Tablet and Mobile

Archive for the ‘Connectify’ Category

We’re now looking at nearly 2 years since the launch of the original iPad and though the device retains some of the magic, those of us there at the beginning are no longer in awe of the fantastic design that has made so many millions for Apple and changed the way we work and play.

It now seems fairly natural to be walking around with a slim glass-and-aluminium device that’s more powerful than mainstream PCs of just a few years ago – so the only questions is – WHICH tablet should we be carrying?

I recently got my hands on a 7” Android tablet running “Gingerbread” – or Android 2.3.  Since then we’ve seen “Honeycomb” and finally “Ice Cream Sandwich” but most of the cheaper tablets are running 2.3 or lower.

To be honest I would not waste my time with anything LESS than version 2.3 is it’s fore-runners were never designed for tablet use.

Until now I’ve avoided Android tablets altogether for a number of reasons including the absolutely useless “resistive” displays that many of the cheaper ones employ. These are of the old-fashioned variety you have to press on to get any response and they are deeply unsatisfying to use. One of the iPad’s best features is the utterly responsive “capacitive” display which requires no finger pressure AT ALL to work – and so that for me is the minimum I’m prepared to look at.

The Yuandao N12 Fast Tab is one of dozens of 7” tablets out there that runs Android 2.3 and on the surface of it, it’s a mini-iPad..  the 7” format means it fits comfortably into a big hand and you’d expect that to be a big plus compared to the iPad’s rather larger format. In fact there is little apparent difference in weight.

So, in 2012 how to Android and Apple stack up?

The N12 is CHEAP – I’ve seen it at £100 including VAT in the UK so it’s not in the same league as iPad price-wise or feature-wise.

Let’s look at the pluses and minuses of this particular tablet – which is not untypical of the far-eastern offerings available right now..

Minus

• Battery life –claimed to be 20 hours standby and 5 hours video – yes, if you are lucky, more like it 4 hours of use. The iPad has never run out on standby in the time I’ve had it and gets around 10 hours of video NO PROBLEM.
• Microsoft Exchange – The M12 cannot handle any but the simplest of Exchange setups – if the setup won’t work with email and password, there seems to be no way to get into manual setup – this is a MAJOR omission for corporate use.
• Display – fast and responsive but ultimately at 800*480 pixels it’s an overgrown phone and the pixilation is obvious, even watching movies.
• WIFI – the WIFI is very insensitive, picking up less signal than many phones and dropping out occasionally.
• Limited memory – a common Android problem, although the unit has 8GB internally with access to an external memory stick, it seems that even though you can move Apps into this larger space, there is an internal CORE of 512MB RAM (this is a common limit – see specs – APPLE do NOT have such a limit) and even Apps in external memory use up SOME of this 512MB RAM which soon gets eaten up – putting a limit on how many Apps you can install – this is really unacceptable but somehow manages to escape most reviews.
• Speed – not quite fast enough to make good use of Flash – one of the so-called Apple-killer features, the Flash performance is poor.
• Finish – the unit has a nice Aluminium finish which unfortunately has sharp edges – after repeated handling while, say, watching a movie, tends to get annoying. This sharp edging appears to be common among the Chinese offerings
• Reliability – the hardware seems reliable enough but Gingerbread is chocker full of bugs – the language control means that some menu items come up in Chinese no matter what you do and installations can easily be messed up.
• The Android market has some gaping holes compared to Apple, the latter having an excellent PDF reader (GoodReader) and several other business tools missing from Android market.
• Front-only camera which is poor quality and not that reliable – only sometimes works with Skype. No back camera.
• No Bluetooth – yes you heard it  – no Bluetooth (the iPhone 4 and iPad2 reliably handle 2 simultaneous Bluetooth connections – in my car for example the phone is Bluetooth hands-free but also talks to a separate Bluetooth unit to play audio through the car stereo – something the old 3GS could not quite tackle)
• No sign of upgrades available – website is in Chinese, very little English discussion on the web.
• Large border area around the screen.
• 16:9 wide format

Plus

• The 7” format would fit into a large coat pocket and just feels nice
• The screen is bright and responsive
• The Android market has come a long way and although still full of rubbish, there are some hidden gems in there – many of which are free.
• External memory means no limit to movies you can store on the device.
• USB means external keyboard is easy to implement (though Bluetooth would be more convenient)

Summary

Based on the above – for me the ideal would be a 7” tablet with little border area i.e. mostly screen, running a later version of Android which properly handled Microsoft Exchange, on a tablet with at least 1024 pixels wide, rounded corners, 6-10 hour battery life, Bluetooth, sensitive WIFI, at least 1Gb internal working RAM, preferably more.

With current improvements to the Android Market, there is definitely a place for these devices. If you look at the likes of the Samsung S2 phone – slim, incredibly light, super display – think of one of those stretched to 7” or so and I reckon there is definitely a place for such a device provided the price is right (i.e. WELL under the cost of an iPad) – as yet it does not seem to exist, the NOTE being the nearest but still too small.

