Touch pad advice

[scotty73]

I bought my kids a touch pad from argos last week it works brilliant on the wifi at home things like youtube and bbci player are better that on our pc's/laptop but does anyone know if i can hook my dongle up to it when we go away? it's got a mini usb and usb adaptor but when i plug the dongle into it nothing happens?

[gumby6371]

It all depends on whether the dongle manufacturer has written driver software for the OS if they're not plug and play.

A quick look at google shows a few how-to's for android tablets and ipads. I'd try the manufacturer websites for the tablet and the dongle first off mate.

[highlander]

What kind of tablet did you get? Some of them will work with a 3G dongle. I have internet on my phone, and my phone can be a WiFi hotspot too, so I can get my phone to act as a 3G modem for a laptop, tablet, or iPod.

I just got a Google Nexus 7 as it will be my birthday soon - a cracking little tablet this, the 8 GB version is only £159 and the 16 GB version is only £199, both prices direct from Google themselves (http://play.google.com). You buy it from them and you'll get £15 credit on the Play store (for apps, music, films, books, etc). And it arrives in only a few days. The tablet itself is just 7" across and is pencil-thin. Much smaller than an iPad, perfect for working as a book-reader and mobile internet (WiFi only, no 3G included). It's also very fast, with a quad-core nVidia Tegra 3 processor and plenty of RAM. Great little device, very impressed. Means I'll be able to ditch a lot of my old books as I'm planning on getting them all on Kindle (the Amazon Kindle app is free and works very well on the Nexus 7).

[scotty73]

I got this one http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... TABLET.htm
It's got a kindle app on it but havn't even looked at that tbh if it's free though it would be great for my eldest she's always reading.

The dongle is the huawei e160 hsdpa (not sure if those letters help) it says virgin on it but it's unlocked and i'm using t-mobile, i need to get my head in the book but aint had the time yet.

[scotty73]

What kind of tablet did you get? Some of them will work with a 3G dongle. I have internet on my phone, and my phone can be a WiFi hotspot too, so I can get my phone to act as a 3G modem for a laptop, tablet, or iPod.

I just got a Google Nexus 7 as it will be my birthday soon - a cracking little tablet this, the 8 GB version is only £159 and the 16 GB version is only £199, both prices direct from Google themselves (http://play.google.com). You buy it from them and you'll get £15 credit on the Play store (for apps, music, films, books, etc). And it arrives in only a few days. The tablet itself is just 7" across and is pencil-thin. Much smaller than an iPad, perfect for working as a book-reader and mobile internet (WiFi only, no 3G included). It's also very fast, with a quad-core nVidia Tegra 3 processor and plenty of RAM. Great little device, very impressed. Means I'll be able to ditch a lot of my old books as I'm planning on getting them all on Kindle (the Amazon Kindle app is free and works very well on the Nexus 7).

I've had a bit of trouble with the one i bought the web browser would crash if you rushed it (and kids do) and yesterday while a guy from carphone wharehouse was trying to get netflix work on it for the wife it crashed altogether, after ages of searching he found out that netflix didn't support that touch pad.

So off over Argos we go last night and even though we had it more than 28 days they exchanged it and guess what we bought... yep Nexus 7 but the 16gig version i can only get the 8gig from Google and being impatient the wifey wanted one there and then.
Works a treat with netflix now but i was hoping i could hook it up to my tv with the usb but no joy.

I had ordered one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380449247367? ... 1439.l2649 first thing yesterday but after a quick Google i read that these can't be used with a tv i hope that's not right?

Is this 15 quid Google credit worth a shot then? i've not signed up for it yet but i have another option if i purchase anything?

[highlander]

You only get the £15 credit if you buy it on Google's Play store, I thought Hopefully that's not true. With my free credit, I bought:

- Minecraft: Pocket Edition (£4.99, which is very expensive, and I must say, I don't really get why this is so popular)
- Asphalt 7: Heat (69p, which is an absolute steal - MASSIVE file though, it's over 1 GB in size - good arcade racer with real licensed cars)
- Kinectimals (£1.93, which isn't bad - kids game, basically where you play with cats on-screen. A bit like Nintendogs, but not on a Nintendo, and not featuring any dogs).

Still leaves me with £7.39 credit. I have loads of other free apps on mine.

No, you can't use the Nexus 7 connected to a TV - it doesn't have an HDMI out port. All you have is a mini USB port and a headphone jack. The USB port isn't just for charging or data exchange with a PC - you can connect a little mini USB to full USB connector to it, then plug a USB hub into that, and connect a mouse and keyboard. Also a USB pen drive, apparently, for extra storage.

I didn't think to tell you about the lack of an HDMI port - I don't intend to use mine for that, so the lack of one wasn't a downside for me. It's still an awesome tablet. Netflix works great on it too.

[scotty73]

That Kinectimals sounds great for my 10 year old i might give it a try later, i was hoping that lead that i posted the link for would work with it having a micro usb one end and hdmi the other... the old one worked via a usb adaptor... shame it would have been great for netflix and the footy on my big tv.

I just read somewhere about using a

MediaLinkHD

i'm not sure what that's all about shall investigate in a bit.

[scotty73]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/21/wi-f ... n-via-htc/

[Welly]

I had a tablet last night and then touched my dongle.

Is that any help?

[steve_earwig]

[scotty73]

I had a tablet last night and then touched my dongle.

Sounds like my spam E-mail folder.