Turning Android phone into a tablet.

cormie

My mother's phone is on it's last legs, it's a K800i which she has a lot of photos on etc. She has become quite efficient using a tablet for general browsing etc so I was thinking she may be ok using a smart phone.

Phones these days are far more powerful than the tablet she has but the bigger screen size of the tablet is better for when she's doing simple browsing/youtube etc and the bigger touch screen size may be better for making less mistakes on a smaller screen and seeing it better.

It would be a lot better to have one device so I was just wondering is there any decent smart phone out there that has a touch screen attachment that you can just slot it into the back of a screen and you can then use it as a tablet?

Simi

cormie wrote: »

My mother's phone is on it's last legs, it's a K800i which she has a lot of photos on etc. She has become quite efficient using a tablet for general browsing etc so I was thinking she may be ok using a smart phone.

Phones these days are far more powerful than the tablet she has but the bigger screen size of the tablet is better for when she's doing simple browsing/youtube etc and the bigger touch screen size may be better for making less mistakes on a smaller screen and seeing it better.

It would be a lot better to have one device so I was just wondering is there any decent smart phone out there that has a touch screen attachment that you can just slot it into the back of a screen and you can then use it as a tablet?

An asus padfone does what you describe. A 5inch smartphone, slots into a 9in tablet. Quite expensive though I believe. Alternatively you could try her with a 5.5in smart phone or a 7in tablet with phone features (not particularly useful for voice calls).

droidman123

The oppo r7 plus has a 6 inch screen

cormie

Thanks for the suggestions, the padphone looks exactly what I'm after, but on closer inspection, it doesn't seem too polished a device and the speakers aren't meant to be great from a review I saw. I need it to be as simple a process as possible for my mam to be able to use it. Maybe I'll look into it a little more, it might be adequate for her needs.

Would anyone have any idea how the phone and pad compare spec wise, to say her Motorolla Xoom tablet and my Z3 compact phone? I'm trying to gauge how it would be performance wise.

nedd

Another option is a new Laptop. Most new laptops have touchscreens. Some even have detachable screens. Or a Surface Pro if you have bags of money.

cormie

Thanks for the suggestion, but the idea is to replace the old phone first and foremost and given that whatever phone she gets is likely to be better specced than her xoom, to have a solution where she can use her phone on a bigger display. Basically the less devices she has, the less that can go wrong and the less she has to learn, if the phone can act as the central hub for all her media and communication needs so there's no need for a separate laptop or tablet it would be ideal.

The padphone would be perfect but I would have preferred a solution that could be used with any android phone, or most new ones, especially given that the specs of the padphone and reviews don't seem too favourable.

nedd

I dont think what you are looking for exists other than the padphone.

cormie

I came across this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Universal-TransPad-UTP-Samsung-Galaxy/dp/B00K013MHC

I think there's a few similar ones, but I'm not sure I could take the gamble, there doesn't seem to be any reviews, no ratings on amazon even and nothing on youtube other than a few quick videos of it. It looks to be what I'm after, but I think I'd need a Galaxy S4, which I know is a good phone, but I'm just not sure if it's worth the gamble..

nedd

wow, I'm impressed by that.

cormie

Yeah, if it worked, it would be pretty nifty, I think it may be able to handle more than the S4 too. Just not sure if it would be worth a gamble. You might run into problems with display issues too if you're using phone size apps on a tablet sized screen possibly?

cormie

Hmm, this is a little weird, I'm not even sure if they are available retail. Maybe the one on amazon doesn't even exist.

Look at their facebook page, only 38 likes and the URL for the main website leads to a blank page: https://www.facebook.com/TransPad

Seems you can get different adaptors for different phones: http://www.smartphenom.com/2013/03/universal-transpad.html

All sounds good, but it just doesn't seem like they are readily available with no reviews or feedback anywhere.

cormie

There are several options on amazon.co.uk. but all with vastly different prices. Would anyone know if these items I'm linking to below are all the same product, just sold at different prices, or if there is a difference spec wise between them? I see one is 64gb and one is 1.7ghz, is that the only difference in the higher price?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-PadFone-Infinty-Smartphone-Snapdragon/dp/B00CFBY0DK/ref=dp_ob_title_ce

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-Padfone-Infinity-32GB-Black/dp/B00N64GFME/ref=pd_sim_sbs_147_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0E3ZQZWJ4344N2PYRFG

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Smartphone-Qualcomm-Snapdragon-Quad-Core-Bluetooth/dp/B00ALRNFQS/ref=pd_sim_sbs_23_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=13JAQ1AJEV65C6PRQ1P3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-PadFone2-Phone-Station-Tablet/dp/B00BONZ192/ref=sr_1_2?&ie=UTF8&qid=1438318994&sr=8-2&keywords=padphone


Some seem to have different versions of Android too, so it's a little confuing to know which is the latest one, but maybe these were just listed at different times and after a newer android rolled out to the device? Price is definitely an issue too, so if the used one at £199 is the same as the others, I'd go with that probably.



On the Transpad, I got in touch with them through the facebook page and not good news unfortunately

Hi there, I'm just wondering did this product ever make it to market? I can't see anywhere really to buy it online, it looks like there's 1 in stock here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Universal-TransPad-UTP-Samsung-Galaxy/dp/B00K013MHC


but I wouldn't feel too confident spending so much money since I can't see any reviews anywhere online of it. Please let me know the status as I'm interested. I also see www.transpads.com has no content on it so again another reason to be worried.

Hi, yeah the company had some problems with the manufacturer. So now they are redeisgning everything and working on better technology.

thanks a lot for the speedy reply, so you wouldn't recommend buying that product as it may not be reliable and it's best to wait for the next release?

For some reason I can read your whole message. yes I would not buy it.

Wow interesting, thanks for the honest and fast feedback. Do you have any idea when the new release may be out? It's a nice idea for a product

Discodog

Another option could be to get a big 6 or 7 inch phablet & then use one of these for calls:

http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/products/accessories/smart-bluetooth-handset-sbh52/