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Making Mobile Presentations Without a Laptop?
eggled writes "My boss makes mobile presentations fairly frequently, but is sick of lugging around his gargantuan laptop (a Toshiba A25-S207). It's fallen to me to see if I can solve this for him. I began looking at netbooks and such, but many of them are slightly high for our price bracket (being that he already owns a fully functional laptop; this will be a presentations-only machine). His current cell phone, a Motorola RAZR, is getting decrepit and the contract is up, so I figured I'd look at smartphone-style replacement, and let AT&T subsidize the cost of the new phone. What I'm hoping to find is a phone that can be attached to a VGA-input projector, and play Powerpoint presentations (PDF would work, too). Web access is a must, but I think I'd be hard pressed to buy a high end phone that won't have internet access, so I'm unconcerned on that topic. Anybody out there have experience with this sort of thing or have suggestions on what route to take?"
I'm pretty sure that baby can do EVERYTHING! Right? Right?
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Dance!
Its not going to be drag and drop, but it is pretty straight forward
...an easel, and some Magic Markers.
Or, if you want to go high-tech, have make transparencies and arrange for an overhead projector at each site. I hear you can even make transparencies with a computer these days.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Just make a presentation without slides that are just a waste of time? I guess we are too far from that concept now.
Real men don't need a computer or even a projector. Real men just memorise the presentation and then just wave a laser pointer around fast enough to draw pictures (using vision persistence).
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
ASUS EEE PC ?
If you ignore the whole phone integration angle, then an ultramobile little computer like Asus Eee PC should do the trick. I don't think the Eee has a video output for a projector, but there are many ultraportable made by many companies, so one is bound to have what you need. That way, you aren't spending so much money on a mobile that does less for the same price.
Chalkboard or Whiteboard?
I mean really -- is Edward Tufte fighting a losing battle with his Criticism of PowerPoint, and we're already seeing people incapable of thinking outside of bullet points?
Either upgrade to a lighter laptop (yes, the lighter ones are punier and yet they are more expensive) or tote just a USB drive and ask your hosts to provide a laptop to run the presentation from the USB stick. I suppose you could use web-based presentation software, but that still requires you to use somebody else's machine.
The N95 has a TV-output cable and there should be some Symbian program to play powerpoint slideshows if the integrated office apps don't.
"I decided I could write something better than everything out there in two weeks. And I was right." - Linus Torvalds
I work in the AV (audio visual) industry and it sounds to me like you're looking for a projector with wifi. I've been looking into this for my own use but had to stick with a laptop so i could show full videos (think Pixar stuff). As for a smartphone I'd recommend the Toshiba G500 which runs Windows mobile 5. It has wifi so it'd be able to run a powerpoint presentation to the projector. We get them relatively cheap here (EU) and sim free (carrier unlocked). Maybe AT&T have something similar.
Just create a DVD-Video of the presentation. Ask your clients before if they have a DVD player, of course. If not, you can buy incredibly small DVD players for next to nothing.
Done.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;625432195;pp;2;fp;;fpid;
You could also just convert the PowerPoint file into a movie file, then use an iPhone to play it, pausing on each frame. Looks liek that;s exactly what this guy did:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=366966
Unfortunately Dell has stopped making these great PDA's, so I don't know if you can get them now and at what price (they used to be very competitively priced though), but they had the presentation package which gave you a VGA-out and a powerpoint player compatible with it.
A friend of mine who teaches in U. of Miami has given a few lectures using it and is quite pleased.
Also, your boss might consider getting an Asus EEE to move around when he doesn't need a laptop with mucho horsepower...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Apple TV.
It's very small, inexpensive, and can be hacked to run Linux. It'll output to HDMI/DVI.
Get a used Thinkpad x31 or x32, or some other small/light "road warrior" laptop. If he is always connecting it to a projector, ditch the battery and anything else removable to reduce weight.
Any phone/pda with windows mobile and a usb/cf port will do.
You just need:
- A USB/CF VGA card
- Microsoft Office PowerPoint Mobile
I have T-mobile dash and it has the ability to view and edit Word, Excel, and Power Point. I'm not sure if it can connect to projector, but I can use the EDGE network and connect my laptop through it, so I mean heck if you have a cord that connects to a mini usb port it might be what you need.
