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I am still new to using the android system and just bought the viewsonic g tab and I must say that this is a real good toy and has some oportunity for future developement. Looking at the replacement ROMs they all seem like all you get is a phone instead of a true replacement operating system that acts like a computer.
Is there anyone working on something like windows 7 for these or even anything close?
notsob2002 said:
I am still new to using the android system and just bought the viewsonic g tab and I must say that this is a real good toy and has some oportunity for future developement. Looking at the replacement ROMs they all seem like all you get is a phone instead of a true replacement operating system that acts like a computer.
Is there anyone working on something like windows 7 for these or even anything close?
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Click to collapse
That is the android operating system. The release of honeycomb will give you a more tablet look but what is it you want to do that you cant with this OS?
I have a convertible Windows 7 Tablet PC. Most days it sits at home, even more so since I got my G-Tab. Why? Because it is not designed to be used with a touch interface, and doing things that SHOULD be simple like rotation can become a big issue. Plus if you want one that runs all day, you are going to add an extended battery with all sorts of extra weight to go with it.
FWIW, Windows won't run on an ARM chip or Tegra, so Windows 7 won't be ported to the G-Tab. You might (?) be able to get Ubuntu or another Linux running if you want the desktop experience, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
As has already been pointed out in the thread, there is very little that you could do in Windows that you can't do in Android - and most of those things are because of the physical limitations of the device, not the OS.
My .02 worth anyway.
Yeah I hope we get honeycomb ,that would be great.as for windows 7,I love it on my pc not on my tablet.Android rocks you can even send a fax with filesanywhere for free through the internet!
Plus ive already invested in skinomi and a cool android decal.
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snipestech said:
Yeah I hope we get honeycomb ,that would be great.as for windows 7,I love it on my pc not on my tablet.Android rocks you can even send a fax with filesanywhere for free through the internet!
Plus ive already invested in skinomi and a cool android decal.
Sent from my VEGAn-TAB-v1.0.0B5.1 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
I didn't know about Filesanywhere and the ability to send faxes for free. Thanks a lot; that's awesome.
Thanks for the FAX trick! I love my g, my laptop blue screened and crashed, couldn't have happened at a better time.
thebadfrog said:
what is it you want to do that you cant with this OS?
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I thought allot about this last night after playing with the GTAB and downloading a few free aps. I'm not knocking the android system maybe just the way it's current UI seems geared more to people used to smart phones. Maybe that's the whole idea and I'm not getting it as I'm too used to using a computer and don't use a smart phone. Hopefully Honeycomb will make it be more of a tab and the update will be made available to current GTABs like mine.
I still think the thing is great for surfing the web while waiting for my coffee to brew in the morning and I found a app to let me open office documents to I should be able to use it for some of my work files.
Honeycomb may give you less of a phone experience. You could also install the GAdam rom for more of a tablet feel
I would love a bi modal interface. One interface that works as a tablet when the machine is in tablet mode and another where it goes into netbook mode when it's plugged into a dock. This would definitely make the machine more useful for me. I could do some remote development on it (via ssh) or download a pdf document for reading on the couch or something.
I was really hoping for something like meego to take off and perhaps offer something like this. Oh well....
I just read that SAP is working on a BI for android . What would be great now if a usable VPN client and Lotus notes could be used.
windows 7 is been ported to tegra 2 says CEO of microsoft(i read somewhere). But it will be a long time before all the drivers are up and running.
Hmmmmm........now that they are with a phone company maybe we'll see something happen with tab
development for dual usability, work and personal use?
Pazzu510 said:
windows 7 is been ported to tegra 2 says CEO of microsoft(i read somewhere). But it will be a long time before all the drivers are up and running.
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Click to collapse
yes, M$ is back in the business of porting their primary OS to other CPU archs, but it'll likely die again as noone will want to hobble their devices with a windows version.
In any event, you realize that you won't be able to run the vast majority of windows sw right? (i.e. it'd be essentially useless unless you actually like windows look & feel...) It's ALL been compiled for x86 arch, and I find it unlikely that ARM version of many apps would ever be available unless something highly unlikely happened and windows for ARM actually got off the ground...
