For Anything You Can’t Find

It makes more sense than ever to put some Android apps on you laptop. It’s also a boon for apps that can make proper use of a keyboard, like Word or Evernote, dramatically improving your typing rate. Or forapps that benefit from the extra precision of a mouse and trackpad—think SketchBook or Adobe Photoshop Sketch. Any app that’s ever frustrated you on a smaller screen can work well on a laptop or desktop. Most of these apps are perfectly happy running on multiple Android devices too, so all your stuff gets synced over fairly effortlessly once you’ve signed in with your Google account. There are exceptions, like WhatsApp—which really needs a phone attached to work—but most apps will be fine with having your laptop registered as another device. Whatever app you choose, there are a growing number of ways to get them on your laptop. Bluestacks for Windows has long been one of the best Android emulators out there for desktops and laptops, and is still one of the top choices. It’s focused primarily on gaming, but you can use it to run any kind of Android app you like.

A macOS version does exist, but it seems to have been discontinued, so your experience with it will vary. For anything you can’t find, you need to click Home then Install APK and point Bluestacks towards a file you’ve downloaded from a repository like APK Mirror. NoxPlayer for both Windows and macOS matches Bluestacks pretty much feature for feature, but is even faster and more intuitive to use. Again, you get full access to the Google Play Store so you’re not reliant on loading in APKs from third-party sources. The interface is slick and easy on the eye, and we had no problems getting the emulator up and running. Like Bluestacks, you get plenty of handy features for managing Android apps on a computer, like options for tweaking mouse and keyboard input commands, a built-in screenshot tool, and a full-screen mode. You can even transfer files between your computer and your virtual Android device, as well as run multiple instances of Android apps if you need to (for different user accounts, maybe), which Bluestacks can do as well. Click the cog icon (top right) to set the application options, including the graphics rendering mode, how much of your system resources it can use up, and the default resolution. Android app support is now rapidly improving on Chromebooks, and you can check out the current list of Chrome OS machines that can run apps from the Play Store here. To give you an idea of how well Chromebooks currently run Android apps, we’ll detail the process as it stands on a Google Pixelbook. It’s getting rarer and rarer to find Android apps that won’t work on Chromebooks, although occasionally glitches can happen.

The app basically converts your phone or tablet into a touch screen and keyboard with touchpad for your Android mini PC. You can even use your phone's G-sensor for games and apps that require this feature. To use the remote control app, the firmware needs to have the server app already installed. You can either update the firmware to the latest version or use a custom ROM like the Finless ROM that has the support included. Like the RK3066 remote control app, Droidmote consists of a server and a client app. The server app is installed on the Android Mini PC while the client app is installed on the phone. 2.49. However, Droidmote does have a few extra functions that the RK3066 remote control app doesn't have like a virtual joypad with dual analog sticks. 2.49 for Droidmote Server. Here are a few other apps that might be of use to Android Mini PC users.

However, this app is extremely useful if you are using some sort of external keyboard. It stops the soft keyboard from popping up and taking up half the real screen estate. You do need to reconfigure your keyboard settings though if you want to use the soft keyboard though. One frequent problem that is encountered by many users when playing videos is that the video does not play in full screen. The Android bottom menu bar causes the video to play with the menu at the bottom and a vertical bar on either side of the video. You can force Android to hide the menu bar at the bottom and play video in full screen mode by installing Hide Menu Bar. This application requires root. The External Keyboard Helper Pro is an app that lets you configure your Android Mini PC to support international external keyboard layouts. It also has other helpful features such as creating quick shortcuts to enter text strings and map the ESC key to the Android BACK function. It also has a null keyboard to hide the soft keyboard when you are using an external keyboard to free up more screen estate.