[JBlyth]

I am eager to try Mobile Sheets, but first need to find the best tablet/screen.  I currently use a Microsoft Surface 3 for reading PDFs.   Most of what I read are single-page lead sheets.  But I really want to be able to read 2-pages at once comfortably. The 10.3 inch screen of the Surface doesn't work for that.

Hi Wynton,

I have a Surface Book2 with a 13.5 inch screen and a Nexus 9 tablet. I now use the Surface Book2 all the time, but with an old 15" monitor turned sideways into portrait mode for use at home, and the Surface Book 2 in tablet mode rotated into the portrait mode when away from home.

I have settled on single page portrait mode for all my songs, and I now exclusively use the new "Scroll the Entire Song in Fixed Time" mode for single page scrolling. I use the extremely powerful editing functions of MobileSheets to have a continuous flow music, with pages repeating and cropped as necessary.

I have also set up an unused button on my Tyros 4 Keyboard to initiate the scrolling and can also use a foot button to simulate the keyboard button press (see MIDI Settings/Midi Actions). After much experimentation with the different scrolling methods in MobileSheets, this is the one I have come to prefer. It also eliminates the need to use a foot controller to turn pages. That way I can just concentrate on trying to play more beautifully ;-)

Cheers
John in Sunny Carnarvon - Weatern Ausatralia

[Wynton]

I went searching for tablets at Best Buy yesterday.  Nothing really appealed to me. They had the large screen Galaxy, but it seemed to large for me personally.  I really think my sweet spot would be about 15".

So a new question just occurred to me: is there any reason I couldn't connect a 15" monitor to my Surface 3?

[Zubersoft]

Connecting an external monitor should work just fine. Do you plan on mirroring the two screens so that what you tap on the surface device maps to the same thing being shown on the monitor?

[Wynton]

Connecting an external monitor should work just fine. Do you plan on mirroring the two screens so that what you tap on the surface device maps to the same thing being shown on the monitor?

I've only just begun to think about such things,  but that sounds logical to me.   Now I'm trying to figure out if I can or should look for a wireless monitor.

[Wynton]

One possibility:

https://www.staples.com/AOC-e1659Fwu-16-...ct_1137520

[chrisss]

I have an AOC 1649 - the previous, USB 2.0 version of this.  FWIW, I've been very happy with it, using it simply as a 'normal' extra monitor on both Win-10 and Ubuntu.  I don't have a Windows tablet and can't comment much on how it might work as a MobileSheets display - beyond observing that it's 16:9 aspect ratio.  That's not a deal-breaker by any means in my view, tho I'm very partial to a 4:3 screen myself.

[schnautza]

For people debating the aspect ratio, I've had two different tablets. My old one was a 13.3" screen with a 16:9 ratio and my current one is a 12" with a 3:2 ratio. I've got to say, I miss having the 16:9 ratio.

Generally, I use my tablet in portrait mode with vertical scrolling, though I don't use the automatic scrolling feature. I set up this way because I can see a full page of music plus one or two lines on the next page, which gives me a "buffer zone" that I can read ahead before I need to turn the page with my pedal. The 16:9 ratio was better for this reason because I could see a bit more of the upcoming page. Both of these tablets were roughly the same width (12" is ever so slightly smaller), so the size of my music in portrait mode was about the same. It was just a question of how much of the second page I could see as well.

My other frequently used setup is for 2-page songs, I like to turn the tablet to landscape mode, eliminating the need to turn pages. The 16:9 screen had a lot of wasted space on the edges but the 3:2 screen pretty much fills up. Since the narrow dimension of the tablet was about the same, my music is still roughly the same size.

[WalterWeinzinger]

After searching for years for a tablet for my music, I finally took the leap and purchased a Chuwi Hi13 (Win10) a couple of months ago.  The full package (tablet, stylus, attachable keyboard, free shipping) cost right around $400 on AliExpress. I also purchased a 128GB microSD card for the MobileSheets library which, as of now, is over 2300 songs (all PDF). After the initial startup, the tablet had about a day's worth of upgrading to do to get the OS up to date. 