Hello all,
I find the gtab is much more than a toy. With my gtab I can access my company's network via VPN. My gtab can RDP to Windows servers at work. I can also access NTFS file shares on these work computers with my gtab. Access to my work LOTUS notes email and calendars is through IMAIL via the gtab and Dolphin HD browser. Any Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, or PowerPoint presentations I have for work can be read, modified, or created on my gtab. Reading PDF files is a snap on the gtab.
Whenever it is time to read the latest Preston / Child's or Dean Koontz novel I download it from Barnes and Noble and read it on my gtab. I can access my home network and stream media files from my NAS to my gtab. My gtab can access the Internet over wifi at home, work, restaurants, stores, anywhere there is a wifi hotspot. This includes my rooted myTouch 3g's ad hockey wifi hotspot. My gtab can play several audio and video formats. If I am in the mood for radio or TV I can stream full episodes or albums from Internet TV or Internet radio sources to my gtab.
My gtab has system tools that can be used to update its operating system kernels and ROMs, access and manipulate filesystems, and backup applications and data. I have utilities to monitor and benchmark the processes that run on my gtab. I am able to connect to my personal Windows 7 laptop or myTouch 3g phone via Bluetooth connection and access and manipulate their files and directories from my gtab.
I use my gtab as a remote control for my XBMC application on my Windows HTPC. My gtab can use the GPS on my phone to create a larger screened GPS. Sometimes I play Angry Birds on my gtab.
My personal calendars and task lists are kept current and meaningful with several of the calendaring and task apps available for the gtab. Current weather and news is but a click away on my gtab. Banking, credit card, and financial apps on my gtab let me monitor my finances. Shopping apps on my gtab allow me to peruse online catalogs and order merchandise from the likes of Target, Kroger, Best Buy, Amazon, and Newegg. I am able to access insurance records and medical records for my family / pets with apps on my gtab.
These are a few of the little things that I do with my gtab. I find the gtab to be quite versatile and consider it to be a quite powerful little ( size wise ) computer powered by the Android 2.2 Froyo OS. My gtab seems quite stable and I am able to address any issues that arise with the aforementioned system utilities.
Thanks to the incredible support that the gtab gets from the XDA developers and the Android app development community I believe the gtab has matured beyond toy status and has arrived as a useful tool equal to the challenges of everyday life.
Bob
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hey guys;
pretty much as per the title really. I have an aging Acer aspire one 8GB SSD netbook running ubuntu and it has been great for working on while being light and portable. I would really like to move to a tablet but i have to be able to work on the device and not just carry a lightweight media device (which most tablets seem to be at first sight).
I need to be able to work on office (both MS and OO) documents as well as create them from scratch. I have had limited success finding a decent MS office app for my android HD2 and was wondering if the same is true on tablets.
Thanks for any advice you can offer;
Andy
it comes with Polaris Office suite which allows those things.
geekyhawkes said:
I need to be able to work on office (both MS and OO) documents as well as create them from scratch. I have had limited success finding a decent MS office app for my android HD2 and was wondering if the same is true on tablets.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It looks like right now it is. I didn't find any app that can edit OpenOffice (LibreOffice) documents (I don't have the tablet, I was just looking at market.android.com). PolarisOffice edits Ms Office docs but someone reported that the docs it saves doesn't open in OOo. And there are reports that GoogleDocs doesn't work properly too.
To be fair I would wait until Honeycomb problems and glitches have been ironed out by Google. Two reviewers (Android Central & Anandtech) have mentioned that their Transformer crashed during a write up in Polaris Office and because the software doesn't have auto-save feature (yet) they lost 500-1000 words. Now if you are regularly saving your documents then it might not be a big deal but certainly I wouldn't say it is a "stable" replacement just yet. I hope more manufacturers take pointers from ASUS and bring similar tablets with keyboard docks with trackpad integration.
