Hi all,
I'm a noob (longtime lurker), I just wanted to ask the following question: I've been a longtime Windows Phone user and I'm thinking about making the jump to Android.
I was thinking of using the device as an all in one productivity device, with a dock connecting the phone to a monitor, such as this one:
EDIT: Can't post links due to Noobishness, so its the "Aerb® 3in1 Smart Multimedia HDMI Dock Station Desktop Charger Charging Data Transfer & Sync OTG for Samsung Galaxy S4 Galaxy Note 2 Galaxy Note 3"
Now, while the hardware looks great, the implementation seems... clunky at times, but the old WebTop mode from the old Motorola Atrix line seems well suited to something like this.
SO, my question:
Has anyone pulled the WebTop mode from the Atrix lineup and make it available to all Android devices? I saw a story saying that they had gotten it to work over all HDMI connections, so all it would need is some optimizations to work on Android 4.4.2+ devices.
Best,
Sheik
Related
For the past few days I have been racking my brain and searching multiple forums for the answer(s) and I finally turn to XDA to hopefully help answer.
The thought: I would love to be able to take my DroidX connect it via HDMI to a 7" monitor in my car to have a nice view of the navigation, access to my music and all of the other items that the phone has to offer (which include data connection and accurate GPS). Sure I can buy an android based headunit or build a carPC but why when I have what all of that has to offer in my pocket? Then I got to thinking, to take it a step further, why not use a 7" touchscreen monitor so that I am not just passing video and sound via the HDMI but that the monitor registers touches to the phone.
WebTop is a great middle of the road solution as it would output the HDMI and allow the user to utilize the phone as the mouse touchpad on the screen. Sadly it is only offered for a select few phones. So on to my questions.
1. Did I some how miss a WebTop project being worked on that would do what I am talking about?
2. Am I wrong in thinking that drivers need to be worked out depending on the phone AND which 7" TS was used?
3. Most, if not all, android phones have video out capabilities, so outputting to the screen would be workable, but is there a better way to get the input hurdle worked out.. not a question just an open suggestion box.
Looks like a few more days or looking would have helped. Customgadz has what I need.
so what did you find? I searched for Customgadz, with no results. did you use hdmi mirroring with Android, or does this work with webtop?
Looks like the australian website has a solution to control an android device with a 4 wire external touchscreen using a module.
search for "customgadz remote touch"
Only pre-order now and the website states they start delivering end of januari
Hey guys, have a lot of questions, so bare with me.
Some background info, ive been with android since the droid 1, every single phone ive owned is rooted and had a custom rom. I am currently using a HTC Rezound with sense 4.0 as my phone. The Atrix 4G i am using is just a phone to play around with for me. The main purpose i bought it for, was to use it as a HDMI out entertainment hub. I also bought one of those Atrix Lapdocks, and wanted to make better use out of it then the portable LCD monitor i was using it for.
Right now im running NottachTrix4G 2.3.6 rom on the phone, Faux 1.3ghz kernel, along with the full GenTop2 webtop as well. At the moment, it is the full rom i am running, i haven't stripped anything yet but i do plan to since i don't need any of the mobile data/phone stuff, just wifi.
The first thing i did was i put the rom on, then got GenTop2 working. After that, i then tested the HDMI out separately to my hdtv. I noticed when i plugged in the HDMI out, the Gentoo login showed up till i changed it to hdmi mirroring on the phone. This was my first concern about how all of this functions.
My questions are as follows:
1 - Does webtop run the entire time the phone is on? I assumed that it wouldn't turn on till the MicroUSB host + hdmi both connect and then it fires up. It seems like i am wrong on this.
2 - Does having Gentop2 running the entire time hurt performance of the phone? My main usage of the device is either for the Gentop2 via the lapdock, or HDMI out mirror'd for Emulators (snes/nes/genesis/n64/PSX) which are all performance heavy and Netflix. I noticed things weren't as crispy and smooth via the hdmi out as they are on my HP touchpad, wondering if having webtop running is hurting performance.
3 - If having Gentop2 does hurt performance like i am suspecting, how does CM7/CM9 perform when it comes to HDMI mirror performance and emulators/netflix? I could dual boot via Boot Manager or even the 2 partition method i've seen in the Android Development forum for the atrix. That way i could have a Gentop2 setup via blur for the lapdock, and reboot into a different rom (either CM7/CM9/Blur but without webtop) for usage of HDMI out for a HDTV.
4 - Is there perhaps something better then the Gentop2 i am running? I went with that because its still being worked on and i liked the performance on it, but i would not mind having Ubuntu or Linux Mint instead. There is not much centralized info about Webtop flavors and comparisons, its very scattered and hard to know what is what.
Overall i absolutely love the device, pleased so much with it. Thanks.
1) X (and the webtop desktop) starts the first time the doc is plugged in and stays running. I beleive it detects the USB device ID but am not certain.
2) All X based webtops will take some resources, in particular RAM. This means your forground tasks will have less available for them. I beleive you can execute /etc/init.d/webtop-shutdown.sh to spin it back down. (Then maybe /usr/local/bin/webtop-restart if it will not start back on its own).
3) Mirror will not take resources AFAIK.
