If there was a decent tablet made in the last 4-5 years that cost less than $250, I'd probably get it... my last one was the Nvidia Shield Tablet, which was nice, if a bit heavy, and the battery quickly stopped taking a charge... I haven't even turned it on in over a year. Before that was the Nexus 7, which was great, until OS updates made it run like a dog.
In the end, the shield has had better support than most, but that era of battery tech was just really bad. I don't want an iThing.
As a developer, I just don't like the Apple experience all around. I do use macos on my desktop and laptop is a rmbp. The iPod/Pad/Phone is just too locked down for my taste.
But which mediapad? I mean there are several results on Amazon.. M3, M3 Lite, M5, T2, T3 and several others... at even just the search results on Amazon glance, it's hard to tell what's what, what the MSRP is, what the expected price should be, what's current, what's old. How long will updates be supported.
I really wish that LineageOS gave some better guidance, I'd love a good community supported device, or clear(er) modeling.
It's funny, but I know enough about PCs to compare specs, but not nearly enough about tablets, ARM etc. I get what a lot of people looking at computers feel like.
--- edit:
Looks like the M5 is the current hotness, not sure about T3 etc. Just ordered one, thanks for the reference. It's just hard to know. Also, looks like there should be a LineageOS port, if it's still 8.0 and not 8.1 yet.
In the end, the shield has had better support than most, but that era of battery tech was just really bad. I don't want an iThing.