November 28, 2012 at 13:14Mobile office from a tablet or Polaris Office review
When personal computers appeared, their main advantage was convenient document management. In the corporate segment, with their help it was possible to form tables, build diagrams and perform various calculations. But the attachment of the computer to one place was not very convenient for users who had to often move around.
As they say, demand creates supply, and manufacturers began to offer various laptop computers. Of course, by modern standards, a suitcase weighing 10 kilograms cannot be called a mobile device, but progress does not stand still, and now computers have become truly mobile. Now on top of mobile devices in terms of compactness and uptime are modern tablets. Light weight, long operating time, high-quality screen make tablets an excellent tool for a mobile office.
Of course, it’s not very convenient to use a touch keyboard to create content on a tablet, but now there are many accessories that make it possible to make a full-fledged laptop out of a tablet.
So, let's check whether it is possible to organize a mobile office using a tablet!
I will conduct an experiment on my Asus Transformer TF700T. Moreover, there is already an office out of the box.
The tablet has a plug-in keyboard with a touchpad. The buttons are the same as on netbooks, island type. Nothing is being squeezed. At the top there is a series of function keys, on the edge is the device’s lock button, which everyone in the reviews has “blamed on”, that you can accidentally press it, but this has never happened to me for the entire time of work. True, the buttons for moving through the text are small, it was not quite convenient for me to move the cursor, but this is the trouble of many laptops.
I gave a small text to a friend who uses the blind typing method. There are no errors, the keyboard is very comfortable. I did not quite understand why the touchpad is here, it’s more convenient to use the screen, but in fact it’s much more convenient to place the cursor on the touchpad and select the text, especially if you work with the table. Raising a hand from the keyboard to the screen takes longer than scrolling the thumb across the touchscreen.
By the way, via USB in the dock, you can safely connect the mouse. Then working is generally a pleasure.
A nice bonus: everyone who sees this bunch of tablets and the dock think it's a netbook. So thin and metallic, but when you unhook the tablet - Wow! This thing also cleans up!
TF700T is quite an interesting machine with a powerful 4 core CPU, FullHD screen and keyboard.
Transformer Pad Infinity comes preloaded with Polaris Office software. This suite of office applications allows you to work with files of various formats, including documents (.doc), spreadsheets (.xls) and presentations (.ppt). In addition, ASUS WebStorage online file storage may come in handy for successful mobile work. ASUS allocates 8 GB in the cloud for free, which undoubtedly can be convenient, even despite a bunch of alternatives in the form of Dropbox or Yandex.Disk.
Consider a typical situation. You need to quickly open the abstract from the flash drive, change the last name, year and save the document :) The tablet was able to recognize the flash drive with FAT and NTFS, everything is fine with the display of Cyrillic file names. Through the built-in Polaris Office, I was able to open the document, change it and save the changes to the flash drive. Everything works quite simply and out of the box.
Let's try to work with the help of Polaris Office with various documents.
When the program starts, we are shown a start screen in which there are 3 tabs with templates for new documents: a text document, a table and a presentation. The templates look pretty and have a fairly modern look. Based on them, you can make informative documents.
In the upper right corner there is a search bar. This search allows you to find the desired document stored in the internal memory by name.
When you click on the icon of the memory card, a file manager opens that displays the contents of the internal memory or flash drive. Here you can perform simple file operations: copy, move, delete and send to other programs. In the file properties you can see a preview of the document, you can also see what type it has. There is support for Drag-and-drop, the desired file can be easily dragged into the desired folder.
Here, by selecting the desired folder, we can create a new office file. Polaris Office offers us a choice of the most popular formats. Moreover, even old documents from MS Office 2003 are supported. It happens that you send someone a document in docx, and they tell you: -I don’t open it! Save to the 2003 office!
Let's go back to the home screen. The On-line Storage icon offers us to connect only two types of cloud storage - these are Google Drive and Box.net. I think in the new versions the developers will add more services, because now many people store their documents in the clouds. I tried adding my google drive. After that, the file manager opened, which showed all my documents. When you try to open a document, it is downloaded to the internal memory, and you can edit it. A revised or new document can also be easily uploaded back to the cloud.
Well, let's try to open some document. For example, a business plan was sent to you by mail and you need to familiarize yourself with it.
Polaris Office has two modes of working with documents: viewing and editing. Initially, the document opens in viewing mode, and you can switch to editing mode with one tap on the icon.
There are 4 icons at the top of the screen. Switch to document editing mode. The zoom button, you can also zoom in using multi-touch gestures. The next element is a document search. And the last button allows us to send the document by mail or open it in another program. You can also bookmark it on a specific page of the document. On the left side of the screen for easy navigation through the document, you can open a preview of the pages.
Let's move on to editing a new document. You can move the cursor by simply tapping at the right place in the text or use the mouse. Scaling also works with multi-touch.
