New Computer Setup

Just recently we moved to a new house and I now have a much larger office. I am always looking for new ways of using the stuff that I have so I decided to make a desk set up using my iPad mini just to see how usable it is and as it turns out, it works quite well.

… and here it is

What we have here is an iPad mini, a small bluetooth keyboard, a phone stand and series 1 Apple pencil.  In the background there is a Polk sound bar that it will connect with via Bluetooth and under the desk is the Polk bass box that goes with the sound bar.  

So it looks cute but is it usable?  

I wondered if a set up like this (minus the sound bar) would work for travel and the answer is absolutely yes.  In fact I am typing this post on this set up with no problems what so ever. I am using the default font size, but if I wanted to I guess I could make the font bigger. 

I like to use the pen like you might use a mouse and I make good use of keyboard shortcuts which helps but frankly I see little difference between using this and my iPad Pro.

I normally run this with the power connected but I don’t have to. I can get a days worth of work out this without power. I wondered if putting the iPad into low power mode would increase the battery life and I am sure it would but I did find that the Bluetooth suffers if you do that. Keyboard and pencil are ok, but audio is unusable.

I should add that I am not a gamer. I use the reminders and notes applications, along with web surfing, and a few apps but nothing that is going to tax the hardware too much. 

Conclusion

I wondered if a set up like this might work for travel and yes it would, obviously without the sound bar! I have a nice Sennheiser headset that will work if I need to make calls, and listen to music, as well as some Apple earbuds. The whole thing packs down pretty small and it only requires one cable, which makes things simple. I hate carrying a ton of cable.  The ipad charge cable will also charge the ear buds and the power brick is nice and small.  I will need to test more, but at the moment I don’t see any reason not to use this especially for travel.