Top Tablets for Photo Editing in 2021 | Articles | Photo, video, optics

A tablet is a handy tool for a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. You can install imag­ing pro­grams and appli­ca­tions on it, includ­ing Light­room and Pho­to­shop.

It is much more con­ve­nient to work with detailed retouch­ing on a tablet using a sty­lus than end­less­ly click­ing a com­put­er mouse. Well, and, of course, mobil­i­ty — you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work some­where on the beach under the sound of the surf.

Let’s look at the best options for your poten­tial helpers.

1.Microsoft Surface Pro 7

OS: Win­dows 10 Home or Win­dows 10 Pro
Screen size: 12.3 inch­es
Res­o­lu­tion: 2736 x 1824
Proces­sor: 10th Gen Intel Core i3/i5/i7
RAM: 4/816 GB
Mem­o­ry: 128GB-1TB
Bat­tery life: up to 10.5 hours

This tablet runs on the Win­dows oper­at­ing sys­tem, which in turn pro­vides Pho­to­shop with all the fea­tures of a full-fledged desk­top soft­ware.

Sur­face Pro 7 inter­nals have changed again this year. Microsoft has put 10th gen Intel proces­sors into the Pro 7 and you can also choose between Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7 depend­ing on your needs and bud­get. The per­for­mance of the Sur­face Pro 7 with the 10th Gen Core i7 proces­sor is impres­sive. Even when edit­ing pho­tos or videos.

There’s a built-in mem­o­ry card slot, a USB port for your flash dri­ves, and a 3.5mm head­phone jack — some­thing you’ll nev­er find on a fel­low Apple.

Sur­face Pro 7 also comes with a ded­i­cat­ed full-size back­lit key­board and a pre­ci­sion pres­sure-sen­si­tive sty­lus. This set will pro­vide pho­tog­ra­phers with every­thing they need for con­ve­nient mobile pho­to edit­ing.

2. iPad Pro 12.9″ (2021)

OS: iOS
Screen size: 12.9 inch­es
Res­o­lu­tion: 2048 x 2732 pix­els
Proces­sor: Apple M1 chip
Mem­o­ry: 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB
Cam­eras: 12 MP (f/1.8), 10 MP ultra-wide (f/2.4), 12 MP (f/2.4) ultra-wide front cam­era

Apple has includ­ed its lat­est M1 chipset in the new iPad. If you’re pick­ing up this tablet for sim­ple tasks, you might not notice the pow­er spike. How­ev­er, the new chip is designed for pow­er-inten­sive tasks and will suit both pho­tog­ra­phers for pho­to edit­ing, and those who mount video, are engaged in graph­ic design or gam­ing.

What else is inter­est­ing about this tablet? Stor­age capac­i­ty up to 2TB, 5G and a 12MP ultra-wide front cam­era with a 122-degree field of view. Whether you’re study­ing remote­ly or work­ing from home, you’ll def­i­nite­ly need the Cen­ter Stage fea­ture, which mon­i­tors your move­ment dur­ing video calls and adjusts focus and audio.

3. iPad Pro 12.9″ (2020)

OS: iOS
Screen size: 12.9 inch­es
Res­o­lu­tion: 2732 x 2048
Proces­sor: A12Z Bion­ic
RAM: 4 GB (6 GB with 1 TB ver­sion)
Mem­o­ry: 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB

A cheap­er ver­sion of our list’s sil­ver medal­ist. The high pow­er makes it easy to run Light­room Mobile and Pho­to­shop for iPad.

As well as a lux­u­ri­ous 12.9‑inch Reti­na LCD screen and a styl­ish design.

4.Microsoft Surface Go 2

OS: Win­dows 10
Screen size: 10.5 inch­es
Res­o­lu­tion: 1920 x 1280
Proces­sor: dual-core Intel Pen­tium Gold
RAM: 8 GB
Mem­o­ry: 128 GB
Bat­tery life: up to 9 hours

And we remind you that with a tablet on Win­dows OS, Pho­to­shop func­tions are pro­vid­ed to you in full. If you’re look­ing for a cheap­er alter­na­tive to our win­ner, check out Microsoft­’s pre­de­ces­sor Sur­face Go 2, a less pow­er­ful but still high­ly capa­ble alter­na­tive to the Sur­face Pro 7.

This tablet allows you to com­fort­ably han­dle light pho­to edit­ing work.

5. Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+

OS: Android 10
Screen size: 12.4 inch­es
Res­o­lu­tion: 1752 x 2800
Proces­sor: Snap­drag­on 865 Plus
RAM: 8 GB
Mem­o­ry: 128/256 GB
Bat­tery life: up to 10 hours

Sam­sung Galaxy Tab S7+ runs on Android OS. In terms of pow­er, it can be com­pared with lap­tops.

The tablet comes with an S‑Pen sty­lus, with which it will be easy to do detailed retouch­ing.

6. iPad Air (2019)

OS: iOS 12
Screen size: 9.7 inch­es
Res­o­lu­tion: 2048 x 1536 CPU: A12 RAM: 3 GB
Mem­o­ry: 64–256 GB
Bat­tery life: up to 10 hours

If you’re an Apple fan but can’t shell out for an iPad Pro, the Air ver­sion is a more afford­able, but still high-per­for­mance option. This mod­el based on the Apple A12 chip has received a lot of atten­tion.

The pro­cess­ing pow­er and RAM are impres­sive con­sid­er­ing the device weighs less than half a kilo and is 6mm thick.

There is less RAM — 3 GB, but you can play with them. The 2019 iPad Air also sup­ports the 1st gen­er­a­tion Apple Pen­cil.

Let’s draw a conclusion

If you are a pro­fes­sion­al image edi­tor, con­sid­er Win­dows options. Take a look at our win­ner and his pre­de­ces­sors at a low­er cost.

If the fea­tures pro­vid­ed by the mobile ver­sion of Pho­to­shop are enough for you, you can get styl­ish and pro­duc­tive iPad or Sam­sung’s pow­er­ful options with a sty­lus includ­ed. These options are espe­cial­ly suit­able if you main­ly process your pho­tos for Insta­gram, for exam­ple, in VSCO or Snapseed.