Another panel will appear at the top of the screen with various function buttons for editing text. Let's consider it in more detail.
The future generation no longer knows why the floppy disk icon is used to save the document. I can’t imagine how now it can be visually shown. Will they soon draw a flash drive? Next are the undo buttons, then work with the clipboard. There is nothing complicated, typical copy, cut and paste functions. By the way, Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V work fine with the keyboard.
Also, if you select a piece of text, then Polaris Office will open a panel with edit buttons, search for this passage in Google or Wiki.
Changing the font is straightforward, you can specify the size, color, fill and style. It is also possible to select text alignment, indentation and spacing. If you select a list, you can automatically put down the numbering or markers.
You can add new elements to the text, such as a photo from a camera or gallery, add a link to the site, or save a bookmark. It is also possible to add various forms, for example, from them you can build a block diagram. The added form can be changed by dragging the corners, or changing its location relative to the text, behind the text, above the text.
When adding a new table to the text, you can visually select how the table will look, or manually enter the number of columns and rows. After creating the table, editing the fill and border is available. In addition, you can add new rows or columns, delete and merge cells.
By and large, there are all the main features for editing typical documents.
Let's try to open a table made in MS Office.
As you can see, the table opened normally. The inserted company logo was displayed, various formation, different sizes of columns and rows. At the bottom of the table, you can switch between sheets. Again, you can make any changes to the table, save them and open them in the desktop office.
Let's see what other functions are available to us when editing the table. Like the desktop office, Polaris Office can work with formulas. The list of formulas is quite large. There are mathematical, economic, logical and many other formulas.
As in a text editor, there are all functions for changing text. Consider the table features. For a specific group of cells, you can select the cell format, numerical, text, and others.
Of course, various actions with cells lend themselves to flexible configuration. It is possible to automatically adjust the height, width and much more.
Polaris Office can work with diagrams created in MS Office. Moreover, here we can create a new diagram ourselves. The following chart types are available: bar, bar, pie, and graph.
There are no problems with presentations either. All file formats created in different versions of MS Office are opened. Documents can also be edited and viewed. All functional elements are available as in a text editor. Unfortunately, there are no transition effects or setting the time interval for playing the slides. There is only a play button for the presentation.
Conclusion
So, is it possible to organize a mobile workplace using a small tablet? Definitely yes! If you have an ASUS Transformer tablet in conjunction with a keyboard dock, you will get a convenient tool for entering text, a record operating time of 18 hours and the ability to connect flash drives. You can work with the tablet right out of the box. Pre-installed Polaris Office perfectly copes with typical tasks that often have to be solved when there is no computer at hand.
As they say, demand creates supply, and manufacturers began to offer various laptop computers. Of course, by modern standards, a suitcase weighing 10 kilograms cannot be called a mobile device, but progress does not stand still, and now computers have become truly mobile. Now on top of mobile devices in terms of compactness and uptime are modern tablets. Light weight, long operating time, high-quality screen make tablets an excellent tool for a mobile office.
Of course, it’s not very convenient to use a touch keyboard to create content on a tablet, but now there are many accessories that make it possible to make a full-fledged laptop out of a tablet.
So, let's check whether it is possible to organize a mobile office using a tablet!
I will conduct an experiment on my Asus Transformer TF700T. Moreover, there is already an office out of the box.
The tablet has a plug-in keyboard with a touchpad. The buttons are the same as on netbooks, island type. Nothing is being squeezed. At the top there is a series of function keys, on the edge is the device’s lock button, which everyone in the reviews has “blamed on”, that you can accidentally press it, but this has never happened to me for the entire time of work. True, the buttons for moving through the text are small, it was not quite convenient for me to move the cursor, but this is the trouble of many laptops.
I gave a small text to a friend who uses the blind typing method. There are no errors, the keyboard is very comfortable. I did not quite understand why the touchpad is here, it’s more convenient to use the screen, but in fact it’s much more convenient to place the cursor on the touchpad and select the text, especially if you work with the table. Raising a hand from the keyboard to the screen takes longer than scrolling the thumb across the touchscreen.
By the way, via USB in the dock, you can safely connect the mouse. Then working is generally a pleasure.
A nice bonus: everyone who sees this bunch of tablets and the dock think it's a netbook. So thin and metallic, but when you unhook the tablet - Wow! This thing also cleans up!
TF700T is quite an interesting machine with a powerful 4 core CPU, FullHD screen and keyboard.
Transformer Pad Infinity comes preloaded with Polaris Office software. This suite of office applications allows you to work with files of various formats, including documents (.doc), spreadsheets (.xls) and presentations (.ppt). In addition, ASUS WebStorage online file storage may come in handy for successful mobile work. ASUS allocates 8 GB in the cloud for free, which undoubtedly can be convenient, even despite a bunch of alternatives in the form of Dropbox or Yandex.Disk.
