Fortysomething Geek: Tablet

Showing posts with label Tablet. Show all posts

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Lenovo Miix 2 10 inch 2-in-1 hybrid tablet ultrabook

A new toy so I have a new write-up. Today's gadget is the Lenovo Miix 2 10 is a 10 inch Windows Bay Trail 2-in-1 hybrid tablet.

Here are the specs:
10 point multi-touch FHD screen (1920x1200)
1.33 GHZ ATOM Z3740 QUAD Core Processor
2GB RAM and 64GB Flash Storage

Macally Quick Switch Bluetooth Keyboard. Pair up to 5 devices. Connect to 6 total.

Here is an interesting keyboard. The MacAlly Quick Switch Keyboard. This is a full-size bluetooth keyboard that allows you to pair up to 5 devices in addition to a 6th USB device.

It was cheap and available on Amazon for $29. This is normally $70 but I was able to pick one up at Frys.

I've used multi-paired bluetooth keyboards like the Logitech K810/811 but none of them support 6 devices (5 Bluetooth and 1 USB).

Switching and pairing is pretty straightforward. There is a dedicated button to switch. The keys multi-labelled for Windows and Mac OS.

I really like the fact that it supports USB. So if y ou have a computer without bluetooth, it connects via micro-USB cable. Unlike the Logitech K810, it is a full size keyboard with a numeric pad. In addition, it comes with a small tablet fold-up stand. It uses standard AA batteries so there is nothing to recharge.

Overall, I like the flexibility of multi-device connectivity. However, as a keyboard goes, it is a bit mushy. It doesn't have a good tactile feel or feedback. If you are quick typist, you're not going to like it. It just doesn't have the tactile feel of a Logitech or an Apple keyboard. But if you have multi-devices on your desk, this is well worth the $30 bucks. Let me repeat it again, this can connect to 6 devices total. I have two laptops, two phones, a desktop pc, and a tablet.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Dell Venue 8 Pro Quasi-review. An 8 inch Windows 8 Bay Trail Tablet.

Where do I begin with this? I normally don't cover Windows on my blog much. I do run Windows 7 and 8.1 on some of my computers but I don't use it much by a long shot. Every time I need it, I run it virtualized. But here, today, I have a Dell Venue 8 Pro 8" Bay Trail Windows 9.1 tablet. Let's rewind a bit.

Back in 1997, I had my first taste of an ultra portable Windows machine, the Philips Velo. This was my introduction to "Pocket Windows." I progressed throughout most of the late 90s to the mid 2000s with various Windows Mobile devices.

10 Years ago, I spent close to $1,000 on Dell's latest and greatest pocket wonder, the Axim X50v. It was a 3.5" Pocket PC VGA device that was top in in it's class. I spent $500 or so on the PDA and another $700 in accessories from extended batteries, a GSM cellular CF module, CF/SD cards, GPS dongle, keyboards, video, and numerous docks. At the time, I wanted to run "Windows" in my pocket. Pocket PC was the closet thing with Pocket Word, Outlook and Pocket IE. I've owned practically every high end Pocket PC/Windows Mobile devices from the late 90's up to 2007. I've probably spent close to over $10,000 on various Pocket PC devices and accessories. You have to remember people were spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on flash storage back then.

I stopped my crazy buying spree right after 2007. That is when the iPhone happen. Then the iPad. The rest was history. Mobile computing changed dramatically after 2007. The whole ultra mobile UMPC, netbooks, and uber expensive librettos are long gone.

Fast forward 10 years from 2004, I now have another Dell marvel of Windows miniaturization. It is not quite the top-of-the-line class mobile device they have. Rather, it is one of the cheapest offerings on the market, the Venue 8 Pro.

Now read on for my take on this.

Zagg Keys Flex Tablet Keyboard

The Zagg Keys Flex keyboard may be one of the best keyboards for the iPad.

At the time of this writing, the Zagg has them on sale for $39.99 from the regular $80.

So what makes it so great? Answer: portability and flexibility.

I have a few iPad keyboards and they work great for the most part. Except, they tend to get bulky and negate the advantage of having a tablet. Next, when you get a different tablet, the keyboards are often form-fitting for a specific generation of devices. You end up buying a different one when you get a new tablet. Importantly, the bulk wears you down. You may not need a keyboard/case combo all the time. When you are watching Netflix, you definitely don't need a keyboard. Hence, many of keyboards tend to fall into my desk drawer.