So far I have been very pleased with how MS works on this tablet.  The screen is 13.5" and amazingly clear (resolution: 3000 x 2000).  After trimming the white space on the edges, the music is actually larger than on the original printed page.  

The CPU isn't that powerful but I only use the tablet for running MobileSheets (displaying PDFs only in portrait mode), so the CPU isn't a problem. One time I was creating a lot of setlists and typing in the setlist names started to bog down quite a bit. So I simply closed out MS and restarted it again and it was back to normal.  Battery life is about 8 hours (for now). 

Maybe I'll be so lucky as to  get an AirTurn pedal for Father's Day!?!

So I would recommend looking into the Chuwi Hi13 for all you old farts with bad eyes! However, the Hi13 is the ONLY Chuwi MODEL I can recommend because all the other models have lower resolution screens.

Walter Weinzinger
Chuwi Hi13 13.5" Win10 Tablet
4GB RAM, 64GB Int., 128GB Ext.

[Wynton]

When I first posted to this thread, I had not even installed MPS.  Since then, I've installed it on my Microsoft Surface 3. 

To my pleasant surprise, I can actually read many lead sheets 2 pages at once in landscape mode.  In fact, the experience is good enough that I am no longer seeking a tablet much larger. 

Now, I am thinking of upgrading to the Surface Pro 4 (for a number of reasons).  That display is a bit larger, about 12.3 inches (as opposed to the Surface 3 which was slightly more than 10").  I am not sure how much difference this will make. But I don't think a 15" screen is necessary for most of my uses.

I also see that the Surface Pro has an aspect ratio of 3:2.  I haven't the slightest idea whether that is bad or good.

[dallaskruse]

I'm using 8 tablets for my band. 

5 Insignia Flex https://www.insigniaproducts.com/pdp/NS-P16AT10/6086148

4 Insignia Flex https://www.insigniaproducts.com/pdp/NS-...00/5157700


I have found numerous issue with these cheap tablets. Mainly that the version of Android installed and no upgradeable won't stay on any Wifi network that doesnt have internet connection.  Wifi will also continuously drop out even if there is internet access.

I'm looking into getting into good tablets at a good price. Buying 8 of them, I obviously don't want to spend a TON of money.  For what I paid for these, they work alright ... but compared to something like iPads, these just don't really cut it.

Any suggestions?

[otnt]

Finally it looks like Google is going to produce large tablet suitable for Mobile Sheets:
https://youtu.be/VL01qhEhvAo

[Zubersoft]

The Pixel Slate looks really interesting. I'll definitely have to keep my eye on that. If Google will fix the permission issues with SD cards on Chrome OS, then there will be absolutely no downside to going with a Chrome OS device. I'm still working on adding new MIDI functionality for Chrome OS (as the current implementation in MobileSheetsPro doesn't work), but once that is in place, Chrome OS may become a better option than Android.

[dallaskruse]

The Pixel Slate looks really interesting. I'll definitely have to keep my eye on that. If Google will fix the permission issues with SD cards on Chrome OS, then there will be absolutely no downside to going with a Chrome OS device. I'm still working on adding new MIDI functionality for Chrome OS (as the current implementation in MobileSheetsPro doesn't work), but once that is in place, Chrome OS may become a better option than Android.

Will MSP run on an Amazon Fire device?

[Skip]

No Play Store access on the Fire. You would have to add 4 apps in a very specific order to  the Fire which then allows access. According to several sites on the net, it's fairly straight forward and easy. Just google 'play store on amazon fire'.

[BRX]

Well, actually if Mike hasn't continued the support you could install MSP through Amazon, too.

But I strongly recommend to install the Google Play Services on the Fire and get MSP from the Playstore (and in case if you already have, it's all the more reason to make the Fire 
google compatible. It's really not difficult).