Consider a typical situation. You need to quickly open the abstract from the flash drive, change the last name, year and save the document :) The tablet was able to recognize the flash drive with FAT and NTFS, everything is fine with the display of Cyrillic file names. Through the built-in Polaris Office, I was able to open the document, change it and save the changes to the flash drive. Everything works quite simply and out of the box.
Let's try to work with the help of Polaris Office with various documents.
When the program starts, we are shown a start screen in which there are 3 tabs with templates for new documents: a text document, a table and a presentation. The templates look pretty and have a fairly modern look. Based on them, you can make informative documents.
In the upper right corner there is a search bar. This search allows you to find the desired document stored in the internal memory by name.
When you click on the icon of the memory card, a file manager opens that displays the contents of the internal memory or flash drive. Here you can perform simple file operations: copy, move, delete and send to other programs. In the file properties you can see a preview of the document, you can also see what type it has. There is support for Drag-and-drop, the desired file can be easily dragged into the desired folder.
Here, by selecting the desired folder, we can create a new office file. Polaris Office offers us a choice of the most popular formats. Moreover, even old documents from MS Office 2003 are supported. It happens that you send someone a document in docx, and they tell you: -I don’t open it! Save to the 2003 office!
Let's go back to the home screen. The On-line Storage icon offers us to connect only two types of cloud storage - these are Google Drive and Box.net. I think in the new versions the developers will add more services, because now many people store their documents in the clouds. I tried adding my google drive. After that, the file manager opened, which showed all my documents. When you try to open a document, it is downloaded to the internal memory, and you can edit it. A revised or new document can also be easily uploaded back to the cloud.
Well, let's try to open some document. For example, a business plan was sent to you by mail and you need to familiarize yourself with it.
Polaris Office has two modes of working with documents: viewing and editing. Initially, the document opens in viewing mode, and you can switch to editing mode with one tap on the icon.
There are 4 icons at the top of the screen. Switch to document editing mode. The zoom button, you can also zoom in using multi-touch gestures. The next element is a document search. And the last button allows us to send the document by mail or open it in another program. You can also bookmark it on a specific page of the document. On the left side of the screen for easy navigation through the document, you can open a preview of the pages.
Let's move on to editing a new document. You can move the cursor by simply tapping at the right place in the text or use the mouse. Scaling also works with multi-touch.
Another panel will appear at the top of the screen with various function buttons for editing text. Let's consider it in more detail.
The future generation no longer knows why the floppy disk icon is used to save the document. I can’t imagine how now it can be visually shown. Will they soon draw a flash drive? Next are the undo buttons, then work with the clipboard. There is nothing complicated, typical copy, cut and paste functions. By the way, Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V work fine with the keyboard.
Also, if you select a piece of text, then Polaris Office will open a panel with edit buttons, search for this passage in Google or Wiki.
Changing the font is straightforward, you can specify the size, color, fill and style. It is also possible to select text alignment, indentation and spacing. If you select a list, you can automatically put down the numbering or markers.
You can add new elements to the text, such as a photo from a camera or gallery, add a link to the site, or save a bookmark. It is also possible to add various forms, for example, from them you can build a block diagram. The added form can be changed by dragging the corners, or changing its location relative to the text, behind the text, above the text.
When adding a new table to the text, you can visually select how the table will look, or manually enter the number of columns and rows. After creating the table, editing the fill and border is available. In addition, you can add new rows or columns, delete and merge cells.
By and large, there are all the main features for editing typical documents.
Let's try to open a table made in MS Office.
As you can see, the table opened normally. The inserted company logo was displayed, various formation, different sizes of columns and rows. At the bottom of the table, you can switch between sheets. Again, you can make any changes to the table, save them and open them in the desktop office.
Let's see what other functions are available to us when editing the table. Like the desktop office, Polaris Office can work with formulas. The list of formulas is quite large. There are mathematical, economic, logical and many other formulas.
As in a text editor, there are all functions for changing text. Consider the table features. For a specific group of cells, you can select the cell format, numerical, text, and others.
Of course, various actions with cells lend themselves to flexible configuration. It is possible to automatically adjust the height, width and much more.
Polaris Office can work with diagrams created in MS Office. Moreover, here we can create a new diagram ourselves. The following chart types are available: bar, bar, pie, and graph.
There are no problems with presentations either. All file formats created in different versions of MS Office are opened. Documents can also be edited and viewed. All functional elements are available as in a text editor. Unfortunately, there are no transition effects or setting the time interval for playing the slides. There is only a play button for the presentation.
Conclusion
So, is it possible to organize a mobile workplace using a small tablet? Definitely yes! If you have an ASUS Transformer tablet in conjunction with a keyboard dock, you will get a convenient tool for entering text, a record operating time of 18 hours and the ability to connect flash drives. You can work with the tablet right out of the box. Pre-installed Polaris Office perfectly copes with typical tasks that often have to be solved when there is no computer at hand.