The Zagg Flex keyboard is compact and there is a simple cover that is used as a kickstand. The kickstand can even carry the weight of some covers. I don't have to remove the existing cover to use the kickstand. As you can see below, it is smaller than even the Apple Bluetooth keyboard.

Now, I just leave the keyboard in my bag and use it whenever I want.

Like most tablet keyboards, this one uses micro USB for charging. There is a toggle for iOS/Android. I assume this is for the key mappings for certain functions like home and menu.

Overall, this is very flexible. I can easily use my 7" Galaxy tablet or various smart phones. Overall, I am happy with this purchase.

Link: http://www.zagg.com/accessories/zaggkeys-flex-tablet-keyboard-stand

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Is there a Perfect Linux tablet

Will we ever see an awesome Linux tablet or Phablet? Ubuntu and many have been promising glimpse of an Ubuntu mobile OS to challenge Android and other players. I've seen countless dual boot devices that boot Android and a Debian. Yet, I have not been really impressed with anything I've seen. I'm hoping that changes in the near future.

Portable Linux has been the holy grail for me for the past 10 or so years. As far back as 2001, I wanted a portable UNIX like small form factor computing device. I've been using Windows CE as far back as 1996 and I had transitioned to UNIX in my career around that period. I wanted a UNIX version of a Palm Pilot or HP Jornada. I've seen so many products failed in a span of ten years that I conclude that we may never see the perfect Linux MID (Mobile Internet Device). You can call it whatever you want, a phablet, a UMPC, a tablet,etc. I am talking about a small portable device that runs the Linux kernel and a full blown working distro with all the great GNU applications. Android doesn't really count. It uses the kernel but it adds so many layers that it doesn't really count. Basically, I want to run the great GNU open source applications that I've been running for over a decade: ImageMagick, FFMPEG, Postgres, MySQL, Apache.

The Sharp Zaurus was the first Linux based PDA that didn't gain any traction.

Nokia made a great line of PDAs. The N770, N800, N810. They were slider based PDAs with the potential but failed to gain any traction in the market place.

Chinese and Taiwanese companies like SmartQ attempted to make some Linux only PDAs. They also failed to gain any traction. The Stylus for a 5" form factor does solve a lot of problems.

The problem with these older devices is that they did not have an ecosystem in place. Hence,they failed to gain any mass consumer adoption. This doesn't bother me too much because I know I'm part of a fringe group on consumers - uber geeks. Companies rather maximize profits and cater to the general public. Unfortunately, what really killed them for uber geeks like myself was the poor performance and the technology wasn't quite ready.

Well, the iPad changed a lot of misconceptions. ARM architecture is now good enough for my needs. It has a great app ecosystem and the hardware is fairly robust. Touch technology is pretty fast and we now have high-bandwidth cellular connectivity. Yet, it still isn't Linux. However, iOS is still based off OSX. If it gave end-users direct access to the Darwin kernel through an accessible interface, the iPad would be the perfect device. We all know Apple will never open up iOS like that so I hunt for the alternatives.

I've been following the mod scene in Android for a while. There is CHROOT and Linux on Android projects but they are quite not native Linux. They run in a looped file-system and are accessed via VNC that makes them feel as if they are running in an emulated environment.

I got one of those HP Touchpads during the great $99 firesale and the first thing I did was install Debian LXDE to see if I could realistically run Linux on a tablet. It was a great exercise. I installed Debian and carefully picked the applications I wanted tailored for my needs. I had LibreOffice, GIMP, MySQL and a full DE (Desktop Environment). Look at the pictures below. Looks cool, huh?

Well, the reality soaked in. A modern Linux distro like Debian and Ubuntu simply sucks on a tablet. X Windows apps are designed for mouses. We are kidding ourselves if we think otherwise.

I tried installing a few open-source multi-gesture and touch-screen input aides. Apps like Easystroke allows you to draw gestures to simulate mouse clicks and key commands. However, in practice, they never worked quite the way I like them to.

The console is the most important application in any *NIX operating system. This is the application where I spend 80% of my time in. Guess what? It is horrible with the onscreen keyboards I've used. I've downloaded quite a few of them to get my cursor and function keys. They don't quite work either.

