I recently got a chance to check out the TCL Tab (Model 9048s), this is an 8" $200 android
10 tablet with a 1200x1920 screen and a qualcomm snapdragon 665 processor. It is sold by Verizon
and has 4G LTE capabilities. I thought what better way to show off an Android
tablet than to give you a big list of ways you can use one and potentially save yourself
some money? So oftentimes I show off digital photo frames,
IoT display hubs, and e-book readers but these often cost the same price as an inexpensive
tablet, but they're made for dedicated use. For example, an Aura Picture frame will set
you back $200, but it only displays photos. An IoT hub is $99, but it requires power 24
7 from a wall outlet and is supposed to remain stationary. When you buy a tablet, you can
do many of the things these dedicated devices do, and then some.
So this is a list of 15 different ways you can use a TCL Tab to make your life easier,
including one having to do with the Linux terminal!
1 Second screen for work - for note taking, notion, email, calendar, social media. Set
yourself up with a cheap tablet stand off Amazon and dock a TCL Tab at your desk, then
use it as a mini display to see your calendar or email inbox... OR, download an app like
Notion (I absolutely love Notion, it's really intuitive but has a learning curve, so if
you want to see a segment on that let me know). Download Notion and use it for digital post
it notes or as a task list app, that you can access anywhere since it syncs across all
devices. 2 IoT control hub - music hub or base station.
One of my friends in California made a 3D printed wall dock for his android tablet and
downloaded all his favorite music apps. He uses it as a hub to control all of his connected
speakers in his house. Another option is a non-stationary IoT hub. If you have a bunch
of smart products in your house, you can use an Android tablet as a display to control
all those things, including using that tablet for voice control, controlling lights, a smart
alarm, anything that can be controlled with ALEXA or Google Home could be controlled on
a tablet. Just download the ALEXA app or the Google Home app and connect all your IoT devices.
3 Security monitor or baby monitor - This also aligns with the IoT side of things. If
you have smart security cameras or connected cameras (side note: PLEASE use 2FA and change
the default password and disable remote access on these kind of devices so they don't show
up on Shodan and have people creepin on you or your fam.) - You can use a tablet as a
security camera display. This is really useful if you are expecting deliveries and don't
wanna deal with porch pirates, or just to monitor the security of your office or whatever.
Maybe you just wanna find out which of your neighbors is allowing their dog to pee in
your front yard causing dead patches and yellow spots and your HOA has a rule about maintaining
lawns... Lots of use cases here. 4 Zoom or Google Meet or Skype machine, to
keep main device free. This is rather self explanatory but if you don't want to use your
main machine for web calling, or you need to be able to walk around while on those kind
of calls, you can use a tablet for video conferencing! The TCL TAb has an 8MP rear camera that can
do 1080p 30fps max and 5MP front camera that caps at 720p at 30fps max, which is comparable
to most third party USB webcams. It's also 11.5 oz so a good weight, and easy to tote
around with you. 5 Connect Bluetooth to your car and use it
as a music controller for car. So, if your car doesn't have a display, but you have the
option to add bluetooth, a tablet is a handy device to control music. The big screen makes
it easy to see and if you use voice assistant, it can help with safety. Of course, if you
don't use voice, I recommend allowing your passenger to control the music. The TCL Tab
is sold by Verizon and offers 4G LTE (yes, it's SIM supported) as well as bluetooth 5.0,
so you wouldn't need to hotspot it from your phone if you didn't want to, but it does have
it's own hotspot feature as well if you wanted to share connection from the tablet. OR if
you have an audio adapter, this tablet has a 3.5mm headphone jack built in, so you could
connect it via a cable as well WHILE using the USB-C on the bottom to charge it at a
max of 18W. It doesn't have wireless qi charging, but it does have a 5500 mAh battery with OTG
reverse charging capability for 17 hours of battery life. And another side note: since
it is LTE and sim supported: streaming device for the kiddos on car trips. They wouldn't
have to use your phone to be entertained while you're paying attention to the road.
