Partner wants to dump her laptop and use a tablet for presentation, for the courses she runs.
Anyone done similar?
Looking to see if this would be practical.

We had a play with a Galaxy Tab and can get the presentation on via USB (I know yes we could use dropbox or the like), and there are connectors available to vga, so assume connecting to projectors will be fine. Also the office installed on it, had no issue with her powerpoint presentation, and had options to allow on-screen pointing and simple drawing onscreen, adding in lines from one task to next.
So looks like the basic will be fine, but want confirmation.

I suppose the main issue might be battery life, as it would be on all day & connected to a projector, I assume (like my ipad) you can’t hook up the power while doing this.
Would a 7″ screen be big enough? I imagine so, as you’ll be looking at the projected image not the tablet…

Looking at old Nexus 7’s or maybe a new one.

Mmmmmm. Eventually I guess that’ll how things will be.

so assume connecting to projectors will be fine

The downfall of many experienced and well equipped presenters.

Anyway, does she do the presentations at the same place every time? If so do they ever change their screens / tech often? Can she always get on wifi where she goes?

Otherwise, can the tablet also do S-video? Or DVI / HDMI or display port?

Does / will she need any audio from the tablet? If so can the tablet split audio from the video (eg most HDMI / display port projectors dont have audio out/passthrough).

Whats her fallback when something doesnt work? Can she bring the laptop aswell?

Does her job / pay depend on this? Presenting to how many people?

Anyway that’s my 2p from a few very stressful situations with clients. If you’ve more questions feel free to ask.

Bottom line – for my missus – it would be a no.

You definitely want the presentation on the device, i.e. don’t rely on wifi access to dropbox

I’ve seen people use iPad and iPhone for presentations via Keynote, works very neatly and content driven to tv/projector inc a facility for the iPad/iPhone to show the next slide so the presenter knows what’s coming. That being said it depends what the presentation sites have in terms of AV equipment really.

My main worry would be the ‘office’ software either not playing the PowerPoint correctly or not allowing it to be edited if something needed to be tweaked at the last moment. If I were doing it for work it would be a Surface2 ftw or use something other than PowerPoint for the original presentation

Wife is just about to be given an iPad Air from work for, erm, ‘testing’ purposes….

Coulda.. yep to be honest as a PC techie, the ‘connection’ issues have my paranoia alarm bells ringing! That said, she report all the sites (always different venues) have projectors with std VGA connectors, and has never experienced any issues with her laptop. I think (hope?) ‘nowadays’ that the connection issue is a thing of the past. She travels all over the country, and doesn’t always take her car (eg: train to London), so though she would take the laptop along for the first couple of times (for confidence), the point is she want to dump it to make travelling easier over all, as she has other stuff to demonstrate and obviously carry to the sites. This is about making travelling easier, not just wanting to play with toys’ (dear god no, she hates IT!). TBH I agree it not the best option for you ‘job’ but she seen the ‘light’, so I need some/any reasonable arguments to bring her back down to earth.

Dropbox/transfer would be done before travelling.. we wouldn’t rely on wifi and I’d still expect her to carry it on a USB stick, for a worst case senario (and hope to borrow a laptop)

Leffeboy – her powerpoint presentation are more slide shows than interactive presentations, and we tested her current one on the Galaxy Tab, it worked fine, so she’d test the presentation on the tablet before leaving… Maybe I overstated the “replace the laptop”, she would still use the laptop at home to create the presentation but want to use the tablet on the ‘road’ to present them and use it generally when Wifi allows and for entertainment [films] in the hotel overnight.

Loddrick – Her work have given Ipad’s to full-timers but as she an overpaid 😉 (part time) contractor, her hints have obviously been too subtle.

I think the main stumbling black will be the battery life/power charge options.. she’d want to use it on train journeys to and from (they have wifi apparently), and the presentation is displayed all day. So it whether the charger connection, is also the only ‘output’.

