Any recommendations for decent Android tablets? Budget - 20k Use case - mostly reading Papers, multimedia and simple notetaking (highlighting pdfs and stuff)

Speaking with personal experience. Don't go for android tablets. I have seen both 5k and 15k Android tablets. They don't receive enough R&D attention of the companies since they don't sell a lot - especially the lower end segment. For tablets, iPad is best. If your budget is not too tight at 20k, extend it to 31k and get the 10" iPad https://www.apple.com/in/ipad-10.2/

I have an iPad already. My friend is looking for one and his budget is restricted to 20k 😭

Lenovo has few decent ones. The Lenovo K10 10.3inch especially is great value for money right now. (for a total budget of 20K you can get an active pen, and a flip cover (book-like) for the tab too!) (also remember to buy from the Lenovo site directly so can use their ongoing offers/coupons for additional 5-10% off.)

Android tablet situation may change in next couple of years as Google has fresh focus on the form factor (not the tablet specifically, but folding phones which are essentially tablet-sized screens), but until then, anything bought on budget is more or less garbage tbh, in fact you're better off buying a 2-3 years old iPad and would still get better experience out of it than any Android tablet. 😬

@faint-energy-11966 also you might like gsmarena.com to compare device specs (for example).

Use case - mostly reading Papers, multimedia and simple notetaking (highlighting pdfs and stuff)

In my experience (with Android tablets) for these use-cases, • Quad-core and above CPU • 3GB and above RAM will suffice (2GB models often suffer from occasional 2-3second delays when switching between apps/opening huge files) to watch HD/4K videos or read even the largest of magazines and graphic-novels of several hundreds of MBs in size. Mostly, look for a good display (high enough resolution) and software support for your bookstore/file-formats and maybe an active-pen if scribbling/notetaking is common. (also can always buy this later if required, as long as the tablet supports it) As always, good-to-haves would be • longer battery-life • less weight • and security-updates for few years (a must-have IMO if plan to use the device online including any important banking/finance stuff)

As new iOS releases happen, apple may not bring some features to really old iPads, nothing besides that. You can expect major OS updates to be released on iOS hardware up to 7-8 years at times.

I have two generations of iPad Air (3, 4) and don't see any limitations as such.

iPadOS file management system feels completely garbage though. The OS doesn't even take full advantage of the processor's capabilities

Yeah about that, there's no traditional file management. 😄 I'm a heavy Linux and Android user besides iPad Pro, and I don't feel any limitations on iOS due to lack of traditional fs.

Lenovo and Realme Pad are the better ones with less tracking and default stock Android at <20k range. Samsung is a good alternate though I understand they have started putting ads in their software

Beebom is pretty good.

@faint-energy-11966 A controversial opinion - but given your use case, I'd ask you to check out smaller Chromebooks. They have finally arrived in the Indian markets and are quite reasonable around 20 - 22K. My daughter uses one which turns into a tablet - folds completely. Maybe something like that might work? All chromebooks come with touchscreens and are decently responsive and powerful enough for most web based applications.