6 Digital photo frame - connect to google photos for a slideshow. I love my dedicated
digital picture frames from Nixplay and Aura but if you want one that can connect to specific
apps or you want one that you can add storage to, check out a tablet. The TCL Tab has 32GB
internal memory, but you can add up to 256GB with a microSD card. Plus, oftentimes displays
on tablets look WAY better than what you can find on inexpensive photo frames, and given
how well our smartphones can take photos nowadays, I prefer displaying those photos on a frame
that does them justice. 7 Gaming station: So, you can download android
google play games on a tablet and connect a controller to it for a little mini gaming
station. Stadia is available, as well as popular games like pubg, pokemon go, etc. The TCL
Tab has a 2 GHz Octacore Processor and 3 GB RAM. I did notice some lag when first loading
games, but this cleared up once I was in the game and playing.
8 ebook reader, comics. As an alternative to a dedicated e-book reader, and offering
full color for comics, using a tablet as a reader is a great option. There's a customizable
eye comfort mode and reading mode in the settings so if the screen is too blue and giving you
eye strain, you can control that. 9 Drawing or art, coloring books - 9 and 10
kind of go together for reducing anxiety or stress. I know several folks who use digital
coloring or art apps to relax, and you can download those on a large display for better
coloring accuracy. 10 Meditation assistance is another option.
There are plenty off apps for mindfulness and meditation, as well as noise machines
for sleep and audio soundscapes. You can do all of this on a smartphone as well, but I
do like the larger screen for the visual cues. But wait for this... number 11 is probably
my favorite use... It's legen... Dary. 11 Data center - view realtime weather,
view data about air quality or local covid statistics, stock or portfolio data, or use
it to view a webcam somewhere else in the world. There's a live ISS webcam app that'll
show you what the space station sees... that's one of my favorites. Honestly watching Earth
from the ISS is a meditation in itself. Another option, tracking planes or ships using a live
radar. I've demoed similar using my own antennas and open source solutions - one that is REALLY
consumer friendly is flightradar24, which lets you track planes anywhere in the world
and read data about them. And it is SUPER awesome on a bigger screen, plus very useful
is you're tracking someone's flight so you know when to leave for the airport, for example.
12 Teleprompter - This is a very niche use, but something I've done with tablets for over
10 years. There are apps that you can download to use a tablet as a display on a teleprompter
setup. I script most of my segments to keep 'em well paced and to the point, and I use
a little logitech mini-keyboard to control them from my hosting spot on set.
13 DJ or audio garageband device. Music apps are popular amongst hobbyists and professionals
as well for making music like in garageband or alternative android apps, as well as for
controlling DJ setups or for managing karoke bar setups. A tablet makes it easier to see
visually than connecting via a phone, and frees up personal devices from having to be
used for professional work. 14 Editing videos using Adobe Rush or similar,
like Kinemaster! I've used Kinemaster for quick turnaround videos recorded on my phone,
but the smaller display makes it really hard to edit precisely on a timeline. You can still
record on your fancy $1000 phone, but back those recordings up to a cloud service and
download 'em to this bigger display to easily edit more precisely, export into a single
file, then upload to youtube via the youtube app. Also a great option for editing Shorts.
15 Terminal - Did you know you can access a linux terminal on android? You can! And
there's an app for that. And again, a bigger display = easier to see what you're doing.
I recommend Termux for a full environment - this lets you use shells and bash scripts,
you can use vim or nano to edit, use SSH, and my developer friends recommend JuiceSSH
if you just need to SSH into a separate box. If I just said a bunch of words that make
absolutely no sense but you wanna know more, check out my HakTip series on Hak5 about the
Linux Command Line - it's an older series but still useful. Also our
Hak5 channel is about to hit 700k subscribers so that's cool. I'm very proud of our lil
baby hacker channel. Don't forget to do all the youtube things
and thanks to Charles on Patreon and anonymous on buy me a coffee for supporting my channel.
How do you use an android tablet? Comment below. I'm Shannon Morse and I'll see ya soon.
Bye yall!