I used tablet mode of my laptops a lot, but having e-inks books too, I find that’s a touchscreen could’ve been replaced with a couple of buttons they had for switching pages (and maybe a touchpad too?).

Like, the most I wanted from tablet mode is reading internet pages, scrolling them and tapping links. Rarely I needed any input from the virtual keyboard or random taps somewhere. Some simple controls could do the trick without pretending it can draw stuff like a real tablet.