Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Portables Hardware

Making Mobile Presentations Without a Laptop? 122

Posted by timothy from the mail-a-PDF-of-presentation-in-advance dept.
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?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Making Mobile Presentations Without a Laptop? More

Making Mobile Presentations Without a Laptop?

Comments Filter:

  • iPhone (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Corpuscavernosa ( 996139 )
    I'm pretty sure that baby can do EVERYTHING! Right? Right?
    • How did the first post get modded redundant? Are we just that sick of hearing about the iPhone?
      • Hey man thanks. Fanbois out there don't like people saying anything negative about the iPhone. I mean it's awesome but my roommate has one and says that it actually sucks as a phone (although everything else is so cool that he doesn't care). I'm glad at least one person got my point!

  • Low-tech alternative (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Dance!

  • iPhone's not a bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bananatree3 ( 872975 ) on Thursday July 31, 2008 @08:40PM (#24426333)
    You can convert powerpoint to run on your iphone [presentationhelper.co.uk], and it's not a bad idea considering the portability. Wifi is there, internet browsing is there, and you can an iPhone to a TV with proper cables [apple.com].

    Its not going to be drag and drop, but it is pretty straight forward

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by nawcom ( 941663 )

      I know Apple sells composite and component cable adapters for iphones/ipods now.

    • Creative Labs is due to release the wifi Zen player in the near future. Since he already has a laptop, he probably doesn't need wifi on the player anyways. The Zen vision series has pretty much everything you need.

      http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/29/creatives-zen-x-fi-player-with-wifi-gets-a-lot-more-real/ [engadget.com]

      No details on the type of outputs, but the Zen Vision series have composite a/v out at a resolution of 640x480. That'd be plenty enough for some presentations.

    • It is drag and drop from an iPod. You can export your presentations from Keynote as a Quicktime movie and then play them back on the iPod. Newer ones have composite output in the dock connector, and adaptors are cheap. Slightly more interesting is the OpenPandora palmtop due out in a couple of months, which will be able to display on an external screen and its built-in LCD, so you can keep notes on the internal screen.

  • Get him a pad of D size paper... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Thursday July 31, 2008 @08:40PM (#24426335) Homepage

    ...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.

  • Real men... (Score:5, Funny)

    by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Thursday July 31, 2008 @08:44PM (#24426369) Journal
    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).
  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The EEE (at least the 900 I have) has a VGA port, which is usually all you need to hook up to most projectors.

      • So does my 700, in fact, it's replaced the bulky dell notebook that I used to carry to school for light typing and presentations. Bring my wireless mouse with me and I can even walk around and advance the slides like a pro! ^^

        • It does get a bit slow on high-density pictures, though, but maybe that is a problem with either acroread or the openoffice pdf export.

          Good thing about netbook vs iphone is that you can still make last-minute changes, a very important feature. The 7 inch screen is a bit low on screen-estate though, when you edit a table, the table edit pop-up takes up a lot of space all of a sudden, and is quite likely to cover the text you were editing.

  • What's wrong with a... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sohp ( 22984 ) <.moc.oi. .ta. .notwens.> on Thursday July 31, 2008 @08:53PM (#24426491) Homepage

    Chalkboard or Whiteboard?

    I mean really -- is Edward Tufte [wikipedia.org] fighting a losing battle with his Criticism of PowerPoint [amazon.com], and we're already seeing people incapable of thinking outside of bullet points?

    • Re:What's wrong with a... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by daeg ( 828071 ) on Thursday July 31, 2008 @09:24PM (#24426847)

      I have to present new features at my company's annual meeting this fall. The company marketing directors were shocked when I stated I had no powerpoint to provide them. I was then told PowerPoint slides are mandatory, so I will be presenting from a white slide with our company name in black text.

      Unfortunately, I think that will only work for one year. :(

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Yvan256 ( 722131 )

        Show them a Keynote presentation instead. With a minimum of work, your slides will look a lot more professional, especially compared to anything I've ever seen done with PowerPoint.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Jason Smith ( 3310 )

          Agreed. I frequently get compliments on my Keynote presentations along the lines of "How the hell did you DO that?!?". Last week I gave a 104 slide talk in 90 minutes, with questions, and it was a huge hit.

