Advice on tablet purchase

Hi everyone,
I want to solicit some advice from those who might know more than I. I know zero, so it's a low bar. ;))
I am considering purchasing a tablet, but I have never owned one or even worked with one. Some of the brands are familiar, but little else.
I DON’T want to spend too much. In fact, it’s for fairly lightweight tasks (no gaming or heavy graphics), especially for when I travel.
I don’t want anything Apple, but I’m not sure whether Windows 10 or Android is a better option.
If anyone has advice, be it about brands, specs, or anything else, it would be greatly appreciated.

I have one Windows tablet and it's pants. My others are Android but I would suggest a Chromebook is better value for money. I rarely use my tablets and prefer my Samsung SmartPhone over them.

You can't run Xara on these (expect the Windows tablet) but you could play Xara Cloud.

Acorn

Thanks Acorn,

In fact, I will continue to use my desktop for all things Xara. I can't imagine the frustration of trying to do it using a smaller screen and limited input mechanisms. I also imagine a fairly expensive tablet would be needed to provide the processing resources that Xara uses.
You mention your SmartPhone. My android is a couple of years old and really too small (6") to be used as a tablet. I'll probably replace it within the year, but not with something that will do so either.
Finally, when you mention the Windows tablet, do you mean that the brand is bad (e.g., the Surface Go), or the tablets that use Windows 10 in general?

Again, I appreciate your input. (All the on-line reviews have associate links... can't have much confidence in those opinions).

I had an android-, an Ipad and two Windows-Tablets. With the Windows-Tablets you can work very well productively. Xara runs well but best with mouse support.
This year I had to buy a new one with more power and decided to buy a 13" notebook.
I very often have conferences with in time demonstrations of my work and need the power I don't get from a tablet for the price.
My grandson now uses the last Windows tablet and complains that current games do not run and Grandpa may buy a better one.:-O

I don't need a tablet for mobile communication and applications, so I can get along with my mobile phone.
The advantage of the notebooks is the better speed, more memory and the bigger display. Also the battery life is better.
The one kilogram of extra weight is still bearable.

Thanks, Ernie.

Yeah, notebooks complicate the issue even more. I had thought about that option and put it aside. They’re bigger and bulkier than tablets (albeit not as bad as laptops). And as they’re closely related to laptops, I’m a bit reluctant… I haven’t had much luck with them – an HP and two Dell laptops all went kaput much more quickly than they should have. I finally gave up and went back to a desktop.

I’ll definitely look again at the notebooks and see if I should include any in my decision.

Good luck with the grandson BTW.

To be clear, in my office I use an workstation with calibrated inviroment such as monitors, scanners and printers.

On the go or in a conferences I use my Notebook.
And believe me, the power of an i7 processor and at least 16GB RAM with a 256 SSD is more than enough. Waht only lecks is the display, but for my presentations I use a LCD Beamer with remote control
and that's an other point for a "pro" for a notebook. You have more connections like USB-3 ports, HDMI-Port, cardreader. And finally a complte keyboard.

I also thought about using the tablet to draw. It works, but it's not as intuitive and precise as with a wacom drawing tablet.

Without a doubt, the higher up the device chain you go, the more capability it offers. My desktop offers what I need for almost everything.

My reason for wanting the additional device (tablet or perhaps notebook) is not to do heavy work, but to have something portable… for inventory, to use when I travel, etc. A cellphone just doesn’t cut the mustard… It’s incredibly cumbersome to answer emails with Word templates or to take reservations using an Excel template. And frankly, Microsoft Office on the mobile phone truly sucks. The Cloud version for the desktop is much better (though admittedly lacking a lot of the full features), and I think it would work well on the tablet.

Yeah, MS Office works great with a modern tablet. If this is what You need – go for it.