Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Print From an Android Tablet?

KowboyKrash writes "Does any Slashdotter know how to print from an Android tablet? I have read about Google Cloud Print, but will it work from all (or at least most) apps? Is there a better solution? A little background: With my laptop being four years old, and the battery failing, I want to replace it with a device with 10 hours of battery. I am purchasing an Asus Transformer Prime after Christmas as a gift to myself; my plan is to replace my laptop completely for portable computing. I've already selected several apps that should meet my needs, including Polaris Office, and TeamViewer to remotely access my desktop. So are there any printing solutions for Android? Printing to my network printer at home is good enough."

Comments

Replacement

[cyachallenge]

A different question may be: do you really want to replace a fully functional platform for an app ridden one? The ability to print effectively shouldn't cost you $9.99. As awesome as tablets are I wouldn't recommend using one for everything.

No printing sucks

[frisket]

It's crazy. My old N800 PDA could run CUPS, so i could print the PDFs I created with LaTeX on it. WTF are they thinking, not having printing on it? And why has no-one ported CUPS?

Re:No printing sucks

[Luckyo]

Because nokia's "tablets" were worker's machines. Modern tablets are toys. These have very different needs and were one of the major reasons why n-series of tablets was a very small niche product while modern tablets sell millions.

Best Way To Print From an Android Tablet?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Use it to order a real computer from the Amazon site. :-)

I have an idea

[jon3k]

Instead of trying to figure out how to print, how about, in 2011, we figure out how to NOT PRINT?????

Old laptop with dead battery = fine print server

[billstewart]

Maybe he doesn't have a dedicated workstation at home, but he's about to have a spare laptop that's more than fast enough to be a print server, and the dead battery won't matter if it's plugged in all the time.

Re:Do you want life to suck or not?

[jedidiah]

> You know what? Who cares! Aren't computers and various peripherals surrounding them supposed to make your life easier?

This is why a new tablet should not disallow you from using your old printer.

> Buying a WiFi printer makes life WAY easier for everyone in the household, from iPad users to laptop users of all sorts.

No, not really. Any normal printer can be hooked up to a real PC and you can network it any way you like. Windows has done this for a long time and Macs have done it for even longer.

It's funny that you make excuses for this tablet nonsense while droning on about "how stuff should be useful".

Greenpeace should more closely scrutinize this "let's throw perfectly good stuff into the local landfill" mentality that Apple Corp and it's stoogies seem to have.