What tablet should I buy?

For best results aim for an Android tablet with large screen size and high resolution.

• Samsung tablets are a good safe choice – they have lovely high resolution screens. You’ll find them in every retailer, and the 10″ screen size is sufficiently large if you have 20/20 vision. They are consistently good value for money.

For those looking for something larger than 10″?
Large tablets are much harder to find. Be prepared to do some online research and evaluation.

• 12″ is approximately the size of a physical page of sheet music, so start your search at that size and upwards.
• Orpheus is an Android app specifically.  In your search, make sure to filter for this as a primary search criteria.
• You may need to get creative – there are several large convertable Windows laptops that are dual bootable to Android
• Chromebooks offer some exciting possibilities – they are affordable, large, able to run Android apps, and now come in several convertible and detachable models.  They’ll be chunkier than a standard tablet so make sure you have a sturdy stand. But they stack up very impressively on all the rest of the features you’d be looking for, for sheet music reader.
• e-ink tablets are relatively new, but they look pretty impressive for sheet music, if you can afford the price tag. Be sure to check it will run Android apps.
• The main thing to look out for when it comes to sheet music is high resolution – that will help a great deal when reading notation.  Also make sure you scan your music in black and white mode for the best resolution and contrast ratio.

Full disclaimer: I am not a retailer or expert in tablet hardware, and the available models change very quickly. My recommendations above are therefore not for specific models, but more a guide for doing your own research.  I’d recommend you investigate the full technical specs, read some reviews on the models you’re considering, and then visit a tablet store to try a few for yourself.

Maeve Lander is a software developer by day, jazz trumpeter by night. She created Orpheus ~6 years ago, when Android was first born. It has gone through iteration over the years, but has always held true to the original vision; a minimalist sheet music reader that just does one thing, really well.