers hopefully will actually reply to us now after the attention of this launch)

PS this review does a good job of describing the perf / tradeoffs of the G99 https://www.notebookcheck.net/Xiaomi-Redmi-Pad-review-Afford...

we're gadget nerds, its not as bad as you think :)

in fact, no early users have complained about performance at all, either to us or on twitter

we're open to feedback on how to improve the next gen! all we ask is to judge based on actual performance on intended workloads and not specs nor crysis lol

I hope MKBHD does a review of it.