Nexus 7 as a laptop?

Tue, 17 Jun 2014 12:11:31 +0000

Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of my Nexus 7. Recently I wanted to do more writing on it, so I picked up a cheap BlueTooth keyboard from Anker and yes, I know it’s chunky, but it’s very decent to type on, and gets a lot from its two AA batteries.

This made it much more usable as an input system, but somehow I now wanted to use a mouse as a pointer instead of leaning in to touch the screen from the keyboard sit-back position, and then I remembered I bought a USB OTG cable a while back to play with USB stick file systems on a rooted system. On a normal Nexus 7, you can’t use it for bulk storage, but it does work for a mouse, even an old Microsoft mouse you bought a decade ago in a bargain basement in Akiba.

The Android system is surprisingly navigable from a keyboard, and the mouse makes it pretty much like a laptop, albeit with limited right-click. Yes, I know I’ve negated much of the point of having a tablet over a laptop, but this was a cheap conversion, and I only need to take the parts I want.

The main benefit may be that it enhances the typing capability, so for email, writing, website work and such it’s pretty good. You obviously don’t need the mouse, and just default to the touchscreen. Either way, it’s an option.

The Yoshinoya Mouse Mat

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 12:24:57 +0000

Whilst wandering listlessly through Bic Camera at Yurakucho last week, I somehow managed to find myself in a sea of mouse pads. Actually, I’m not sure what the group term is for a number of mouse pads (herd? flock?), but whatever it is, that’s where I was, and then by some incredible divine intervention I saw this:

A Yoshinoya mouse mat. Now, I love gyudon and butadon at least as much as the next man, but sadly I couldn’t bring myself to buy it. I feel like I’ve let the side down, and I apologise.

Mouse on Nanikore

Nexus 7 as a laptop?

The Yoshinoya Mouse Mat