I think the HUDL has a separate HDMI out. If that connection is good enough or can easily be converted to VGA for the projector then that might be a winner. Certainly be a cheapish way to try out the concept. (I dont have a HUDL btw)

If you can sit through deathly dull nerd dribble, the Surface2 actually looks pretty handy: http://microsoft-news.com/must-watch-this-video-shows-the-full-power-of-microsoft-surface-2/

Fast forward a bit for external screen output stuff.

My Lenovo on classifieds HDMI out?

looks good Jonny, but I imagine she’d want it new to put through her accounts. She’s also quite taken with the Galaxy tab & it’s stylus (though I reckon most should be able to do something similar)

I have a 10.1 Note.
Love the split screen feature in which when I’m working I have an office app, and pdf open at the same time, and with the pen I can write notes (which it then types for me into the office app).
Once I’ve finished, I can just email it straight away, therefore no need to retype up when I get back home.
All done, simple.

Bloke that used to work with us said that his Nexus 10 with a bluetooth keyboard was pretty much useable for work. I think I’d be able to cope with a fair bot of my daily workload with the same setup.

New Nokia Windows tablets look quite exciting for business use, ande would mesh nicely with a PC for content generation – worth a look at least.

No problem charging an iPad whilst using the HDMI out… Or the RCA out for that matter.

cheers all, a quick gander at the different option in PC World the ‘issue’ is that most don’t have a separate output (HDMI) and power socket – there are a couple.
The MS Surface unit does look very good, even if that reviewer is very ‘enthusiastic’, but I think I’d prefer to go the andriod route, even over my beloved ipad
Your comments are definitely encouraging, as to possibilities though

EDIT: JulianA how, or does the latest one have separate connections?

My phone has a combined HDMI/micro usb socket, the hdmi cable has 3 heads, the micro usb for the phone the hdmi plug and a male usb so it charges all the time whiles its outputting through the HDMI.

what phone Prawny? (to see if it translates to a tablet)

Galaxy S3

Edit, This is a bit out of date, but it’ll give you a few leads.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20089800-94/top-tablets-with-hdmi-connections/

cheers, good article!

So, you are worried about not being able to do Powerpoint presentations and then decide that you will stick with Android, that well known native platform for MS Office??

Is she really ready to ditch the laptop for a tablet? Can she live with the reduced disk space and the more than likely less powerful CPU? More limited on memory options? There are a few hybrid options out there at the moment that start off looking like a laptop but can separate out to a tablet. Or an ultra thin / light laptop? A few examples of the new devices is here.

No not worried about be able to do presentations, as we’ve proved it’s easily possible on andriod. Not suggesting the Surface 2 is a bad unit and the MS office option isn’t tempting, more that I’d prefer not to invest in a ‘dead end’, tell me MS surface tablets haven’t been that so far… no matter how much MS keep pumping cash into it.

No she won’t dump the laptop (as mentioned above), this is for on-the-road presentations & entertainment without the bulk/weight of the laptop (or spending stupid amounts on a tiny laptop)

So, you are worried about not being able to do Powerpoint presentations and then decide that you will stick with Android, that well known native platform for MS Office??

Erm, having used a brand new company windows laptop for presentations, I’ve become bored of the “Powerpoint has experienced an unexpected problem” prompt mid-slide show!

I went down the road of my own Macbook Air with VGA adaptor; much more stable and far quicker to create the presentations. I can’t see how/why a tablet could be worse than the P.O.S. that microsoft somehow sell.

I genuinely cannot understand why companies choose MS. It’s awful!

As an ipad owner I would recommend the windows tablets for anything business like. Yet to find an app which can reliably open an office documents be it word, excel or PowerPoint. And believe me I’ve tried!

I just bought an Air and am thinking about ditching and going to one of this new Nokia ones.

In the end I’m with huggis on this. I spent an unhappy hour on wed trying to help someone with a brand new MacBook air and a fresh installation of PowerPoint trying to get it to work – Macs can be difficult too. And having had a day of my wife’s work once destroyed by open office which up until then had been fine I am wary of compatible software as well

The surface2 is nothing like as nice or as intuitive or pleasurable to use as an iPad but you can fire up and run or edit your office docs without a hitch. I understand the testing at home before you leave thing but it’s not unusual to have to tweak a presentation when on the road. The surface just isn’t sexy though