Help Mobile Hot Spot

[rjglenn]

Are there any apps available that will allow a wifi only tablet
to send and receive sms/mms?

Sorry to hear about your dog. They truly become part of the family...

Google Voice will allow you to send and receive SMS messages over wifi, but not MMS. I do not know why. There is a delay so if you like to have a rapid fire texting marathon it's going to be an issue. Then there is the issue of people having to initiate a text message but to what number? The GV number or your cellular number. You can have GV forward texts to your phone, but it's really just a kludge and you will end up missing a message. Plus, you cannot initiate a text message from the GV client on your tablet via GV and have it delivered showing as from your cellular number. If your cell number is 123-456-7890 and your GV number is 456-789-1230, until word gets around no one is going to recognize a text from you coming in on your GV number.

As far as a wifi tablet sending & receiving SMS/MMS on it's own, here's the deal. The hardware supports it, the firmware supports it, and the software supports it. The problem is it doesn't have a phone number and it's not intergrated into somebody's SMS/MMS server. GV gives you a phone number and has a SMS server. The client on your tablet handles the message delivery & notification. It's a poll system instead of push so there is a delay. I do not know the minimum time between polls, I think it's 5 minutes. If you are on battery a short poll period will affect battery life because it has to initiate a connection to the server to poll. The workaround is to have GV forward texts to your email and if your email is set for push then you will get instant notification of a text. This is a kludge too because if a text comes in, you get an email notification. Personally I don't check my email every time I get a new message notification because I just don't really want to. This would force you to have to do this.

I have been very satisfied with my Dell Streak tethered to my phone. It works very well & I don't believe you will be disappointed with what you are wanting to do.

 

[BLACKTOOTHGRIN]

Thanks RJ.
He was the best dog I've ever had, and probably WILL EVER have if this new one is any kind of sign. Haha.

It sounds like that part of it won't work for me then.
Unless it will tether via Bluetooth and do it like we were discussing for the Navigation....???
I'll be looking at them tomorrow, so as long as I like what I see, I should be ordering one soon.

 

[rjglenn]

I have tethered my streak to my phone with both bluetooth and wifi using the root required wireless tether for bluetooth and wifi tether for wifi. This is what you will have to do if you are going to tether without paying VZW any more money.

 

[BLACKTOOTHGRIN]

Okay.
I'm actually thinking of trying to root my phone today because Verizon
is sending me a CPO, for another issue.
That way I can see how it goes, and not have to worry too much.

I ordered the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus yesterday....
I still havent been able to see one in person yet.
Verizon only had the original Galaxy Tab 7.0.
I thought that one was okay, so the Plus will only be better.
Didn't get to try out a Moto Xoom either.
They took those off display when the XYBOARDS arrived.
The XYBOARDS looked nice, but I didn't want to mess around with
them just because it may have got in the way of my purchase.
Meaning....if they are actually so much better, I would want one of those instead.
Since I have no desire to sign a contract for one, why even temp myself.
As far as just looking at them....I didn't see any mind blowing features though that
would warrant that big of a price difference over the 7.0 Plus,
and SURELY not having to be locked into another 2yr contract with Verizon.
Maybe if the price full retail was around $450 and there was a wifi only version.

My tab should get here later this week, or early next week.
I'm sure I'll have some questions about tethering it....

 

[BLACKTOOTHGRIN]

...

 

[BLACKTOOTHGRIN]

Finally got everything hooked up.
Paxchristos turned me on to superoneclick, so rooting was very simple.
There where a few hiccups, but nothing major.
Tethering via Bluetooth was a little tricky, just because I didn't know how the
Application worked at first, or the tablet with Honeycomb for that matter...
but everything worked out fine.
I do like GB more than Honeycomb though.

As far as the tablet itself goes, it's nice. It fits good in the hands.
I'm not overly impressed, but it takes quite a bit to impress me anyways.
The processor is plenty quick being 1.2 dual core.
The screen is bright enough for inside, but to tell you the truth I've personally never seen a great that's great in the sunlight anyways.
The speakers are decent as well.
I did expect them to be a bit louder at the mid level setting,
but I might have been expecting to much though.
Overall I think it was a good buy for $350.

Many thanks to all of you for helping out in this thread.