My impression is that it's hard to find powerful specs alone on an Android tablet. That seemed counterintuitive to me

I'd think that the extra space would help

but I think what's going on is that everyone gets a smartphone, and they make that their primary mobile device. Then if they have the funds, they get a tablet, most-often for dedicated movie viewing. The market for that is pretty price-sensitive, so tablets don't generally cost as much as flagship smartphones. As a result, most tablets tend to have good speakers and a decent display, but unimpressive radios, compute capability, and most other things.

Lenovo legion y700 Gen 2 (2023). You can get em for a couple hundred bucks. I'm using one right now

Edit: here's where I got mine from: https://www.giztop.com/lenovo-legion-y700-2023.html

Blackview has some great budget tabs with excellent specs.

How much less than 9" is acceptable? What about a large phone?

https://intl.redmagic.gg/pages/redmagic-astra-gaming-tablet?_rtId_=mg7fm0ca_Aodg4rI3

I recently ordered a lenovo legion tab just to find out that there is no gps built in. bummer.

Lenovo Y700 seems like it, I never used it personally though.

Have you tried this: https://m.gsmarena.com/search.php3?mode=tablet ?

I guess it depends on how you define "Powerful spec."

Samsung Galaxy Tab A?

https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/tablets/galaxy-tab-a/samsung-galaxy-tab-a-8-0-2019-32gb-silver-wi-fi-sm-t290nzsaxar/