Smartphone/Android - HG Users

[Russell Buchanan]

Until i can give you more accurate information, tell your wife to make it a Droid phone and not a Droid tablet.

version one will be designed for the phone. It will work on a droid tablet but the UI size will be a phone even if you put it on the tablet.

Some problems i see with the Droid tablet versus a windows tablet is a bit dissappointing, but i have yet to verify this and have only collected some comments at the vegas show:

Droid tablet: some say that when the battery is dead, you cannot charge the Droid tablet while it is in the "on" position. This could be tablet specific.

on the tablet voice recognition will require a network...which means that most of the time it wont work at the job site when your droid phone would have with a data connection

No handwriting recognition

no cameras or no camera with a flash

processor speed is slow

Storage is small compared to windows

...some other negatives but i will gather more info first. Even the Amazon fire will not have a rear facing camera i think.

I may be mistaken on a few points here and if i am I am sure someone here will respond.

I would like for inspectors to use a Droid smart phone as an input device and run their business on a cool windows OS. My pick right now is the Samsung series 7 slate which is not out yet. I preordered one on Amazon.

It will likely replace my laptop, it is finger friendly, has a wireless keyboard when i need it but comes with "SWYPE" for the digital keyboard which is so easy to learn and very fast to use. Has a camera (two) less than 2 pounds and you can run real programs...all your business can run on it and is not a toy like the Droid or Ipad which runs apps not programs.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/07/s...ing-date-stil/

learn more about swype: http://www.swype.com/category/tips/

[Dominic J. Maricic]

You're right on Russ, and I've been telling our guys the same thing. Some of the tablets have cameras but without zoom (digital zoom only not optical) they won't replace normal cameras. The issue with not having a rear facing camera is a good one I didn't even think about.

There is one new phone that Sprint came out with that has ONE handwriting application. It doesn't work in other applications yet, but it's a start in the right direction.

[Bob Elliott]

If one of you guys developed the software as a gesture search I would be very impressed.
Just downloaded Touchpal phone search and it rocks cause it searches photos.
My pal at active words is working on a deal with his buddies at swype to integrate the two so tech is getting better for android as they just sold Nuance for 107M and now are going to develop for Android.

[Russell Buchanan]

well while we are on the subject of droid, ipad and windows os its important to know that some study somewhere said that the majority of droid tablet and ipad users use their tablets for 5 things:

1. Surf the web
2. Games
3. Music
4. Movies
5. email

None said business. Its cheap and a few hundred bucks and so that is the big appeal. Its great for those top 5 things but when it comes to serious programs or business solutions windows os and soon windows 8 promises to be your best bet.

one comment by someone nerdier than me about the Samsung Series 7 Slate was complaining about the media's lack of exposure because this wasnt an ipad or droid.
His comment:
I'm laughing at how Engadget plays this down. This is by far the best tablet on the market with perfect specs and what did they do? Put it in a tiny article that poofed from the frontpage within an hour. Of course, you're not biased Engadget. It's just the only tablet with 4GB RAM, 128 GB SSD, a real USB 2 port, running DX 10 on an LED-backlit 11.0 16:9 display at 1366x768. Did I mention the i5 CPU and the 4 cell battery that lasts for 7 hours? It can run Crysis at medium specs, but hell "we don't care." The specs compare to the Macbook Air. See, there is a reason why Microsoft chooses to call Windows tablets, PCs. They are not those tiny pathetic toys running Android or iOS. This is a fully functional device that is compatible to 1 billion Windows applications. This **** goes hard.

another comment: I'm not so sure there is a huge price difference... a 64GB iPad 2 with a 3G slot (as this Samsung has) is $829. So this Samsung is $270 more, but includes a stylus and Wacom digitizer, so you can take notes on it. The screen is higher-resolution (1366x768 vs 1024x76, it has more RAM, a much (much!) more powerful CPU, and it may (it's not yet clear) include a keyboard and docking station. It has an actual USB port (full-sized, even), HDMI out, and so on.

If it turns out that Samsung does include the keyboard, well, a decent keyboard for the iPad is $100, so then the cost of the iPad + keyboard is at $929, and it starts to look pretty comparable. This is a different kind of device, obviously, and aimed at a different audience, but as for the price, it's in the same ballpark as a similarly-configured iPad.

HomeGauge is coming out with a Droid device called the HG "Companion" (tm) but it is important for inspectors to realize the limitations and aggrivation that can come from a Droid or IPAD tablet versus a windows tablet like the Samsung Series 7 Slate.