Or I could be totally wrong. (And I'm going to the iPhone so I don't want everyone getting their anti-Microsoft panties in a bunch, Android isn't out yet and I don't want the first iteration of it when it comes out; while being the coolest guy for being first, I get burned on that too)
Just get a Nokia N95 8GB.. In Australia you can get them free on a capped plan, it comes with video out cable (RCA), 8GB Memory, PDF view already installed, WiFi, And Support for a Bluetooth Keyboard to run to presentation remotely (or Create the presentation on the phone itself)
Get a Mac and do your presentations on Keynote. If the presentations are worth anything to your company (i.e. contracts depends on wooing potential customers/investors) then droping PowerPoint should be your highest priority.
After that, simply export to Quicktime Presentation and use an iPod or iPhone connected to your projector (components or S-Video should be available on most projectors). Being a Quicktime presentation, you keep control of the presentation while keeping the animations.
They're relatively cheap and even the 701 has sufficient oomph to run XP+Powerpoint, assuming you don't go crazy with transitions and movies. I have a 4 gig 701, it does up to 1600x1280 externally. Combined with a bluetooth presentation mouse, it makes a great presentation kit that you can fit in an overcoat pocket.
Though I left it with the default linux install on the SSD(I mostly use it to remote in while abroad), as the open office version of powerpoint is sufficient for my needs.
How much do you make, and how important are these presentations?
If he's flying about the world, he's paying large sums of money for the presentation time he has.
Even if his time and travel isn't valuable, the people who he's making the presentations to must be, or he wouldn't be making presentations.
$500 for a netbook is chump change.
Assuming you make any decent salary, you've probably already spent more then that on research for this scheme already.
I recommend a MSI Wind(~$500) if money is really that tight, or a Lenovo X61(~$1000) if you've got a little more change.
The lowend EEE PC's at ~$300 are a bargain, but in my opinion they have an unusably small screen and keyboard.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I have a zune and I know you can connect that to displays. If you export each power point slide into an image, the new zune 80 can display 640x480 through an s-video cable. Also is a good MP3 player and video player.
Yup, this might work even better than the Apple TV.
I recently purchased a Samsung Black Jack with AT&T service. Runs Windows CE. I can connect multiple emails accounts, currently I have 2 set up. One is my personal email which is web based and the other is work which uses outlook and connects to an exchange server. Email works very well. I can also view and edit Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents. I have not tried to use the phone to connect to a projector but I bet you can find a bluetooth adapter. I have had the phone for about 2 weeks and am happy with it.
so what about taking the presentation only with him and expect a existing computer?
When there is a Projector there often is a computer as well, why not use it?
To be on the safe side he could carry the presentation in multiple formats with him, PDF, AVI, MOV whatever comes to mind.
Or use a S5 Presentations and access them online
Try a blackberry and an "Impatica ShowMate".
See http://www.impatica.com/showmate
I'm pretty sure the Impatica works across bluetooth, with a VGA connection, and I think it also works with other smartphones.
And yes - I'm not logging in - I'm on an unsecure box.
Buy one of the old Handheld PCs (NEC mobile pro series, Cassiopia, etc.), and just keep it to SIMPLE slides that you can backport to office 97. (just make sure its running windows CE with powerpoint presenter on it)
These oldschool handhelds are as cheap as water on ebay, and all the cables, computer, etc. could be had for below 100$. Just keep the slides down to something really, really simple and backvert it to office 97.
Lord knows that it seems like seven out of ten Powerpoint or video presentations run into technical problems. Somehow the combination of laptop + video projector + audio system + software is prone to disaster.
I'd say buy him a low end but light laptop with a minimum of software, Windows XP and MS Office, and a nice VGA out port. Something simple, reliable, and when he walks into a presentation all that he needs to do is plug in the VGA cable, and maybe an audio cable for sound.
All of these PDA and iPhone suggestions just feel a recipe for disaster.
Three Squirrels
The Casio XJ-S31 does JPEG slide shows from a USB stick. With this order of magnitude price, that'll be the best you can hope for, since I'm assuming you'll also want something portable.
