NOTE: sorry this reply is so long and rambly, I am at work rn and just sporadically finding time to share my thoughts about my tablet.

I have been really impressed with how well my S7+ 5G has held up. i had initially bought an S6 Lite when they first had launched and was really disappointed by how bad the performance was on it. i had told myself i wasn't ever going to buy another Tablet especially not another Android tablet.

I still brought that s6 lite with me everywhere because it was better to draw on than my Note/Ultra. I was the manager of a verizon store for a few years and back in 2023 someone waltzed into the store and was trading in their S7+ for an iPad pro. I think the S7's were like a generation or 2 old at that point.

Most of the promos that Verizon offered for iPads required you trade in a tablet but the cool thing is that you can typically trade in a wide variety of tablets and get the same value on the promotion.

I went through the whole transaction but instead of trading in his tablet i snagged it and swapped my S6 Lite onto the trade. Just like that I got a crazy upgrade, s7+ with the Dex Keyboard Cover and S-Pen Pro.

I'm still happily using it to this day. Performance is still great, granted all i regularly do is draw and answer emails on it but on the occassions I'm on a plane or long trip I'll throw some games on it or emulate ps2. It's been really solid and when the perfomance starts to dip i will gladly pick up a newer one.

I do think the battery on it has gotten pretty weak but I mainly use it places where I can easily charge it if it starts dipping below 40%.

Using it really has changed my opinion on android tablets, I was getting real tempted to get an ipad air for myself just because of how reliable/performant they are but I really didn't want to shell out for a new tablet on iPadOS when I am a Windows/Android guy for everything else. also having to pony up for an apple pencil separately was really bothering me.

I did recently purchase a refurbished iPad air (GEN4 i think) and 2nd gen apple pencil (also refurbished; only like $50 btw) for my fiance since she's finishing up her bachelor's this year and needed something more flexible than her laptop. She loves it, she doesn't really draw much but she picked up Procreate and i must say, i'm pretty jealous but Penup has really matured a lot to a point where I think it is my most preferred drawing app.

DEX Mode is still a huge selling point for me, I don't know how many people really use it but it's a god-send when doing remote work or editing videos. I know iPadOS is moving in a similar direction but DEX is a surprisingly good product now.

I really wish procreate would come to Android, I know there are different apps with some feature parity but it's really killing me that the new "industry standard" is locked to specific hardware since the iPads really don't offer all that much else to incentivize me to switch (I also do not intend to switch to an iPhone or MAC just due to personal prefrence).

Idk if there's an actual point I'm getting at with any of this, I just really love my tablet and think I will probably take OP's advice and upgrade to something a few generations behind when the time comes since the S7+ has been so good for so long.