This brings me back to my iPad. I need a console most of the time to SSH into remote servers. Applications on the iPad like iSSH solve most of the on-screen keyboard issues with tactile multi-gesture functionality and adjustable keyboard transparencies.

Still, the iPad isn't quite there for my needs. I still want to run GNU applications and install whatever I want.

So I concluded, a touch-screen only Linux tablet will never, ever be ideal. The fact remains, traditional *NIX Desktop Environments require a real keyboard and mouse/trackpad. CHROOTing Linux on-top of Android doesn't really cut it.

What now? I'm carefully eyeing out Transformer style X86 tablets running the ATOM Clover Trail. However, Linux doesn't run on Clover Trail yet. Acer makes a Windows 8 tablet, the W510, that has an attractive price point. This may be the foundation for a working Linux tablet in the future.

If Ubuntu can work on their UNITY UI , many of the general tasks applications can be served by that. And when I dock, I'd want a more traditional desktop UI like Linux Mint's Cinnamon or Gnome 2.

As a geek, I can only speculate. It will be interesting to see what 2013 and 2014 brings us. Pricing is also important as well. Some of these tablets are approaching $600-700 with keyboards. At that price, I would rather buy myself an 11" Macbook Air, keep my iPad for entertainment, and forget any hopes of an all-in-one Linux based ultra light device.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Galaxy Tab 2 7"

People ask why I didn't get a Nexus 7. Well, I already own a Galaxy Tab 2 7" and I saw no need to get another small tablet. I got the Tab 2 at launch and have been using it ever since. I decided to keep my Tab 2 for the reasons below.

I use it primary as a video player. I started to use my Tab more during the winter when I wore coats with larger pockets. I'll be using it a bit more until warmer weather comes along.

The Tab 2 is a nice little device. It pretty much plays any video I throw at it ( WMV/MKV/AVI) with the default player. Sure, there are other players on the market but it is nice to know the default player handles them.

USB OTG works out of the box; without rooting. I normally have 64GB on my internal SD card slot and I can add more. I often have up to 256GB of portable storage (bus powered) . Sure, you can dock a 3TB external desktop drive but it is nice to know you can use a cheap OTG adapter and a few USB sticks for days of video playback.

Galaxy Tab 2 vs Nexus 7? Well, 64GB on board (via microSDHC) is hard to beat. Nexus 7 has a better screen and faster processor. It also has the ability to use cellular connectivity on the $300 model.

This particular OTG dongle has 3 USB ports and various flash card inputs. I often use my TAB 2 as a remote console with a USB keyboard.

There is one major drawback. The tablet only supports FAT and FAT32 through external storage. This means you can only store video files smaller than 4GB. There are a few other tablets that support NTFS or EXT3 which overcomes this limitation. Ultimately, this means you cant store a 6-10GB mkv file on a SD card.

The TAB 2s are currently being discounted right now and I've seen them go as low as $180 at CostCo.

If you are looking for an alternative to the Nexus 7, take a look at the TAB. It also has another nice feature that is unique to itself; an infrared sensor that makes the tablet a large universal remote control.

Monday, December 31, 2012

repost: Awesome retro accessory for your tablet

When I first started this blog, I was raving about how great this accessory is. Well, I got another one and I can say this is still one of the best gadgets to get a tablet user. I figure I'll repost why I love this gadget.

The iCade retro arcade cabinet for your tablet (works with iOS, Android, and webOS). Works off bluetooth and is compatible with many games; specifically MAME.

Running old school Mame games like Zaxxon, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong and Street Fighter is totally cool. It also makes a great display fixture for your man cave.

Running MAME off a smartphone (Galaxy Nexus)

Friday, November 2, 2012

HTML Text Editors for Android Tablets

My last post on iPad apps got a good reception so I will follow up with a review on some Android "tablet" text/code editors. These editors are designed for writing code with syntax highlighting and more advance features than a simple notepad editor.
Some of these apps have code preview, FTP, and even SFTP integration.

The apps I will mention in this post are:
Touchqode , DroidEdit Pro , AndEdit HD , WebMaster's HTML Editor, Android Web Editor PRO , SilverEdit , and kEdit.