The EEE PC is the right tool for the job... Cheap, and does powerpoint like a dream.
http://wiki.splitbrain.org/plugin:s5
Just check that the place you are going to for your presentation has internet access.
Ouch, nobody should be carting around any laptop just for presentations anymore. This is 2008.
There are a ton of Portable Media players that have Video out capabilities and can do either slide shows via pictures (exported from presentation software) or Video (exported from presentation software). This is also a cheap way to go.
I have an old Creative Zen:M Vision, and it outputs DVD resolution, even though the built in screen is 320x240, and I use it for things like this all the time. RCA cables and any projector or TV and viola an instant presentation, movie fest, etc...
Just check the Video output specs and then size and video/photo format he is comfortable working with.
If you need MORE than just a picture viewer or video player...
UMPC if you have $$ to burn, there are several tiny PCs (smaller than Airbooks) that are full XP or Vista based computers or even older Windows CE/Mobile based computers. Think checkbook size..
Assuming $500-1000 isn't an option...
Pick up (even an old) Windows PDA or Windows Mobile Phone that has Video out (Pocket PC, Windows CE) - they are all the same thing, and can do Powerpoint with annotations and other 'presentation' like functions.
Again, just make sure the device has a Video out connector that works for typical senerios.
(This is not a time to hate MS and Windows, as you can get Windows Mobile PDAs very cheap, especially an older model that will do everything but shine your shoes, and you can even use freaking VB to write an application for him if you want it to do more.)
Good Luck...
Look at the Nokia N96 specs.
Holy haberdashery, batman! Somebody got the memo!
This looks perfect -- small, lightweight, relies on a smartphone, VGA not RCA, bluetooth (so there is one less wire to worry about)
Thanks for the link!
Use an iPhone, export all the slides as jpg's and present on the go ;)
http://www.duivesteyn.com.au/
I had to do this too once upon a time (do presentations without a laptop.) Here's how I solved it:
Seriously, there will be a PC plugged into the presentation device at the other end. For conferences and such, there's a little box on the speaker information form you fill out before you go where you can indicate you'll need a PC or laptop. They'll accommodate you. If presenting at a business partner or customer site, they'll also have a PC or laptop to use.
You don't need a smartphone to do this. As much as your boss probably wants the excuse to have one. :-)
These are Windows Mobile 6 phones and include the cable and software for you to run powerpoint presentations to a projector or anything else with a vga in.
They actually have an nVidia GoForce 5500 which is a poorly supported but very high end mobile graphics chipset for 24-bit audio as well as hardware video encoding/decoding and 3d graphics acceleration. This should work much better than the card based add-on's available for some pda's.
I have the 6150 and have used the vga out with my projector. The phone actually does 1024x768 to the external device so things look pretty sharp!
The down side is I don't think you'll find these subsidized. They both cost about $600. They are gsm so you can use them with tmobile or at&t. I use mine with at&t.
They both have 128MB of RAM, 256MB of flash, 520MHz intel xscale cpu, GoForce 5500, gprs, edge, umts, hsdpa, bluetooth, 802.11b/g, and include the vga cable/with 1/8" stereo out.
It's tough to find a device that comes with what you need for this. For this price though, you could just buy a laptop.
http://www.imate.com
http://www.nvidia.com/page/goforce_5500.html
The old Palm-based Visor had a plug-in springboard module, cables included, that would allow you to give a PowerPoint presentation. It actually worked well, and I used one when I was teaching at the college level. Small, lightweight, and includes the cables.
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
Windows Mobile device and a this program http://www.margi.com/support/sup_ptg_comp.htm. The linked page has a list of devices that it runs on. That should work.
comes with RCA cables so hooking up to TV/projector is no fuss reads PPTs and PDFs out of the box it simply works..
AT
ok
ATDT1324356
no sig
It seems you're trying to shoehorn too many things into one package. It also seems like you have a remarkably small budget for a company that does a lot of travel. But, given those two, my recommendations would be:
1. Get a used road-warrior class ultraportable from eBay. An IBM x31 or HP nc4000. Both are light (under 3lbs), have full-size keyboards, decent displays, and will fit the bill for a presentation machine. Both are available for about $300 if you are careful (be sure to ask about the display).
