Comment by edude03
I know this isn't what you're asking for - I wasn't either - but I found a used surface pro (arm or x86) is better for this use case than I imagined. They're so cheap used on eBay or FB marketplace that I think it's worth trying if you're already willing to buy a new iPad anyway.
I have two now - the SPX - they're ~$200 used, with LTE and 16GB of ram, and a SP8 - i5/16gb of ram ~$350 used from FB marketplace. The SP8 runs Fedora 40 and it's light enough that I just keep it in my backpack whether I'll need it that day or not.