          If I have more than a dozen words on a slide, I consider it a bad slide, and break it up... or replace it with an illustration while I just, y'know... talk.

        • I agree. I've always wowed people with Keynote. I've always presented from my MacBook Pro, but you can save it as a QuickTime movie; if you choose the "click to advance" option, then you have a QuickTime slideshow that plays on any computer with QuickTime installed, Mac or PC.

        • The point was that slides have become a hallmark of bad presentations. The GP doesn't want any slides, no mater how snazzy.

          I personally think there is a happy medium. In his case I might make 1 slide with a list of the new features and then animate it to highlight each one in turn. Enough to remind people where we are when the mind wanders without being distracting.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by LargeWu ( 766266 )

          I think the difference in quality of presentations between Keynote and PowerPoint has very little to do with the software itself. They're both just slideware, and PowerPoint is every bit as capable of making good presentations as Keynote is of making bad ones. Bullet points in Keynote are equally ineffective as those in PP.

          Rather, it has everything to do with the person giving the presentation. Perhaps those using Macs just tend to be a little more receptive to the "tell a story" method of presenting, ra

          • That's the truth. I get compliments on my presentations all the time, which I make with OpenOffice Impress. And heavens knows that's not a piece of effortless, smooth software on par with Keynote.

            --saint

          • Actually, there is one big difference in the software. If you make a bulleted list in keynote and type a lot of text into it, it will fall off the bottom. Do the same in Powerpoint, and it will alter the spacing and reduce the font size to make it all fit. This means that it's much easier in PowerPoint to cram huge amounts of barely-readable text onto a slide than it is in Keynote.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Lost Engineer ( 459920 )

      He was wrong to begin with. Powerpoint merely enables people with either marginal skills or marginal effort to create a presentation. There's no reason to believe that presentation would be any more insightful on a chalkboard. It would, however, last longer. So bring on the slides, I say.

    • While I haven't read the book, there are a few strengths to using a PDF (or if you must, powerpoint).

      1) It provides documentation that people can reference later.
      2) Since documentation is provided, it allows people to concentrate on the important points rather than taking notes.
      3) It allows for additional detailed documentation to be included in the file, so you may reference things you do not wish to memorize.

      And most importantly

      4) It forces the presenter to organize his/her thoughts so that he/she does no

    • "we're already seeing people incapable of thinking outside of bullet points?"

      If all they relate to is the familiar bullet point presentation, and you want to sell them something, then that is what to use.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sohp ( 22984 )

        I was talking about the presenter, not the audience. I'm sure an intelligent person could come up with a way to sell people who only understand bullet-point-grade information even without the crutch.

  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tsa ( 15680 )

      Good point. I never take a laptop with me for presentations; only a USB stick with the presentation on it. Of course you have to make sure that your presentation works on all standard Windows computers; that means no fancy movies that are prone to failing, and no extraordinary fonts. But for me that is not a problem.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by eggled ( 1135799 )
        This works in some places; the target customers here are power utility folk. Their IT departments have them in permanent lockdown to protect them from themselves. This means that we can only use a USB stick at places that have a dedicated presentations computer which is not connected to the network. Otherwise, it's a 'no foreign hardware' policy.

        The netbook may be the only other option. TV out cables are great, except that not all projectors support them. Some of the projectors are old, and only do

  • Nokia N95 (Score:1, Interesting)

    by etinin ( 1144011 )
    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.

  • iPod, Treo, Blackberry (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NevermindPhreak ( 568683 ) on Thursday July 31, 2008 @09:04PM (#24426623)

    http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;625432195;pp;2;fp;;fpid [computerworld.com.au];

    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 [macrumors.com]

  • 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...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ozphx ( 1061292 )

      Old XDA-2s and I think some of the newer stuff from HTC have pocket powerpoint players and a backpack with VGA output.

      Am I allowed to mention them here? - they do run Win Mobile after all.

