With my tech background, my family is more fortunate than many when it comes to finding suitable equipment for the kids to use whilst school is closed. Even so, we’ve struggled with both my teenagers sharing one laptop – they really do both need to use it at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We thought that one of them would be using a tablet would be OK, but that wasn’t really working out either. Then, a few weeks ago, we thought I’d found a great solution to the problem. My youngest has a Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphone, which supports Samsung DeX<\/a>. We tried it out with the Apple USB-C to HDMI\/USB-A power adapter and it worked a treat: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Looks like we may have just avoided having to buy another laptop to solve a home learning bottleneck – eldest son found that youngest son’s Samsung Galaxy S10 works with my Apple USB-C\/HDMI adapter for #DeX<\/a>. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and #Office365<\/a> Android apps and we’re sorted! pic.twitter.com\/VX3fibN4xO<\/a><\/p>\u2014 Mark Wilson ???? (@markwilsonit) May 16, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n S8, S8+, S9, S9+, S10, Note 8, Note 9, Note 10 as well as A90 5G all support DeX plus a number of Tablets. The only problem was the keyboard. I tried some Bluetooth keyboards for Android but they all had small keys. And we tried a normal PC keyboard, which worked well but lacked a trackpad and didn’t have a USB port for a mouse. Using the phone as a trackpad was awkward, so I was going to have to buy another keyboard and either a trackpad or a mouse – or find a way of splitting the USB-A socket to run two devices. It was all a bit Heath Robinson so I started looking for another approach…<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had been using an old laptop for Zwifting but, after seeing Brian Jones (@brianjonesdj<\/a>) tweet about an Intel NUC, I realised that I could get one for not too much money, hook it up to the TV in the Man Cave and release the laptop for general family use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New toys #IntelNUC<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/xGVtJmR9y1<\/a><\/p>\u2014 Mark Wilson ???? (@markwilsonit) May 27, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It took a while to decide which model to go for but, in the end, I settled for the Intel Dual Core 8th Gen i3 Short NUC Barebone Mini PC Kit<\/a>, with 120GB SSD<\/a> and 8GB RAM<\/a> (all from Scan Computers) – and it is a fantastic little thing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Super pleased with this little thing. Brand new PC for Zwift, etc. for ~\u00a3360 #IntelNUC<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/wf2XepWvS7<\/a><\/p>\u2014 Mark Wilson ???? (@markwilsonit) May 28, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>
You can even use a low cost touchscreen monitor with battery… pic.twitter.com\/2gTGzJP5tX<\/a><\/p>\u2014 Losingthewires (@ConnectSolve) May 21, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n