What do you think when you hear about the idea of a phone turning into a laptop or desktop? Some may think of the Samsung DeX or the ASUS PadFone, but if we go back to 10, we find in 2011 a Moto Atrix, with the Webtop platform and a laptop dock in which they could insert the phone, which served as their "brain". Fast forward to 2021, where we have Motorola Ready For, a solution where you can connect your Motorola Edge Plus or Moto G100 to a monitor and then have a seamless Office, gaming and high-diagonal video calling experience.
What is Ready For?
Ready For is an integrated solution on the Motorola Edge + and Motorola G100 phones, which once connected to a monitor start a new desktop-like interface, similar to Windows. The most useful thing is that you can continue playing or watching a movie on the monitor while you do something else on the phone. In our case we used a Moto G100, which can also act as a touchpad, if you don't have a mouse at hand. The interface on the phone is simple, 4 large windows, with 4 related modes of use: Desktop, Video, Gaming, Video Calls.
What do I need?
Obviously, you need a monitor or TV, Motorola Moto G100 or Motorola Edge Plus, but also a cable, either a USB-C to USB-C or a USB-C to HDMI. You connect the first one to a monitor with a USB-C connector, and the second to a monitor with HDMI. There is also a Ready For Dock, which is not available for sale in Romania and is not included in the Moto G100 phone package. It's good because it has a built-in fan and can tilt your phone to an ideal angle for making video calls, but it also allows you to charge it while mirroring.
This Dock weighs 320 grams, is made of plastic and metal and comes with a magnet. Its holder can be folded at the desired angle, and the section to which you attach the phone can be held vertically or horizontally. It also has an LED, a USB-C connector on which you put the phone and two built-in side mechanisms. In the back you have a USB-C port to which you connect the cable leading to the monitor or TV.
Use situations
I'm thinking about the scenario where you're staying in a hotel and you have a non-smart TV in your room or you're visiting a friend with a monitor or non-smart TV. You're just a cable away from a night of gaming, watching content on YouTube and the like. Not to mention the advantage of seeing your loved ones on a large diagonal when you make a video call on Google Duo, Skype, Zoom.
Here are the 4 ways Ready For works:
1. Desktop
Probably the largest and busiest, this mode provides you with a Windows-style interface on your monitor. You have a cursor on the screen, controlled either from the phone screen or via the mouse. I connected the mouse and keyboard to the Moto G100 via Bluetooth, and the input was without lag. You can open applications on your phone, resize them, browse the web in Chrome, and even edit Office documents, PowerPoint files, PDFs, and Excel. You can read emails and view photos stored in Photos.
You can write emails on the keyboard, edit photos and videos more easily, all now on a larger diagonal. Your phone can be a trackpad and / or virtual keyboard, if you don't have accessories at hand. The interface on the monitor brings with it the Windows, with an application area, a Home area, a taskbar with applications open in the background, a multitasking area that can be accessed with ALT / TAB from the keyboard, but also a side notification area.
Windows can be shrunk or enlarged and closed with an "X", as in Windows. You can have multiple windows on the screen by browsing the web while completing an Excel, for example.
2. Video
It's easy here, when you turn on this mode on your phone, you have a choice of video applications that appear on the screen. YouTube is the first thing that comes to mind, but there are other video players and content sources, such as Amazon Prime, Netflix. You can even stream 4K video to your monitor or TV, which is a big plus. Everything looks great.
3. Gaming
Here are the simple things: I connected via Bluetooth to the Moto G100 a controller from my PS4 and I opened Asphalt 9 on the monitor. We played a race in rainy Scotland and the weather effects looked fabulous on the screen. I recommend a good calibration of the controller so that you don't wake up at high latency. Most games are supported, only NFS No Limits did not recognize my game controller.
Call of Duty Mobile looks spectacular, you can try Dead by Daylight Mobile or Genshin Impact, all from the comfort of the couch, with the controller, if you play on a big TV.
4. Video calls
Here you can turn on the front camera of the phone, you can even choose between the 16 MP one on the Moto G100 and the 8 MP ultrawide selfie and then you will start a video call with your loved ones via Zoom, Skype, Google Duo. Or a conference with co-workers, or a meeting with classmates, for example, all now on a larger diagonal. This is while you can continue to check your email, scroll through Facebook and other activities on your phone. You also have special functions in the bottom bar that fix you in the frame and monitor your movements.
Bonus: The fifth mode is Screen Mirroring, which mirrors everything you see on your phone screen 1 to 1. Useful for game or application developers who want to see how their software behaves in more detail. Maybe useful for game streamers, to better see the action and comments in the chat. .
conclusions
We all have monitors and TVs and we can find them almost everywhere, but there are situations in which you don't even have a PC at hand and you would like to have all the functions on your phone at a larger diagonal. With the Moto G100 and Ready For, all you need is a USB-C to HDMI cable and you're done. Personally, I appreciate multitasking the most, so no matter what game, movie, Word document you have on your TV screen / monitor and working on it, you can do something else on the phone.
Scaling in some apps that are designed strictly for mobile will be a little weirder on a large diagonal 4K screen like the one I used, but you can go to the display and font settings and adjust everything. You should try it at least once if you own a Moto G100 or Motorola Edge Plus, if only to see this feature work.
Motorola Moto G100, updated prices:
A big bonus is that compared to Samsung DeX it allows you to bring Netflix to the monitor. We are now waiting for a wireless version.