2. Get another subsidized RAZR under contract. Why have your boss spend his time learning a new phone, perhaps a very complicated one, rather than on important things like promoting the business?
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
If you're just using slides in some order, then create them and save them as JPEGs to an SD card, pop it into you're digital camera, and connect it to an NTSC video monitor with the cable included with the camera. Point'n'Shoot cameras are certainly suitable small, no?
You're looking for this:
http://www.impatica.com/showmate/
Basically, it's a box about 2 inches square with a VGA output that you can either pair up with Bluetooth to a Blackberry, WinMobile or Symbian device, or that you can hook up via USB to one of said devices, and that basically runs your powerpoint show (which is on the mobile device) or shows what's on your screen.
Works well. No laptop.
***Foucault is watching you..***
Their software improves with each new release and they support pretty solid list of PPT features.
You can also display the BB's screen in a recent update, so one can show off custom BB apps on a live device (lots of customers are (rightly) leery of demos using the device simulator).
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
I found a website that talks about using a PDA or cell phone with powerpoint. from the website.
"To allow videotape output, a projection device is typically required for converting and transmitting the videotape signal to an external monitor or LCD projector. Currently, in the United States, there are five companies that manufacture these projection devices: Presenter-To-Go from Margi [1], Voyager VGA CF from Colorgraphic [2], iGo Pitch from Mobility Electronics [3], FlyJacket and FlyPresenter from HP/Compaq [4], and IA Presenter from IA Style [5]."
Here is the link.
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/184/4/1356
Has links to each product.Might be what your looking for.
love the taste, hate the texture
I know one guy who converts his presentations to PDF and loads it up to his PSP. He goes to the presentation, hooks up his PSP to the digital projector, and does pretty well.
Although... I'm not sure how your boss would justify his purchase of a PSP to Management. ;)
I read a Google headline a few months back (no, I don't have a reference) referencing a pocket-sized projector that would connect via BlueTooth to just about any smart phone. It sticks in my mind that it wasn't due to be released until early winter, but the price was set around $150.
You could try http://www.impatica.com/showmate/
Basically, you plug the device into a VGA projector/monitor, connect to it via bluetooth from your smartphone and voila! Powerpoint presentation displayed on the screen and you are free to walk about the room.
Another highlight is that while you are projecting a particular slide, you can have your notes displayed on your smartphone.
Use an OQO model 2. The only drawback will be pricing, since it does everything else.
can run pictures as a slideshow, and has TV out. It's cheap too.
Get a mini projector.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/01/mints-v10-mini-projector-gets-price-and-release-date/
This one has 1GB of internal storage, so I guess you can put your presentation right onto it.
How come no one has thought of making a slideshow DVD? you can use the interactive features to advance slide to slide. All you need then is a DVD player and the projector.
5.6" 1.5lb Fujitsu U810 tablet/hybrid UMPC. Its a laptop yes but its tiny. It has a keyboard, but if boss-man needs to ever write anything, a 2.2lb 8.9" P1610D will serve far better. It too is pretty damned tiny. I have an older model P1120 and I cannot use it in public without getting a stream of people asking whether its really a laptop and commenting on how amazingly small new technology is (its a 4 year old laptop).
Anything you do on a phone now is going to be pretty hacky. A lot of business projectors run 1280x1024, so tell your boss to drop the pretty animations lest he melt his USB powered video output adapter. I dont think any phones have built in video out, so your boss has to add whatever bulk and weight that adapter conveys to his arsernal. For sure, video output is the weakest link on embedded processors, but the good news is the upcoming generation should be much better. OpenGL is coming to mobile in a big way and is really pushing the bar here, its just a matter of time before people realize how much sense it makes to hook their phone up to their widescreen. HDMI/DisplayPort makes the situation even better by coupling audio and video on the same cable. By mid 2010 I just cannot picture this not having become a quasi-standard feature on decent phones.
All you need is one of those devices with the screen that projects the image onto the faces of whatever 1337 movie hacker is using it and invert the picture... I mean it's been almost 15 years since "Hackers" came out, surely the technology has downsized to PDA/smartphone size by now!
Not all life is cyber. Extra Income
Nokia N82 = TV Out + QuickOffice's QuickPoint