Use it as a smart TV!

Jelle Jansma

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Jun 3, 2013
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Dear members,

I'm pretty new to Windows 8. I like the concept of tablet that can run a full desktop interface and I even love the concept of covertibles. Unfortunately, I installed Win 8 on my 3 year old laptop. Without touchscreen. To be honest, when working with mouse & keyboard, I rarely use those apps as I don't find them productive or efficient in this setting, although it's nice if you need information quickly as those apps mostly are faster then websites. Also I miss the ability of installing phone apps, as I really have nice apps on my Lumia that aren't there on Windows 8. (I really don't get that point, WP8's design language for apps contains sweeping screens to and from the sides in portrait mode. Why isn't it possible to have 3 of those screens next to eachother in landscape mode as a start-up, so that dev's can quickly launch to Win 8 without having to redesign their apps?)

However, I found out that having the metro interface on my TV using HDMI gives me the best smart TV experience I've had so far! My parents use a Philips smart TV which I hate (difficult to admit being a Dutchman) and my brother has a Samsung equivalent, that sucks even more. Both TV's have an ugly interface, are slow and have a great lack of apps. But see here, as everyone complains about the lack of apps for Windows 8 it turns out that it has a great amound of apps when used as Smart TV! It also shows that the tiles really rock on TV. Every morning I find myself waking up, power up the TV, plug in the HDMI cable and starting up this app on my Lumia. Than I start with my morning playlist, checking my agenda, mail and Facebook updates. Also in the evenings I use this a lot with instant TV apps.

Actually I find this so great compared to real smart TV's, that I wonder why Windows doesn't develop RT TV's.

Maybe no usefull post but I felt I had to share this to you.
 

foaf

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Oct 29, 2010
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I actually totally agree. I have a Windows 8 desktop connected to a 50" TV. When I got Windows 8 I bought a Logitech T650 Wireless Touchpad. It worked well, using gestures from the couch was a pleasant experience. There were a couple of gripes though: (1.) there's no shortcut for WinKey+PgeDown to flick metro to the TV, and (2.) using the search charm was impossible, as the virtual keyboard disappeared.

I wonder if these are fixed in 8.1. But either way, the miracast ability would be amazing for this. An (hypothetical) 8" Surface RT to use apps on a miracast TV wirelessly would be great.
 

will c1

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I pretty much use my 40 inch tv just as a screen connected to my laptop. I have to hold ctrl and wheel up with my mouse on new websites to adjust the font size though. Otherwise my eyes will become strained while sitting on the couch ( I have bad eyes anyway). The Logitech "Anywhere" mouse works great on my couch fabric surface. My logitech keyboard is of course cordless also and even though it is old still has good range.

Windows 8.1 looks great on it even though my tv is an old 720p Samsung. I"m using sky dynamic as my desktop wallpaper and it changes to beautiful sky cloud scenes and such every 10 minutes. Pretty cool setup so with with the controller I go pc, tv, ps3 whenever I want.
 

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