Remembering that the dock is 100 dollors.
Does the cheapest iPad still have the air gapped screen and nearly unusable storage? Not that it’s a bad device but ecosystem compatibility is a big weight in any device consideration. If it’s in your ecosystem it’s a lot easier to overlook some shortcomings vs. switching ecosystems.
The cheapest iPad does have big bezels but I find them useful to pick it up and hold it. I have the 32GB storage but yes, all my photos are in a private nextcloud and videos on a server with plex. Indeed, I don’t really see the shortcomings of apple’s ecosystem. I mainly use it to read news, Manga and watch movies and photos with the family. I don’t use Google’s cloud either though, even if my last two phones have been pixels and I asked for a pixel too for work.