For now, the iPad is still streets ahead of Android…maybe they’ll keep that lead, maybe not. There is something quite nice about the smaller form factor and lower cost of the Android devices – opens up all kinds of possibilities if only the quality bar was raised…

Anyone new to the iPad may not be aware that there are two basic types – those with 3G and those without. Now of course, Orange are planning on offering the iPad at discounted prices with a contract – but think about this…

Firstly, the contract will be £25 or more monthly, secondly even though the price is discounted, you’ll have also to pay through the nose for the version of iPad with 3G. which is much more expensive than the basic WIFI version. Thirdly you won’t be able to make use of that broadband anywhere else – for example with a laptop – because Apple are really, really restrictive about that kind of thing. You can’t even tether your iPhone to your iPad without jailbreaking it.

All in all, it seems there should be a better way… and there is.

Essentially what you’re looking for is a way to get a signal to your iPad as cheaply as possible and as often as possible – because without connectivity, well, it’s not a lot of use other than for playing scrabble and reading books!!!

I’ve tried all sorts of combinations, believe me – and one of my favourites until now was to take the SIM from my Vodafone card, put it into a Nokia S60 phone and use a little program called Joikuspot to share the 3G signal via WIFI with the iPad (again for newcomers, the iPad doesn’t have USB so dongles are basically useless). Indeed at one time I used a small plug-in-the-wall unit that took in the dongle and dished out WIFI – but typical of stuff made in China, they never kept up with the ever-changing designs of dongle – this is NOT the way to go.

So, until they kit out the iPhone 9000 with WIFI sharing and an FM transmitter (dream on)… here’s my NEW solution:

The MIFI unit as sold by THREE and others is a little pocket unit (rechargeable battery powered) that takes in 3G and dishes out WIFI – it’s as simple as that. It comes complete with a charger and a USB lead for setup (and even the latter is un-necessary). You turn it on and immediately it appears as a WIFI router to your laptop, phone, iPad etc. BUT — doesn’t that stop you making phone calls on your iPad? Not really, I use SKYPE for all my phone calls and it works a treat. Now that IOS 4.2 is out, you can run Skype on your iPad and leave it running all the time. I have a SKYPE IN number and so now I’m available on the same number whether I’m in my office or on the road – thanks to the MIFI unit.

If you wish to set up the unit to your requirements, you can plug it into a PC and set the name, password etc… but that’s up to you, it works out of the box. No wires, no complicated setup, it just works. Your monthly data allowance on this unit. Please note you get a mains charger, not a car charger – in my case I have 240v available in the car but you might want to consider that situation as the MIFI unit in use gets about 4.5 hours out of a charge (when it’s turned on).

Now, I might hear you say… but Vodafone have coverage country-wide.. well, that’s what I thought and I was very wary about throwing in the towel with my now redundant dongle (there is NO advantage to the dongles now other than battery life as they don’t have a battery), so armed with a lot of travelling to, I set off to test the MIFI unit.

The trip from Blackpool to Wark in Northumberland is fraught with communications issues, the mountainous area around the lakes – and the A69 to say the least. I used my iPhone (as against iPad) for the testing, putting it into flight mode and re-enabling WIFI so I could be sure that any connection was coming from the MIFI unit. I switched on Internet radio, plugged the iPhone into my car stereo… tuned in RIVIERA RADIO – my favourite Monaco radio station – and off I went.

To cut a long story short, from Blackpool to Wark, the first time the radio went off was near Hexham and that lasted about a minute, then about a mile away from Wark, the radio went dead and stayed that way… but then, that’s what happens with Orange and Vodafone!  So was THREE any less available than the others? Well, NO! The little display on the MIFI unit told me I’d used about 250Mbytes along the way, the battery was about half-way down at the end of the trip… as you’d expect… and for the first time ever, I began to realise that listening to radio stations almost anywhere in the world while on the move is, at last a reality!

I’m using Internet radio as an example but of course there are many other uses for constantly available WIFI on the move – Google MAPS being another example.

Normally, using 250Mbyte on a trip would be very expensive, the mobile operators really haven’t yet gotten to grips with the idea that they started setting our expectations high with this nonsense about “unlimited data” which they’ve now all but scrapped… but THREE offer from 1GB a month for £9 up to 15GB a month for £22 and these prices can only come down. I’m sure others will come up with similar deals before long if they’ve not already started – the point being, on the larger contract I could do that trip 60 times a month before running out of data!!

In a previous blog you might notice I mentioned the free Connectify App for the Windows-7-powered PC which lets you share a hardwired Internet connection (or indeed a dongle connection) via WIFI with your iPad or whatever. In both cases you can share this connection with a small number of machines, so that for example in a small meeting as long as ONE of you has a connection, the rest can share not matter what kind of device you have (I discount phones with no WIFI ability here as being relics of the past not worth considering – if you still have such a beast, perhaps it’s time to move on?). Beware the jury is out on this program – last month’s version was using up PC resources too quickly, the current beta APPEARS to work but if you notice anything up with your computer after installing… there’s your culprit.

So there you have it… with WIFI available all over the UK for free for BT customers (BT FON, OPENZONE) and WIFI via a MIFI available for an entirely reasonable monthly contract,surely this HAS to be the future for your tablet and other devices?

Made my day, I can tell you.

Oh, about Connectify…  great program but this has to be be the cheesiest advert of all time..

 

Of course, if you’re lucky enough to have an updated Froyo device, say an HTC Desire with Android 2.2 or better, then you may well already have WIFI sharing – that is if your service provider has not disabled it or otherwise made it useless.  I’ll be testing the Desire next to see how it performs.