Wade: @ N4 Can you connect USB camera for say skype? 

n4:

Wade: @ N4 Can you connect USB camera for say skype? 

Tried it last night and yes you can. Plugged in a camera, loaded Skype and it worked. Just as well as being the mobile version of Skype, there are no meaningful settings to tinker with. Video call worked fine, the camera had a mic and that worked as well. However did get a report from the other end that there was some echo (sound was coming from the Mini to the TV via HDMI to my stereo), however that was manageable with the volume turned down a little.

I've been playing with Remix for PC (It's a 64-bit version of Android, apparently) on a Lenovo laptop (from 16GB USB3 stick). 

The touchpad soon become unreliable and unresponsive, but plugging in a USB mouse works fine and I prefer it to the touchpad anyway. 

I went to XDA and found out how to get Google Play Store set up and running. There were two methods. One was just install the a hacked Google services installer....and reboot. The other seemed to be for people who didn't want to re-boot for some reason...and had several other steps. I didn't bother with that and a re-boot saw me quickly downloading apps onto the laptop. 

Google Camera actually works with the laptop's camera. That was cool. 

It's actually very stable overall - for an alpha. 

The new beta version will be released for download on March 1st (presumably in North America, so here March 2nd). It will include a way to install to a hard drive, and also the capability for OTA updates as JIDE roll out improvements. 

For me, many of the apps I like on my phone are better than the Windows versions....and most are a LOT cheaper. I now do virtually all my photo image editing on my phone using Snapseed and a few other apps. Compared to the desktop / windows paradigm, these apps are much better (IMHO) for doing the usual stuff quickly and in a simple way without having to be a graphic artist  - thinking of GIMP or Photoshop here....

Android / Remix OS on this 5 year old laptop is also really fast.  

I was quite impressed with the alpha. Worked perfectly on my Dell XPS 13, including all the Fn keys, webcam, headphones and 3D graphics. Almost good enough to be a daily driver.

If this picks up steam, Remix OS might succeed where Desktop Linux and Chrome OS have failed.

Once it hits stable, I might install it on my Mom's PC. She's already familiar with Android and doesn't need any specific Windows apps, so this will work great for her - and I will no longer have to deal with removing malware etc from her PC. :)

d3Xt3r:

 

I was quite impressed with the alpha. Worked perfectly on my Dell XPS 13, including all the Fn keys, webcam, headphones and 3D graphics. Almost good enough to be a daily driver.

 

If this picks up steam, Remix OS might succeed where Desktop Linux and Chrome OS have failed.

Once it hits stable, I might install it on my Mom's PC. She's already familiar with Android and doesn't need any specific Windows apps, so this will work great for her - and I will no longer have to deal with removing malware etc from her PC. :)

 

Looks like a good strategy. :-)  

Jide have released the beta of JideOS... Supports installation onto your harddrive now - great for me cause I didn't have a USB3 stick to use! Plus supports OTA updates now. "Installing" it on a spare laptop as I type.

jumping on a new install of the beta this morning as well, spare *cough* works *cough* laptop standing by!

I've got the beta running on a 16GB USB3 stick plugged into an i5-based laptop with 8GB of RAM. 

It lags a bit when it has to read / write TOO much from the USB stick.....but otherwise it works well. I downloaded the Google Play store installer apk from XDA (Remix forum). It installed everything ok. There were a couple of errors....but if you just breathe for a coule of minutes the background setup done by Google Services appears to catch up. At one point it told me I needed Google Services or my Gmail wouldn't work and that the services weren't compatible with my device. I closed the warning and read my email......so "No" didn't mean "No" in this case. 

It's all stable. Not hellish fast.....but everything works that can work on a laptop instead of a phone. 

I've left my BT client seeding the torrent and will let it run for a day or two......