I just hope there are regular updates for both the OS and from ASUS to sort these problems out. The camera video recording glitch seems quite significant and also the lag with HD video playback. These are all software issues (I hope) and should be sorted out in time.
I wouldn't say Polaris office is suitable for work, and Google docs is indeed unusable. So I would say stick to the netbook, for now anyway.
Thanks for the info guys, kind of as i suspected (sadly). I guess give the market a few months to settle down and hopefully someone will port OO (or libre) to android 3 and we will be away!
Although it does slightly make me wonder why the tablet market is so hyped at the moment with so many quality smartfones and most tablets offering little more than the same but larger (at least from a work perspective).
Thanks again
Yes, it's quite disappointing. It looks like every way you would want to use the tablet (no matter - iPad or Android one) there is a problem that makes it much less useful. I'll buy one anyway because am a programmer and want to write apps for Android tablets but I think I will have to write quite a few for myself first.
I think it all depends on your industry. If you're a Data Warehouse developer, then the software is limited to the operating system it was designed for and there is no way around it.
But if you're writing your first book, NO PROBLEM!
If you create spreadsheets for your bookkeeping business, NO PROBLEM. You will probably still need a computer to format the print layout and set headers/footers, etc, and print. How about printing to PDF?
It would be nice if ASUS designed a dual layout platform leveraging it's current Android environment where at a click of a button, the layout changes to a point and click system (using the dock) reflecting a Windows-like appearance. Like a Play/Work theme.
WOW, I just thought of that! Hire me, ASUS, and lets get this developed!
Hi everyone,
I would like to get an eee pad transformer. However, with my previous laptop, I bought a legal version of MS office 2010, and would be a shame to loose it now.
I could find the files to create a dual boot with ubuntu on that device.
I found on a few topics that qemo could help emulate a x86 system, even on an ARM tablet.
Then I read that wine could enable installing MS designed softwares on Ubuntu.
Do you think following the 3 steps above could let me install Office 2010 on a eee pad transformer?
This would be critical for me to finally decide to buy it.
Thanks a lot for your help
Chris
I doubt it very much, there is a moderately working version of Ubuntu that moderately runs on the TF - but installing WINE and running MS Office, not a hope.
There are a few different versions of Android Office's you can install - none are anything like MS office though
Amazon, today (just a few more hours) has Documents To Go, free. I have been using it for a long while and it is very compatible with Word, Excel and Powerpoint. If that helps.
Thanks for your quick and honest answer. That sounds like a very bad news for me.
Unfortunately I can't go for Android designed office as for business purpose, I often develop some VBA programs, and I strongly doubt those are supported and possibe to edit under those softwares...
Thing is I am really looking for a good Android tablet (avoid Windows at all costs) on which I could use this only MS soft... Any solution could work for me (dual booting, emulation...)
Any idea then?
To be honest I don't think the processors they put in tablets are going to do a great job running a desktop OS (such as ubuntu) AND running emulation on top of it. Wine runs pretty clunky and buggy at best on a desktop processor. I can't imagine it's going to be a wonderful experience on a tablet, especially running Office 2010 or for developing VBA programs. Perhaps in the upcoming iteration of processors you might be able to but we won't know until they're out. Even then, it will probably still be fairly slow and buggy.
Ok so as a conclusion I should rather buy a windows tablet and emulate honeycomb using Android SDK.
Does it give the same experiance as an android tablet?
Any tablet to advise me?
There are rumors that the transformer 2 (Prime) will be able to run Windows 8
But it is only a rumor at this stage, and would be ARM based not x86 anyway
There are a few Windows 7 tablets if you Google for such, but from the video reviews I have seen they are slow and laggy at best
Maybe a touchscreen laptop / netbook would be more suited for your needs
Then when Windows 8 is released you will have the tiled Metro touch interface that is designed for touch.
You can get some touchscreen notebooks that allow swiveling of the screen, so it basically closes with the screen side facing up, giving the feeling of a tablet
Where Polaris Office fails to deliever what you need, I suggest you just switch to a Windows box for MS or Libre Office as needed. You can also use SplashTop (better than VNC IMHO) via MyNet and access your PC from your TF, that should work.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
This last solution gives me hope!! Splashtop could actually solve my issue.
