Is there a tablet to edit photos and both read from and load to flash drives?

With no internet necessary?

And also read books from a flash drive (not kindle)?

Just a simple no bells and whistles off line 'thing'?

Since I take most of my photos on an old canon camera and then transfer them to an old old off line hp pc (that is becoming persnickity) in order to edit, I would like to be able to do the same with a much more compact and simple machine.

I have gimp on a flash drive but an even simpler editing option would be great.

And I have lots of pdfs, books and readable materials on flash drives, gathered over years, that do not need an internet connection.

And  scanned in pages and photos of family geneology (also stored on flash drives) so it would be nice to connect to my printer/scanner also.

Cost is definitely a consideration...less than $100 ideally?

I have not looks recently, so I don’t know about pricing or features but most tablets don’t have ports to read cards etc. so you might try looking for smaller laptops some of which are touch screen also. Lenovo thinkPad as an example. Also there are probably computer repair places near you that sell used /refurbished computers and tablets. Call them, they would be a great resource and potentially save you some coin and get you set up with something that meets your needs a budget.

My (cheap Samsung from Walmart) tablet, like all the others I'd looked at, at the time, don't have that option. Some, like mine, do have an option of adding a SD card. So, I use that, then if whatever I'm doing needs to go onto a flash, I pop out the SD card, and move it to John's desktop or my little old laptop that won't connect to the wifi, anymore - or from them, as the case may be. It definitely makes it more fiddly, but it's doable.

Hi Judith,
I don't have any recommendations for the tablet itself. I tend to either use my phone or else a full computer.

However, I wanted you to know that there are some bluetooth USB hubs. Essentially it allows you to wirelessly connect a usb device to something that has bluetooth. And most tablets have bluetooth. I can't promise very good speeds, but it might let you do what you want to do with a cheaper tablet, instead of having to get a really expensive one to get the usb port.

Another option would be to borrow a computer from someone and use some sort of cloud service for storage. Copy down a few books at a time for offline reading. Then the next time you are near a library, cafe, or friends house with wifi, you delete those books and download a few more for offline reading. Not the most elegant solution, but it would meet your requirements I think.

Thanks for all the ideas!

When I had a dell tablet I was able to use an adapter in order to load or move things from it.  It is a small gizmo that fits in the power port on one end and holds a flash drive on the other.  I still use it to remove pictures from this cell phone and to add folders and things to my storage card here.

I don't know if bluetooth would work with no internet?

I don't want to store things to the cloud service for many reasons...wouldn't it take wifi to retrieve?

Hi Judith,
The adapter you are talking about is a great idea. It works on most of the devices I have dealt with.

Bluetooth does not need the Internet. The hub and device just need to be close enough to each other. They don't need to be touching or anything, but it probably would not work in the back yard if one of the pieces is in the house. (distance depends on a lot of different factors).

And yes, my last option would require Internet in order to retrieve them. That option would work if you do not have Internet at your home, but have access for short periods of time at other places.

I've had an old kindle for years, one of the last ones they made before going to backlit screens, so I think it might be from 2010 or so. I've never registered it or connected in to the internet. It's on permanent airplane mode. I just plug the USB charging cable into my laptop to transfer stuff over. Maybe they've made it harder to function that way with the newer ones, I don't know.

I also don't know which tablets are any good for editing photos.

I do know that a lot of them are usb-otg (usb on the go) compatible. It's a usb adapter that lets you plug a flash drive into the charging port. Lots of cell phones will function with them too. So that might be part of the solution for you.

Oops! Sorry, Judith. Right after posting I realised the gizmo you were talking about must be a usb-otg. I guess I have nothing to contribute after all! 😆

It probably depends what software you use to edit photos. I don't think GIMP works with Android tablets or Kindle Fires. There are things that pretend to be GIMP but they aren't, and they don't work well with touch screens. Some Chromebooks have the option to switch to Linux which would run GIMP, but I haven't tried it. It's one thing having the USD-OTG to access files on a memory card or stick, but another to run software from a storage device. Plus unless you have an older version of GIMP saved, it's very resource hungry. It would need a very good tablet to run it. And then it won't play nicely with touchscreens so you'd also need a mouse.

I currently use an Android tablet with an online photediting app, Pixlr, where I bought a ridiculously cheap lifetime deal when they relaunched. I use it with a Bluetooth mouse as trying to do any photo work with a touchscreen is tricky at best and impossible at worst. The set-up I have works well for me making book covers, memes, tweaking photos, but would not be what you want you as it needs the internet. There's no offline version as yet. I haven't found any offline photo app for Android tablets or Chromebook that have good enough capabilities for what I do.

If could be that you'll need a laptop rather than a tablet, unless you're doing very simple photo-editing in which case basic photo apps might be enough.