The ITTs, as everyone knows, are amazing little devices at a great price point. And of course everyone's looking for more hardware features, ports, speed, etc out of the next generation of devices. After squirrling it around in my head for a while though about all the various things people have been talking about trying to hack into the tablet's current hardware platform though I'm toying with a slightly different approach. If you take the hardware requests and break them down into two categories, you end up with something like this: harware desires revolving around mobility/"in the hand":
- Some kind of 3G modem device (heavily debated of course)
- Accellerometers and other cool alternative input sources
- More storage capacities.

Hardware desires that focus more around small and portable but not necessarily "in the hand":
- Video/VGA output
- Hardwire/cabled Ethernet
- Universal IR remote capabilities (a bit inbetween, but for argument's sake let's assume that you need to be in proximity of some kind of TV/device to have a reason for this, so)
- More storage capacity (re-occuring theme anyone?)

So here's my thought: what about a second "portable device" designed to be a kind of "companion" for the tablets? The general hardware might be something like : onboard LAN port, along with wireless access point. VGA output, along with audio ports and USB. Option of either external USB drive or SDHC card reader (so you could take your memory card form the tablet, toss it into this device and pull your videos/etc from there); same story with a USB drive/etc for higher capacity. Small, and easy to carry.
Physically the device would be slightly longer than a tablet, and about twice as thick. There wouldn't be an onboard battery or anything, but again that's not the purpose of the thing: the applications I've got in mind would be:
1) External media player: Take it with you when you travel/etc, use the VGA port to connect to screens/etc to watch movies on/connect to external speakers for music playback. All playback aspects would be controlled through a remote interface on the tablet, made possible since the device would act as a wireless access point. In this case it's acting as a travel router and media output device. Could also be acting as a NAS for larger storage when sitting in a fixed place.
Note: I know VGA is NOT TV OUT... but of all of the embedded hardware I've looked at for this project, the only ones with TV out on them are physically too large and too expensive to be viable.

2) Portable presenation aid: The device could be connected to a projector and let you either : run a presentation on the device's XWindows while being controlled by the tablet (VNC sort of style), or alternatively (if I can figure out the software to do it) the opposite, run presentation on tablet and have this device act as a mirror of the tablet display. (I'm looking for feedback on which one makes more sense for anyone who does presentations)

Essentially the idea is to have a second device similiar in functionality to a laptop, but without the cost/size/etc of a laptop, and using the tablet instead as the controller/input/interface for it.

Of, and of course the price point would be probably in the range of $200-350 depending on the exact hardware...

Thoughts/ideas/suggestions/does anyone think this actually makes sense?

Thanks,
-Rob

I'll admit I skimmed.. but wouldn't that be a docking station? A second device you plug the ITT into that gives it VGA, Ethernet, IR, HDD.. etc?

I would love a docking station for the tablet. love one. But I dunno if it's be all that portable.

Not sure what you mean by having a "second" device that functions like a "laptop".. when that is the point of having the ITT..

A companion device for the tablets similar to this one coming out for Windows Mobile smartphones?

A combination 3 port wifi router/wireless modem/powered usb hub

Nope, missing the concept here... essentially it would be the OPPOSITE of a docking station. No keyboard, no mouse, no built in display (just a VGA out port). Think of it as more of a networked extension/companion to the tablet. Kind of like a network media renderer/player, wireless access point, and networked storage device all rolled into one very small "transportable" piece of hardware. The relationship between the tablet and this device would be: tablet controls it, tells it what to do, etc (i.e. acts as a remote display, controller), but the device itself does the grunt work of actually playing media files, running presentation software, etc.

Does that explain the concept a bit more clearly?

This might be an option...

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/17/f...nt-lose-it-on/


Sno

I dont know what docking station you are looking at but.. I have a dell laptop in front of me know..

It is connected to a docking station with 5 USB ports, 1 Audio Out jack, 1 VGA, 1 DVI port, a power jack, and an ethernet cord.

And on another Dell I have a docking station that includes a CDROM bay and various other output.

No where in there does it "come" with a Keyboard, or Mouse, or it's own display... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docking_station.. It's merely a port replicator in a sense.

I think you mean something like a NAS - A network attached device with it's own minimal OS for specific functions .. but I don't see how you could attach a monitor to this "wireless ap/storage" device and have it show the screen of the tablet? Or is that not the point of the VGA out?

I wanna see something like this work with a tablet.

A USB docking station connected to the various USB Host mode setups we have around here that allows to connect to a VGA video device and other USB devices.

That is a cool little toy.

But I am not sure how that helps as a "companion" to the Tablet.. looks to my like another tablet .. only square.. and needs a keyboard and screen .

Yes, I like the idea but I wonder if there is a market for this. One could even connect this to their set top box or VCR/DVR, or use it directly as output on the television. While doing so, you still have the tablet in your hand and are able to multitask. I've been tinkering about building my own DVR, using the tablet as remote control. This can be done cheap, say with e.g. CherryPC, although then you lack hardware MPEG2/MPEG4. Or VIA, who have released some new open source drivers for their hardware.

For remote display I suggest NoMachine NX (or FreeNX + one of the open source clients) because this easily allows remote X with resuming of session, good compression, encryption, and easy way to define available connection bandwidth (from 56k6 to LAN similar to RDP). Clients are available for Windows, Linux, MacOS X, and some embedded devices. Another option is X + VNC + XRDP with Rdesktop client. The latter is even more widely available. This is a bit ugly due to protocol overhead on the server. VNC means slow bandwidth, but very cross platform.

Why have a dock? Add video out (Composite and VGA at least) to a future tablet, then plug in to a USB hub.