Thanks a lot for your help!
As long as you don't need to track the mouse cursor's movements, SplashTop is very handy but can take getting used to. My own use of it, is mostly web surfing and video that requires a Wintel (e.g. XFinity).
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
I figured out I could connect to a NAS in my company. It is using Windows server 2008. Does it work with splashtop?
chris-france said:
I figured out I could connect to a NAS in my company. It is using Windows server 2008. Does it work with splashtop?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just use 2x RDP client its freeand works great for remotedesktop
Some hope for you...
Microsoft is in the process of making their Windows 8 ARM compatible, which is the architecture "mobile" gadgets run on. I will probably find a way to run Windows/ Ice Cream Sandwich dual boot, similar to what I've done in the past on laptops. Windows is your only chance of running Office. That said, the functionality offered by Google Docs, Documents To Go, and other "Lite" Office apps should provide plenty of functionality for you. This is a tablet, not a laptop. It's a great product in it's class, but not a PC replacement. Asus makes the Eee Slate EP121 (played with one, very cool!) if you want a Windows Tablet, but for $1000, it's a product without much demand. Hope this helps.
I, like many, have been on the quest to find the best OfficeSuite for Android, especially one that maintains some particular formatting I have. We all know the story, every app has some shortcoming so I actually use a combination of 4 based on what I'm doing.
Today I wondered if I should make a switch on the desktop. I don't need to use MS Office, but I need more formatting that Google Docs provides. So the question, is there a Desktop office suite or file format that does a better job playing nice with Android and the existing office suites? I'm going to test out LibreOffice, but didn't know if there were others I should consider too. I want to be sure that going back and forth preserves styles I have in the document and layout (like booklet layout.)
Which ones have you tried?
toenail_flicker said:
Which ones have you tried?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I regularly use:
Polaris Office
Office Suite Pro 6
QuickOffice Pro HD
I've tried:
Documents to Go
SoftMaker Office 2012
I've just started to test SoftMaker Office 2012 but so far I think the most robust is Office Suite Pro and I can also print directly from there which is very handy. Had greater hopes for QuickOffice after Google's purchase but haven't seen any updates in ages.
OfficeSuite Pro 6 is the one I use. Best I've found so far. Always open to new apps, though.
I think the biggest problem is the possible formats available for android vs other computers. LibreOffice use's, as it's default, the ODF format and as yet there is no editing support for that format in android. However! LibreOffice is working on an android version but I fear it is still quite a ways off.
I like Kingsoft Office, but I try to use Google Docs for most of my needs.
Hey everyone. Looking at trying to pickup a Surface RT during the black friday sale. I primarily want to use it for taking notes in class. What do you all think of the original RT with the 8.1 update? Worth getting it, or should I spend my money on something else?
On a side note: It's between a Surface RT (at black friday prices), a chromebook, and the Nvidia Note 7. I can see the pros and cons of all the devices, but a) I am entrenched in google's ecosystem (gmail, google keep, google drive, google music, etc) and b) I am going to school for computer engineering.
So what do you all think?
Sent from my GT-P7310 using Tapatalk 4
It will work great for notes if you get the Type Cover, there is no active pen support. But it's not that great with Google services. You will have a much better experience using Outlook, OneNote och Skydrive with the Surface.
Sorry I'm not much help here, never used a chromebook nor the Nvidia =).
I used my RT for note taking for a few months before moving on to the pro model, and it was a pretty good experience. I would have a notes doc open in reader and copy/paste stuff from it into one note and type additional info in various combinations. If you are interested in using google docs on the RT, that may dissuade you, as it's quite laggy. I had no such issues just using the office software for that sort of thing. For google apps, the only workaround I really had to look for was a google voice app, the rest of what I use was just fine via browser and the built in mail app.
