I picked up an HP Stream 7 from the microsoft store today for $100 with a free screen protector and case. Using a usb OTG cable ($3) dsm link works perfectly.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...=MarchBreak_EN_ModuleC_1_HPStream_031915

So this thing runs full out windows, not just the RT crap? Hmm.

How bright is the screen? Clearly visible in the daylight?

Can you say dash mount!!!!

I would say the brightness is pretty good. Maybe direct sunlight wouldn't be ideal though. Very similar to my note 3.

mount it where the tach and speedo gauges are. Should be shadowed enough.

Bought one. Good deal indeed!

Thanks I just picked one up too! My nexus 7 just wasn't cutting it, very sluggish just for general use.

"HP has put a 1280x800 IPS panel in the Stream 7"

From AnandTech.

That means great viewing angles fellas.

Tyler, how are you going to mount it? I seen some universal dash mounts, but I doubt they will hold up to hard launches.

I don't have a stereo. I was going to mount it in that slot.

Also picked one up. Can't wait to give her a whirl!

The $25 gift card you get is a nice little bonus too

I didn't get one. I went to the store.

No mention of a gift card on that link.

I like the idea of having a removable tablet in place of stereo.

Look again Mike.

Yeah it's there, thinking buying one myself for evoscan since it works off bluetooth.

Although I can get a mini tablet laptop from a buddy with windows 7 for 50$, so I may just go that way. I like laptops better for this type of stuff, bigger screen, normal keyboard. Plus he wants it out

Wheres the $3 otg cable? I'm about to nail this deal down.

I've seen them on Amazon for $3.99

Still debating whether I want one of these or not.

I bought mine off amazon.

One of these?

http://www.amazon.ca/SANOXY-Micro-U...82&sr=1-10&keywords=hp+stream+7?

Or we have free shipping

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00...6Y9EEQB&pf_rd_r=06PRPH002A956MKND53F

Yup. I got mine off eBay. Its amazing that they make money off those when they sell for under $1 shipped.

If buying budget OTG cables be sure to buy a few as at that price quality control isn't very good.

Best OTG cable under $5?

Also, is there any way to take the audio output from this and channel it through the speakers without a head unit/stereo? I have all the speakers and wiring intact, just no functional head unit. Would be awesome.

I just read the reviews. Always pick the ones with lots of reviews. If it only has less than 10-15 i would skip it.

As for audio through the speakers you can buy a cheap amplifier board and wire it to the harness using a 3.5mm cable wired to the amp and then out to the car using an adapter harness for your car.

Question.

Can it pair to my phone so I can make and receive calls while driving?

I'll just talk to you about this off the board...hopefully I can get this to dual-purpose for me.

Mark PPG did this year's ago when the BlackBerry PlayBook first came out. Might be worth shooting him a PM

That's actually who/what I had in mind when I was thinking about this. I will be sure to shoot him a PM - hopefully he checks somewhat regularly.

I believe he did a bit of a writeup on here as well - will have to try and find it.

Thanks

So it is possible actually, if your phone is android.

Check out a program called AirDroid, install it on the tablet and go throught it.

If your question is, can I use the tablet as a speaker phone/mic than the answer is no, and also that you wouldn't want to cause it would suck.

I'm pretty sure Marks write up was in the Bling section

Found the thread, no written details - will have to watch the video to see what he says...and probably shoot him a message afterwards.

http://www.ca.dsm.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=383027#Post383027

That's not true. You could do it using a USB microphone. It would suck though as there wouldn't be any noise canceling and it would echo for the person you're talking to.

There are some very good USB microphones that are noise canceling.

We picked up some for our boardrooms, because the million dollars we used for renovations and other tech left us with really horrible ceiling mics that couldn't deal with our crappy acoustics.

I think they're sennheiser usb mics. You could mount it to the ceiling of your car.

Usually you need to run some sort of hardware to cancel out the voice of the person on the other side. The mic should just hear that its a voice. It usually doesn't cut that out.

So that $170 speakerphone is the only to solution to being able to use your phone hands free?

No thanks. I'll stick to my $150 already installed head unit with built in USB, Bluetooth and good old fashioned CD player.

Haha, no MEng, just an option if $$$ is not an issue.

Mike I would say in that case you are all good. Your head unit does the speaker and mic and the tablet will let you accept and decline calls without reaching into your pocket.

