Intel / Android on ChromeOS Support

ransonjd

Member
How is Pleco's support for Android on Intel? How about Android on ChromeOS on Intel? I'm looking at getting a Chromebook 2-in-1 laptop/tablet (with Android Google Play support.) Most are Intel based, and I'm wondering if that's an issue for Pleco.

--John
 

ransonjd

Member
Hi,

Anything on this? I saw some older posts about text to speech for Android on Intel being broken. Are there any other issues I should be aware of? (I realize that ChromeOS isn't a target platform, but I assume at the very least any issues with Android on Intel are likely to exist with Android on ChromeOS on Intel.)

Thanks!

John
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Haven't tested this much lately here, but since nobody else is responding:

We no longer offer an X86 (Intel) version of our app (and never offered some parts of it in X86) so the quality of the experience would depend on how well your Chromebook emulates ARM. We do have lots of people using even our current ARM-only app happily on X86 devices, but just in general for the sake of future-proofing I'd strongly recommend getting an ARM instead of an X86 Chromebook; really the only platforms on which I'd consider a device with an X86 chip at this point are legacy PC platforms like Windows and macOS, for everything else the future belongs to ARM.

That being said, if you insist on getting an X86 Chromebook the switch to ARM-only has actually seemed to improve the TTS situation a bit; now that the entire app is in ARM we no longer have the awkward situation we used to where it would get confused and refuse to load our ARM TTS libraries because other parts of the app were in X86.
 
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Mel

Member
I was wondering if anyone might have experiences on specific chromebooks, good or bad? I'm a bit leery about buying another android tablet, as we have an android 4.4 tablet that has become outdated and non-upgradeable, and my understanding is that chromebooks should stay current...
 

HuShifang

秀才
Since ARM's (bright, I agree) future isn't here just yet, I wonder, does anyone have procedures for getting Pleco to work in Anbox (https://anbox.io/)? It seems that its devs will not be pursuing ARM-emulation, instead leaving architecture compatibility entirely up to the .apk provider (see https://github.com/anbox/anbox/issues/33).

For context, as someone with a laptop and an Android tablet which are both 5+ years old at this point, and given the grim-seeming outlook for ARC Welder (which has generally served me well), the next device I buy will almost certainly be an x86 2-in-1: either a higher-end Chromebook capable of running x86 Linux apps via chroot or GalliumOS -- I know many of the major distros are releasing ARM-friendly spins, but there are still x86 apps I'll need -- or a convertible running Linux. Of the two, the latter is more likely, and I'm envisioning using Anbox (which will hopefully become more stable in time) for Android apps when I'm in tablet mode. And I'd love for Pleco to be one of them...
 

Mel

Member
Hmmm... Don't know about anbox. Might try bluestacks on windows, though :)

But I can report on the Chromebook I tried. Tried the Samsung Chromebook Plus (arm based) - installed pleco in the android emulation. Unable to get the camera in pleco to work for the digitizer. Tried to take a picture with the Chromebook camera, but it wasn't accessible by android pleco. In addition the pleco menus fell off the bottom of the page, and the menus wouldn't scroll down. The Chromebook plus was supposed to be the replacement android tablet... Back to the store in favor of IPad, I think...

Anyone any better experiences or suggestions?
 

HuShifang

秀才
Okay, so unless Acer or Samsung wows with something new between now and MWC, I'll probably buy a Samsung Chromebook Pro. (Laptop is holding up well, so I'll postpone on that count.) Has Pleco's performance improved on Chromebooks since December? Can anyone speak to its performance on x86 Chromebooks? (I think I'll be getting an x86 Chromebook regardless at this point, but I'd only think about plunking down for the new Wilkinson e-book if Pleco's performing well on it -- I really don't want to navigate an ebook on my Android phone...)
 
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