Rather than bore you with in-depth review on each and every app, I will highlight what I think in terms of good features and shortcomings.

I chose these apps due to their popularity and the touted "tablet" compatibilities. You don't need to use a tablet specific apps. In fact, there are some good phone apps that work.
However, I am believer in optimized interfaces.If you use a tablet,the experience should be more compelling than a blown-up phone app. Unfortunately, a majority of these apps are just that - blown up phone apps.
Well, you can also use phone apps and they may work for you. Phone Apps include Jota Text Editor , TextWarrior , 920 Text Editor and I will briefly mention them as well.

First of all, before anyone attempts to do any text editing on Android, they need to use Hacker's Keyboard. If you have been using Android for any serious work, Hacker's keyboard needs no introduction but it is pretty much essential for control,tab, and escape which are not found in stock Android keyboards.

If I had to choose any apps out of this entire lot, it would be DroidEdit Pro or Touchqode. Both are highly rated and popular. Both have the important requirement of SFTP integration. That is a pre-requisite for me. There is no point in editing a server-side script locally off a SDcard or internal storage.

If I had to end this review, these are the two apps you only should look at.
I would give a slight preference over DroidEdit due to user interface. Touchqode feels too much like a blown up phone app in my opinion.

DroidEdit Pro Screenshots

Unfortunately, DroidEdit Pro suffers from many Android quirks in responsive layout. I had to switch orientations for many of the feature-sets because you would have over-lapping UI. I'll cover more of these "Android quirks" later.

Touchqode screenshots. As you can see, it still looks like a blown up phone app. Those buttons are extremely small. The app works fine on my phone but looks out of place on a larger screen.

Next, The only app that has a tablet feel is AndEdit. It supports a dual pane interface and you would easily mistaken it as a clone of an iPad app such as Texstastic. Unfortunately, that is all it has. It is rather buggy. Syntax highlighting is poor and there is no FTP/SFTP. Furthermore, it has no option of full screen text editing. The dual pane view is only good for selecting among files. It tries to be a clone of some iOS apps and ends up becoming an also-ran app.

AndEdit screenshots:

Bugs like these are annoying. Frozen panes and the apps tell you there are no open files. This happens after you try re-opening after a crash.

WebMaster's HTML Editor,SilverEdit, kEdit, and Android Web Editor Pro were pretty much lackluster. They felt like text editors with minor features like line numbering and additional buttons for brackets and curly braces.

WebMaster's HTML Editor

kEdit. In addition to the lack of SFTP, the poor syntax highlighting made this program irrelevant for me.

SilverEdit made me scratch my heads a few times. The UI doesn't work too well on a tablet.

I didn't feel like Android Editor Pro added any value vis-a-vis the competition. And look at that UI!

In fact, I prefer the free phone apps such as Jota, TextWarrior, 920 Text Editor. Unfortunately, they also lack FTP/SFTP integration which rules out their utility.

Still, I would keep at least one text editor on hand. I figure I could use some other apps to get my files but that is rather clumsy and requires clicking in and out of apps.

920 Text Editor

TextWarrior

Jota

In general, these apps suffer from Android quirks. Yes, I call them quirks. These apps are designed with "responsive layout." Meaning the UIs are designed for multiple resolution and are highly adaptive
( http://developer.android.com/training/multiscreen/adaptui.html ).
Developers need to take lesson from these guys on Design principles and guidelines for Android apps (http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/26/android-design-tips).

The problem with the stale responsive approach is you get a lot of wasted space. Incredibly small interface elements on high DPI tablets. Buttons tend to be small. List menus require a toothpick or stylus to click. For example in SilverEdit, I had a hard time clicking on files in the file manager. I would mistakenly open up an excel file instead of a javascript file in my Downloads folder. This would trigger a crash every time.

Then you have mismatch elements. Keyboards covering up menus. For example, trying to do a search-n-replace in DroidEdit is a frustrating exercise. I would end up switching orientation from landscape to portrait to reveal the "Find menu." In fact, in numerous instances, I had to switch orientation for various reasons. The ridiculously large virtual keyboards (I've tried many different keyboards) would take up a lot of wasted space that I would often end up going portrait.

To fix the problem above, you need to flip the tablet to portrait mode which is counter intuitive when you use a bluetooh keyboard in a case or dock.