Having link, wi-fi and a removable tablet is appealing to me if I didn't have to use a head unit.

But it needs to be able to do everything that my current setup does. Minus the CD's obviously.

Are you guys telling me that it can?

Installing it cleanly is the fun part. But not worth the effort unless it works with my phone and stereo.

So you would be removing the head unit? If so you would be replacing it with an amp which is going to be more expensive and a bluetooth receiver which will more than likely be around the same price as that mic you scoffed at.

Ok so maybe not.

Your shopping list is this Mike
- 4 channel amp
- bluetooth receiver (these can be had for $25)

So your total will depend on how much you want to spend on the amp.

Your issue will be the phone side of things cause I haven't been able to find something that will pass your phones audio to the tablet which will be connected to the amp.

The only thing I can think of is grabbing two bluetooth receivers and splicing them together, your only annoyance will be is that you have to manually pause your music before you pick up the phone but there is an app called if this do this and that might solve that problem. scratch that it's only for apple and android https://ifttt.com/products

It's been a while since I watched this but this will give you some guidance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ALYArl5S4

You can take calls on the tablet. It has Bluetooth built in. That's not the problem. Its cutting the echo. If you can find an app to do that then it will be cheap. You can buy some small 12v amp boards for less than $20.

Mine just arrived. Wasn't happy with the packaging, everything was loose in the box, and the shipping box had a dent in it, but the way the tablet itself is packaged, it should be okay.

Nice little unit! Feels pretty solid, and expensive, good build quality. Quite heavy for the size.

I messed up putting on the screen protector.

The case is a simple one similar to the ones for iPads and other tablets where you can prop it up on one side.

Yeah, definitely a nice piece. I messed up my screen protector too. one piece of dust under the cover making a bubble.

But it doesn't need one anyway as it will be spending its life on the dash and maybe movies now and then.

Oh well there you go, I didn't think you could make the phone recognize the tablet as a speakphone.

Have you guys tried logging through an OTG cable yet or connecting your cars ECU, etc..?

Is it an actual build of Windows 8 they use or a stripped version of it?

Can you use a USB hub with multiple peripherals at once?

I want to get one of these to tune with TunerPro and ofcourse datalogging, but I dunno if 1G RAM is enough or if the programs/drivers will work with it...

Tyler has DSMLink up and running on it - I am not sure if he has tested the recording functionality but I assume it will be fine.

As for the rest of your inquiries, can't help. Tyler is probably the best resource on this right now - he's great with this stuff.

No.

Yes, full, this was answered multiple times in this thread of 2 pages, and if you go to the product page it says it there too!

Yes, but if the devices draw a lot of power, you'll wanna get one that's powered.

It should work fine, it's not like these datalogging programs use a lot of RAM. If they do just reduce how many things it logs at one time if that's an option.

Windows recognizes it as a tablet, so memory management should be decent enough for it to run.

So far so smooth. Ran some HTML5 demos while Defender was scanning, and no hiccups.

One thing I'm a BIG fan of is that the touch interface is responsive. Not like the Nexus 7 and other low end tablets.

Edit: I was hoping to test the screen in direct sunlight, as my office windows face East, I get tonnes of sunlight in the mornings, but mother nature's on her rag today.

I was under the impression Windows 8.1 + Bing was a stripped version of Windows 8, hence the confusion... Turns out it's basically a licensing thing for cheaper laptops and tablets so they can compete with Androids...

Yup!

Sorry, thought what you meant RT when you said stripped down version.

You can install programs.

It's pretty peppy for a basic Windows tablet short on RAM.

I'd imagine it'll work with ECMLink well. Guess we'll have to wait for Tyler to chime in.

Micheal I assume the you are comparing to a gen 1 nexus 7 as I have heard that the gen 2 is a big improvement.

No worries, I'm going to grab one for giggles, seems like a nice machine for 120 bucks!

I'll be running my Ostrich 2.0 off it as well as a Keyspan USB to serial for logging, we'll see how it all works...

Nexus 7 FHD 2013. No it's not a big improvement, I have one, it's not good.

Ya I had link running and connected to the car fine. Changed a bunch of settings. Turned the fuel pump on/off. I did a live log (not to disk).

The only problem I had was when I was trying to install either the drivers or the ecmlink program I had to run it as administrator.

As for using a USB hub I have not tried that yet. I'm going to look into it when I get home. You would likely need to use a powered hub.

