Tablets Versus Netbooks, Part II

Click here to read Part I.

Can a tablet be used to replace a netbook?

As a regular netbook user (specifically an Acer Aspire One), my proposed experiment was to try and spend a week using a Viewsonic G-Tablet (chosen because it’s roughly the same price as the Acer) running Android instead .

Now that a week has gone by, including a two-day vacation trip in which the tablet was our only computer, I’m happy to say it’s a successful replacement for the netbook. Mostly. Replacing a netbook with a tablet does come with caveats. Thankfully, there are solutions for many of them, which I intend to share with you here.

So read on for the gritty details about what worked (or not), and how to go about doing some of this yourself!

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Issue #1: Typing

The first obvious thing you miss on a slate style tablet is a keyboard. Yes, touch screen keyboards work well enough for the occasional URL or password. Try carrying a Facebook chat conversation on one, and you quickly miss having the speed and tactile feedback of real keys.

The solution? Thankfully, there is no shortage of tablet-friendly keyboards on the market. In fact, the G-Tablet has a USB host port so I can connect the keyboard (or mouse) from my desktop if I wished to.

After seeing many carrying cases for iPads with keyboards built in, I thought that would be the way to go (making it more like my netbook). However after seeing one, I realized they not only make the tablet thicker than my netbook, but also make it more difficult to use in portrait orientation, negating most of the purpose and appeal of a tablet’s form factor.

When I mentioned my experiment to Logitech, they offered to let me try one of their wireless Bluetooth keyboards designed for iOS or Android. I’ve got to say, I think wireless is the way to go with these. You have the option of casually pulling out a keyboard when you need it, but putting it away when not.

While some earlier versions of Android have trouble with Bluetooth keyboards, I found the G-tablet running Android 2.3 detected and connected perfectly, working exactly as I would expect it to.The Logitech keyboard has the advantage of being slightly larger than a netbook keyboard, yet being incredibly thin. Perfect to drop into a briefcase for those "just in case" moments.It also comes in a really cute little case that opens up into a stand for your Tablet (see first image above). How convenient is that!Issue #2: Office Tools I occasionally need to open and edit documents from my netbook, so I have a full version of MS Office installed on it. Sadly, MS Office isn't available for tablet devices, and even Google's own Google Docs comes across as weak on mobile devices.The solution? DataViz has a popular suite of Documents to Go applications, compatible with Word, Excel, and even PowerPoint. Documents to Go is available on iOS and Android (as well as Blackberry and other mobile platforms), so it doesn't really matter which platform you choose.Documents to Go in use

I found the interface more phone-friendly than tablet, however, which can get frustrating. The extremely large icons and layout designed to use maximum screen real estate are much better suited for smaller displays. I would love to see DataViz adapt this suite for tablet-sized screens, but it works well enough in the mean time.

There was another Office-compatible suite brought to my attention, Quick Office, which appears to have a more tablet friendly UI. However, DataViz’s product intrigued me with something they call “Intact Technology”, in which 100 percent of the original file formatting is maintained between my desktop and mobile device. To be perfectly honest, I feel more comfortable in the real MS Office environment, but Documents to Go works quite well for the occasional edit. The ability to work directly off a USB stick using the host port on the G-Tablet is quite a welcomed feature. If you have an iPad or Android device without a USB host, DataViz cleverly includes features to sync with Google Docs as well.

The one thing I miss is the ability to save finished documents as a PDF. I usually send work-related documents as PDF attachments in emails and found myself sending finished documents back to my desktop to convert so I could send them at a later date. Adobe has a PDF writer for Android, but it’s rather pricey for that simple function.

Issue #3 Hulu and Netflix

Watching video on a tablet is easy if you have it saved to local storage (mp4, etc), but I love to use my netbook to watch streaming video on demand when I travel. Netflix has a mobile app, so that wasn’t hard to find a solution for. However, their Android version only supports a few select phone devices at the moment, leaving the tablet market rather barren.

Brainy folks at XDA-Developers managed to modify the Netflix application to work on more devices, including many tablets. I personally found that their modified application works perfectly, but only with certain ROMs (mostly Cyanogenmod 7) and only on certain devices. I managed to get it working on our G-Tablet, and my kids loved it on our Fourth of July family trip.

Hulu, meanwhile, really is pushing their Hulu Plus service for iOS and Android. Hulu Plus is a separate paid subscription service that allows you to use their native app for streaming. Android devices have full flash support, so this shouldn’t be necessary. Due to licensing issues though, Hulu actively blocks any mobile phones from streaming.

I’m all for paying for services like Netflix, but I don’t want Hulu Plus. Yes, there are some nice features (such as being allowed to stream older seasons of popular shows), but I want the same ad-supported television programming my netbook is capable of. My tablet is not a mobile phone. It should technically be in the same class as a netbook, so I find Hulu’s demand for a paid subscription to be unjust.

Thankfully, there are ways to trick Hulu into not being able to tell the difference between Android’s browser and a laptop. Every now and then, Hulu catches on and patches the exploit, which simply leads to the creation of another exploit. In my experience, Hulu stopped working with native flash only to have a new version of the exploit ready a day or two later.

If you are unwilling to play this cat and mouse game, or perhaps don’t have a device supported by Netflix’s app, there is another solution through a service called PlayOn.

PlayOn turns your computer into a media server and can stream from all kinds of sources, including Netflix and Hulu, to almost any device (game systems, mobile phones, etc). It works surprisingly well on an Android device. If you have a computer nearby to use as a server, that is. This might not be the best solution for everyone, but it’s an option available to you.

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I’m still testing video chat services (especially with Skype video support finally available on both iOS and Android) as well as VOIP and social networking. I’ll report back with the conclusion in our next chapter.

Meanwhile, if you have any specific questions or recommended tests for me to perform/find a solution for, you can contact me using the email address in the “About Us” section of our site or post your comments below. Until next time.

*Photos of equipment courtesy of Rina G.