First, none of these apps support version control (I haven't found one on iOS either). But the important thing is none of them support organization by projects. If you are connecting and downloading from various SFTP servers, you can easily get lost on which files belong to which server. In my testing, I was simply downloading various source code and it got confusing to which files belong to what source. Since many of these apps are "blown-up" phone apps, none of them offered a dual-column file manager that would allow you to organize your downloads. A better option is the ability to clone a folder from a remote website locally. Hence, you would probably end up using another FTP/SFTP client to organize your files. In the end, it is a bit counter-intuitive and gives a user a cumbersome experience. However, if you are only editing off one server (say a personal website), then an application like DroidEdit Pro would work.

I would also caution that you should always check to see if you are working locally or remotely. Some of these apps open up remotely and save remotely at the same time. If you lose a data connection or something happens, you can accidently delete a live file. Hence, I prefer some sort of cloning/downloading to a staging area. You can always "save-as" to a local folder but the UIs in many of these apps are not that informative or intuitive to tell you. Never hit the "save" button and always use the "save-as."

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Last of the UMPC/MID BenQ S6

This post may be 4 years too late. MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) and UMPC (Ultra Mobile Portable Computers) have been overtaken by new, lightweight tablets like the iPad. In 2008, this particular model went for a pricey $420 euros or roughly $450 US.

Retailers have recently unloaded some N-O-S (new old stock) inventory of the Benq S6 (BenQ has since gone belly up) at an amazing price of $60 shipped. They had this in cold storage somewhere for over four years!

So what is so special about this device? Well, long before the iPad, this was one of those few UMPC devices to sport a full x86 processor. It was incredibly small compared to its contemporaries. In theory, you can install any x86 OS that is supported by the hardware such as GNU/Linux or Windows 98.

It runs a 800mhz Atom CPU and an Intel GMA 500 GPU. It also sports a 3G WLAN modem and sports some of the accouterments such as USB and microsd. Unfortunately, it has an anemic 2GB of SSD storage and 512MB of RAM. Later models came with 8GB of disk storage to accomodate Windows XP. This particular model originally came with Red Flag Linux.

So I bit the bullet and took a gamble. Worst case scenario, I figure I could MacGyver jerry-rig this device into something like a MAME console, in-car 3G wifi hotspot, personal firewall,etc.

I am currently backing up the drive image and I'm going to take a crack at seeing what I can do with it.

There is a renewed interest in the device so I'll post some detail pictures for those interested.

Here are some size comparison. It has a 4.8" screen 800x480 resolution vs a Galaxy Nexus 4.65" 1280x720 screen. Physically, the have the similar viewable area. I was cloning the drive with Clonezilla when I took these photos.

Here it is compared to a 7" Galaxy Tab 2.

Thickness. It is twice the size of the GNEX and approximately as thick as a box of Altoids.

This is the default OS running Red Flag Linux. It has some basic Office apps, MP3 music player, video, photo viewer, Pidgin messaging and a midori like browser. There is about 400MB free but you do have the option of adding micro-sd cards and USB storage. As you can see, this device has some Italian carrier branding. I assume this was one of those devices subsidized by the telco carrier.

I wanted to see if I could upgrade the internals so I opened it up.

Here are the internals. From top-left: sd-card reader on riser daughter card. Next to it is the copper colored heatsink fan. Then the middle PCB may be the flash storage. It is marked PLOTECH E169497. I will investigate further and check the ZIF ribbon connectors. The module with the black cover on the top right is a removable HSDPA modem pcie card. Then you have the battery cavity. The panel, based on its markings, is a LG panel.

The middle PCB and 3G modem removed.

Top view shows the heat sink's opening and vents for airflow.

There is something underneath the motherboard inside a heat shield. The top riser is the WLAN antenna daughter card. I will investigate further.

As I wrote earlier, this post is about 4 years late. You will be better served with the thinner, sleeker, lowe powered ARM tablets/phablets/phone devices that can play 1080p video with hours and hours of run-time. This is a gadget for those who like to tinker. There are a few people who have installed a slimmed down XP running on the 2GB drive.

Should you buy one? The forty something geek in me says no unless you are a die-hard tinkerer.

Here is a Youtube video of it in action.

Fortysomething Geek