FYI, my Sony Vaio UX had only 1GB of RAM, used one of those tiny (1.8"?) HDD's and was a single core ~1.3Ghz. The Stream 7 is a quad core ~1.8Ghz, 1GB RAM and usses solid state storage which is much faster.

The Vaio had no issues logging, playing music, other programs open all at the same time and had no problems.

I appreciate you looking into this stuff on my behalf Bryan. As always, going the extra mile for a friend.

But I don't think the technology is where it needs to be for my type of use.

And the more and more I think about it.. Having a docking station for the phone would serve a better purpose for me. It plays my music via Bluetooth, has GPS, now if only there were an ecmlink app...

No problem!! If you hide a pi in your dash you can use your phone to remote into it and then view link from there.

I thought they were working on an "app"?

If you don't need much storage for logging you can pop in an SD card and use it as a RAM drive for more RAM.

I'd forgotten this thing has a slot under the cover for an SD card.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8760/hp-stream-7-review

Interesting read. I plan to do the colour correction with mine once I get my hands on it.

USB hub seems to work fine. Now i need to find a way to use a hub and charge that is not $20+

$20 isn't terrible if it allows you to always be charging and collect data. What are you thinking of doing for the charging/data connection issue?

I found a local store who had a 7" and an 8" version on display. I ran TunerPro on both and found it pretty difficult to navigate with the 7" screen. I also found the Windows 8.1 zoom feature didn't work all that well in desktop mode. I'm gonna pass on it as a tuning device and stick with my laptop.

The 8" version was a nice improvement but at 179.99, not a great deal. If I can find one on sale, I'd be happier with the bigger screen.

I don't know about the others but I am still going to use my laptop as a tuning device - this is going to be purely for logging and audio, with the added bonus of being able to make changes to Link in an emergency.

X2

I've got so accustomed to all the short cuts. Take away my F keys, and ctrl button, and things won't be as efficient for me.

It was a very cool device none the less.. Being able to pack a usable Windows 8 machine into that small of a package is pretty awesome.

It really wasn't any faults of the tablet that swayed my decision, as far as tablets go it's amazingly versatile! I just don't think it was designed to be used for what I'd be using it for, which is mostly desktop applications.

Do you plan on using the 3.5mm plug for audio? If so, be wary. I guess they have quite a bit of noise issues on the output. Not sure if all the units are affected though, just seems like a widespread issue.

$100 doesn't seem like a bad deal for 8 hours of battery life and a tablet that can run dsmlink.

My tuning is pretty down packed and I don't need to constantly log and change variables, in fact last year I barely took my laptop out with me when I drove the DSM.

For the guys who are already using this, how is it changing variables etc. when you need to without using a keyboard and shortcut keys? If it is not a super tedious task, I'm sold on this. The battery on my 10" tuning laptop is on its last legs, so I might just grab one of these instead.

I have read about that issue and if it comes down to it I will attempt a fix or just not use it - it's not a big problem. I plan to make a box that I can plug any 3.5mm output into and play through my car's speakers, so I would just use my iPod if the tablet doesn't work.

Anyone still using theirs? My netbook is no longer charging so I am debating on whether I should pick one of these up or just wire the laptop into the car.

I still have mine. Get the Dell adapter and a hub. You can wire it into the car to charge and plug to dsmlink and keyboard/mouse.

I'm not using this one but a 8" tablet I picked up for Best Buy for slightly more, seems to work fairly well so far.

Anyone using the touch screen keyboard?

I'm using a bluetooth mouse and the onscreen keyboard, it's not too bad really.

Ok cool, I think I may grab one.

I use one of these. I got it at Walmart for $25. I use it with my raspberry pi sometimes as well.

http://m.bestbuy.ca/defaultpage.asp...jax=true&sku=10177898&lang=en-CA

Yeah good call, I forgot about that one. It goes on sale for 25$ once in a while so I will keep my eye out.

It's nice from experience except the damn up arrow is where shift should be!

haha I am a left shifter so no worries there for me

I picked up an Acer Aspire Switch 10 refurbed unit for $180.



Standard USB on the keyboard. If you detach the keyboard (magnetic latch), there is still a microUSB on the tablet portion along with MicroSD slot. I have only tested it a couple times and it seemed to be working fine. I'll give a better review once I can put a few sessions onto it.