The Pad 4A is a bit more interesting to me. 1280x800 is really awful in 2023. But the pad 4A has a 10" 1920x1200 display which would be so much nicer in a small form factor laptop.
While I agree with you with the 16:10 display being nicer, in terms of size. 1280x800 isn't bad once you take into consideration of screen size. Like the ppi for both displays are in the low 200s. A 1080p 15.6 in display has a lower ppi than both of those.
To me it’s less about the PPI and more the ability to fit things on the screen.
1280x800 is just small enough that that certain elements might not fit on the screen. Or if they do they just barely fit with no wiggle room. 1920x1200 is probably unreadable to even freaks like me (I run 150% scaling on a 16” 4K display) but it gives me the option to turn off/down scaling and actually fit things when needed.
I use a 1280x800 on my steamdeck and honestly its fine for 90% of stuff as long as it can scale properly. Am I the only person who ran a 720p monitor back when people were just getting into 4k?