I ended up moving to a Pro due to a few limitations that I ran into:
- inability to run the e-testing software we use on the RT (lockdown browser and a security.exe file)
- desire to do more pen writing for some notes (really just chemical reactions and such, things that don't lend themselves to typing)
If you have a laptop as a backup for any software you need on your course then yeah. Chances are on a computer engineering course it will be useless for anything other than a glorified pen and paper replacement (as would the other 2 choices).
As long as you are ok using Google Apps in a browser only, an RT can work well enough (I can't comment on the rest of your use cases). My employer uses Google Apps for Education as our primary email so I've done it. If a jailbreak is released for RT 8.1 I am curious how well (or not) Outlook RT will work with gmail, especially since I won't be able to run the sync software Windows 7 and previous could (I don't know if it works with Windows 8).
domboy said:
As long as you are ok using Google Apps in a browser only, an RT can work well enough (I can't comment on the rest of your use cases). My employer uses Google Apps for Education as our primary email so I've done it. If a jailbreak is released for RT 8.1 I am curious how well (or not) Outlook RT will work with gmail, especially since I won't be able to run the sync software Windows 7 and previous could (I don't know if it works with Windows 8).
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You have always been able to add IMAP accounts in outlook and GMail offers full IMAP support.
MS Office can save in open document formats (ODT instead of doc/docx etc). Google docs also use these formats under the hood or can at least attempt (albeit poorly) to import .doc and .docx etc anyway. Could certainly download your file, open it in MS Office, save it in open office formats, re-upload to google drive. In my experience MS Word outputting to ODT works better than google docs or libre office importing DOC and DOCX
SixSixSevenSeven said:
If you have a laptop as a backup for any software you need on your course then yeah. Chances are on a computer engineering course it will be useless for anything other than a glorified pen and paper replacement (as would the other 2 choices).
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My original plan was chrome book + chrome remote desktop to my gaming PC at home, but the surface and tegra note 7 wouldn't provide that. Then again, the surface is a bit stronger in the notes department and portability, and the tegra note would excel at math notes (its a math and physics heavy degree)
Unfortunately, my budget is very limiting, and I cannot get multiple devices. I have an old netbook loaded with my sata2 ssd, and mint Linux right now, but the performance is meh, and the resolution is abysmal...
My desktop should suffice for specialized software, but I am really needing a device for notes (I write slow, but type fast, at least with a real keyboard).
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
bluefalcon13 said:
My original plan was chrome book + chrome remote desktop to my gaming PC at home, but the surface and tegra note 7 wouldn't provide that. Then again, the surface is a bit stronger in the notes department and portability, and the tegra note would excel at math notes (its a math and physics heavy degree)
Unfortunately, my budget is very limiting, and I cannot get multiple devices. I have an old netbook loaded with my sata2 ssd, and mint Linux right now, but the performance is meh, and the resolution is abysmal...
My desktop should suffice for specialized software, but I am really needing a device for notes (I write slow, but type fast, at least with a real keyboard).
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Surface would do remote desktop just fine. Windows RT being a near straight port of windows 8 to ARM (minus the desktop lockdown) does include RDP support which is the default windows remote desktop software, although there are 3rd party RDP servers for OSX and linux too. RDP is very effective.
You also have VNC as an alternative to RDP. There are VNC clients and servers for most major platforms including android and jailbroken windows RT devices (this does limit to windows RT 8.0, although looks like the 8.1 jailbreak isnt far off).
Although in all honesty. I wouldnt rely on remote desktop access.
Will you be returning home each day and can you also use the machines at university? You may be able to get away without bringing your own full x86 machine. Otherwise I would seriously be considering a laptop or x86 windows tablet. There is the ASUS T100 for £350 which is a windows 8.1 10" tablet with a proper keyboard docking option too and using intel bay trail, but at £350 you can get a laptop with a bigger screen (also important) which is morepowerful too.
There are people on my course that bring surface RT's (and a few pro's too) and take notes in lectures, but they all end up fighting for lab computers the rest of the time and I dont think you can rely on remote desktop always being available or having a low enough latency, not to mention some university or college firewalls blocking it.