4) If your issue with Gentop2 is lack of functionality, there is a mod "Full Debian" or such that does a similar mod with a standard debien. There are also notes there and how to do a custom distro. Note that Gentop will be most efficient.
A couple side notes. The true webtop concept (an X based distro on the dock) might well be history. Moto is going to mirror + tablet mode in ICS and it will be a challange to keep the current stuff working from then on (unless somebody wants to stay with gingerbread).
I suspect from then on the ability to run X based linux applications will be via the vcn method. A "headless" linux distro is used with a vcn server and the 'droid vcn client is used to present the screen. This can be done now on gingerbread (some like it), but on ICS we need some help from moto on the drivers before we can get a decent enough resoloution to do that right.
I don't currently own a Webtop enabled phone but I have wanted one for a while now. I am on Sprint and have a SERO account which I would like to hang onto so when I heard about the Motorola Photon Q I watched it with a lot of interest. As more info kept being released I got more and more disappointed. Finally I noticed that the phone won't come with Webtop.
Seems strange considering it is going to be priced like a high-end phone yet it is missing a relatively important feature most high-end Motorola phones have. Even the Atrix HD won't have Webtop but according to Motorola they didn't include it to make the phone more cost effective.
So those 2 phones won't have Webtop but on top of that the lapdocks are being sold for really cheap yet there hasn't been any announcements of a successor or refresh. The last lapdock released, as far as I know, was the 500 Pro and that came out 8 months ago. It hasn't been a year yet but that is still a really long time without a refresh to a phone accessory.
I know it is a little too soon to tell if Webtop has been discontinued and we won't know for sure till Motorola comes out and confirms it but I was just curious what others thought about it.
Sorry if this has been discussed before but I did a search and couldn't find anything.
Android 4.0 doesn't use webtop anymore because it just switches into tablet mode when plugged into a tv or external monitor via hdmi.
As long as I can run my phone at higher resolution through an hdmi cable, who cares what they call it?
MrCavity said:
Android 4.0 doesn't use webtop anymore because it just switches into tablet mode when plugged into a tv or external monitor via hdmi.
As long as I can run my phone at higher resolution through an hdmi cable, who cares what they call it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it that way with all android phones using 4.0 that have video out? Thought most android phones that can do video out just did screen mirroring without switching to a tablet mode.
Anyways, the main reason I am interested in Webtop is because of the lapdock. I wouldn't use Webtop on a TV or monitor but the lapdock would be the sole reason for me wanting Webtop. I know I could get a cheap android tablet but I'd rather have a lapdock since it is laptop-like and it would contain everything on my phone. Don't really want 2 separate devices.
As far as I know the lapdock will only work with Motorola phones that have Webtop. Correction welcome if that assumption is wrong.
You don't have to do tablet mode, you can choose to just mirror your display.
The thing is that despite webtop was based on linux, you only had one desktop program, Firefox, and better resolution.
The only difference at ICS is that you will use either the android version of Firefox, or just the Chrome. It's a faster solution, but it lacks at the flash support part.
Sent from my XT910
No, sorry, thats not the only diffrrence!
Its much bigger. With the real Webtop you have got a real Linux system so you can use libreoffice, gimp and so on.
With tablet mode you have an fuc* android on an untouchable lapdock display.
With linux you can get n programs on the screen. With android you have only on. To change through the open programs, you get illness...
There re many differences!
Sent from my XT910 using xda premium
I had a convergence idea (that i'm sure others have had in the past) about using an atrix 4g laptop dock (via mhl to hdmi) on my galaxy note. I'm running cm10 (4.1.2) with ubuntu installed experimentally, but I would really like to get xwindows working on the video out on my note instead of just a mirror of what' on my phone's display (sort of like the atrix demonstration of cannonical's ubuntu for android) the sad part is that I haven't the foggiest about how to bind an xserver to the video out and then how to disable the bluetooth input to android and enable it on that xserver... if cannonical can do it with an atrix, i'd imagine we should be able to do it on a note...
just kicking around some ideas. if anyone has any idea as to how to go about this, or has additional ideas and information related, i'd be interested. I'm very interested in mobile phone / notebook / desktop convergence and would love to see something this this in action in my hand.
now that atrix laptop docks (which are really just hdmi displays / speakers and usb keyboards that power for 8 hours) are $50 on ebay it seems like the time is right...
Beat me to the post I was going post a similar idea as well today. Only I have no interest in using the pad dock. Just "ubuntu" video out activated on mhl input.
With the announcement of Android 5.0, I was thiinking of new possibilities. I have an old tablet (1st Gen Kindle Fire), and I was wondering if there was any way you could create an Android TV ROM to install on a tablet, wether it's the Kindle Fire or a Nexus 7 or something. You could then connect an external display (if your device supports that) so you would have the full Android TV experience without forking over another $100 just by using old tech. Are there any guides to do something like this?
Yup. I had the same thought. I'd love to do this with old Galaxy Nexus.
I would love it on my nexus 7 2013!
I'm looking for this idea on my old phone and tablet / even dual boot -> that's really good one for home.
P/S: using HDMI cable (slimport or LHM) to connect to TV
It'd probably be possible, if you can run SDR touch on a phone, it'd surely be possible to run a TV Android version with some tweaking and a RTLSDR Dongle(they were originally for TV)