Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Recommend Me a Tablet!
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Perestroika
Apr 8, 2010

 I have a somewhat specific use case and I'm wondering if a tablet could cover it. Basically I'm currently using an old windows laptop stream media to my living room TV via Wifi. Crucially, at the same time I'm often also using it to browse and chat and similar low-impact stuff. Since the laptop is kinda cumbersome in size and weight as well as getting up there in age it'd be nice to be able to replace it with something more lightweight.

Can tablets effectively do this kind of multitasking these days? Any particularly better at it than others? I'm more used to/have a slight preference towards windows or android, but I'm not too opposed to an Ipad either. Ideally it should be somewhere in the <$500 range. Is that at all realistic?

* # ¿ Mar 19, 2024 19:15
  • Quote
Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:34
  • Quote
Perestroika
Apr 8, 2010

Hippie Hedgehog posted:

So your TV is a “smart TV”, I presume? One that connects to WiFi and your PC has been able to somehow mirror its screen onto it?
[Edit: Oh maybe you mean you’ve been connecting the laptop to the TV directly using HDMI?]

What I’d usually recommend is for people to use an Android unit with a Chromecast dongle, but newer TV units often have chromecast receiver capabilities built-in. You can try it with your phone before investing in the tablet.

Any tablet will be able to cast streaming video into a chromecast while doing something else. I’ve done this with a very very slow tablet without hitches in the video stream. It works because the Chromecast is not taking the video from the tablet. It streams it straight from the internet server instead. All the tablet does is to provide the URL to stream from, and act as a remote control.

Ah yeah I should have specified, it is some Samsung smart TV that's discoverable via wifi, and connecting to it via windows basically lets me treat it as a secondary screen. I'm mostly using it that way because the TV's native interface for youtube and its generic browser are terrible.

Chromecast sounds like it might just be exactly what I need, I'll look into that. Thanks!

* # ¿ Mar 20, 2024 09:49
  • Quote
Perestroika
Apr 8, 2010

Hippie Hedgehog posted:

Does it not work with your phone already? I would guess a smart tv these days would be compatible with either android “casting” or Apple airplay.

Only just got to try it out. Seems like it supports some kind of casting protocol, but not specifically Chromecast. Google Home can't find it, but some other android casting apps seem to manage it just fine. I'll have to test them out and see if I can find one that isn't too obnoxious to use. :v:

* # ¿ Mar 20, 2024 18:58
  • Quote
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply
The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Recommend Me a Tablet!