  • Apple TV [apple.com].

    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.

  • Simple (Score:4, Informative)

    by Turiacus ( 1316049 ) on Thursday July 31, 2008 @09:20PM (#24426793)

    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; wh

  • EEE laptop (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Zerth ( 26112 ) on Thursday July 31, 2008 @09:49PM (#24427067)

    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.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      it makes a great presentation kit that you can fit in an overcoat pocket

      And weighs about two pounds.

      I just bought one for that exact purpose, after lugging a brick around at two back-to-back conferences.

    • Even cheaper/better is the Linux version, and you don't NEED XP+Powerpoint, since OpenOffice Impress can display Powerpoint presentations and that, too, is included on the EEE. Visiting presenters bring us PP files all the time (weekly) and we only use OO and it works fine.

  • How much do you make? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spinkham ( 56603 ) on Thursday July 31, 2008 @10:11PM (#24427301)

    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.

    • What I want to know is what's something you can make presentations with that you don't have to take out of your bag at airport security. For me that's the worst part of "lugging around" a laptop. Not only does it take too long, I always worry that somewhere in the process the laptop is going to get owned. Even as a backup, something that qualifies as not-enough-of-a-laptop by TSA standards would be nice.

      • I've had the opportunity to notice a few times that these days people are are being asked to pull out smartphones, so I don't know if you can get around it.

        • That sucks. Isn't the whole point to be able to determine if the thing is a bomb? Can a bomb as small as an iPhone/Blackberry/Trio even do any damage to anyone who's not talking on it at the time?

  • 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
  • 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 iP
  • The Casio XJ-S31 [casio.com] 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.

  • EEE PC (Score:2)

    by fwc ( 168330 )
    The EEE PC is the right tool for the job... Cheap, and does powerpoint like a dream.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fwc ( 168330 )
      Great... replying to my own comment. I also meant to mention that It comes pre-loaded with OpenOffice so it's pretty much ready to go if your boss does slides in a way that is compatible with Openoffice.
      • I am unaware of "doing it in an incompatible way" with OpenOffice. I am sure there probably is, but we have used OpenOffice Impress under Linux to play visitor's PP presentations almost weekly, for years, and have never run across something that failed to work.

  • Think portable Media Players or PDAs... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheNetAvenger ( 624455 ) on Friday August 01, 2008 @04:23AM (#24429647)

    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...

  • Use an iPhone, export all the slides as jpg's and present on the go ;) http://www.duivesteyn.com.au/ [duivesteyn.com.au]

  • I had to do this too once upon a time (do presentations without a laptop.) Here's how I solved it:

    1. Get a USB memory stick
    2. Save your presentation as a PDF
    3. Bring it with you.

    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 P

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by pixr99 ( 560799 )

      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.

      Alternatively, do like all visiting vendors and speakers do where I work. Just show up completely unprepared. Five minutes before the presentation the speaker finds IT, enters the department and proclaims, "You guys don't know me, and I don't work here. But I'm doing a presentation in five minutes and I need a projector, a laptop, internet access, an extension cord and a power strip... right now! Oh and you have to convert the presentation from my crappy presentation software to whatever crappy presentat

  • 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 phon

  • 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.

  • Windows Mobile device and a this program http://www.margi.com/support/sup_ptg_comp.htm [margi.com]. 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..

  • 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).

  • 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/ [impatica.com]

    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.

    • Their desktop software "transcodes" the PPT to a much more compact format. Then using your mobile, you download the transcoded file (which you can email to your mobile or copy to its file system) to the showmate device (anembedded Linux box the size of a bar of soap) and you control the playback using your mobile device. For the BB, you can either tether to the showmate using a USB cable or you can use Bluetooth.
    • Works with:

      Sony Ericsson® handheld with Java platform 5 or higher and Bluetooth

      So, I assume someone can hack it to run with Linux. :)

  • 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

  • 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/ [engadget.com]

    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 projec

  • 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!

Slashdot Top Deals

The use of money is all the advantage there is to having money. -- B. Franklin

Close