Control Your PC From Your Android Tablet: App Roundup

Controlling your Microcomputer remotely from your smartphone sounds useful in theory, looks cool off as an experiment, and by and large proves impractical in everyday use. Past contrast, controlling your PC remotely from a tablet can actually come in in accessible. So I took terzetto of the prima Humanoid VNC (virtual mesh computing) utilities for a spin happening my Acer Iconia A500 tablet to see which extraordinary offers the best balance of usability and assess.

I've been hooked on remote screen background software for days–ever since I left some time-sensitive business files on my national PC and exited the country for a week. Ended the years, I've reliable my portion out of free and paid apps that let me control my home or go PC from my laptop. Remote desktop control, while non something I use every 24-hour interval, has get along an important part of my work life.

In the past year aroun, I've tried a fewer smartphone VNC apps, but all of them did a woefully inadequate problem of controlling my desktop computer. The problem is clear: Smartphone screens are too small to beryllium useful for navigating around and controlling a desktop shield. Most of the apps I've used do work as promised; but the small convenience that these apps offer scarcely justifies altogether of the swiping back and forth, zooming in and out, and repeated screen tapping required to get a sought after action to take effect on the remote system. At last the smartphone is just a bad device for controlling bigger devices (or leastways, for controlling their background interfaces).

Now that I sustain an Mechanical man Honeycomb lozenge in my go bag, nevertheless, I've decided to give smartphone remote-control apps another encounter to prove themselves in daily use. Over the early few weeks, I've been testing tierce top-rated VNC remote desktop apps for Android: LogMeIn Ignition ($30), PhoneMyPC ($10), and Wyse PocketCloud Pro ($15). I put to each one of these apps through its paces over both local Wisconsin-Fi and raisable system connections, driving my home Personal computer through browser sessions, editing in Microsoft Word, and IMing with colleagues. Here's what I found.

LogMeIn Ignition

The priciest app in my remote background roundup is LogMeIn Lighting, which you can buy from the Android Securities industry for $30. Ignition lets you control Windows PCs and Macs victimization either the paid LogMeIn Pro app operating theater LogMeIn Free on your desktop machine.

LogMeIn Lighting is easy to configure and simple to use.

Of the apps in this roundup, LogMeIn Ignition offers the clearest interface for Android devices, with magnanimous, transparent buttons across the bottom of the screen that permit simple, trouble-unrestrained verify. It's also ace of the easier apps to configure on the host sidelong of the human relationship: You simply sign up, download the app, and lumber in with your LogMeIn account certificate to get going. As long as the Microcomputer is running, LogMeIn Ignition can buoy find it ended an Internet or LAN connection, wake it from sleep if needed, and driving force IT remotely.

It's deserving noting, though, that LogMeIn costs twice atomic number 3 much A the next-well-nig-overpriced app I looked at, Wyse PocketCloud Pro, which has more-robust business-grade encryption and sound support.

PhoneMyPC

This fairly simple remote-control app from an obscure Android developer called SoftwareForMe.com garnered adequate malodorous marks from users in the Android Commercialize to justify my taking a closer expression. Still technically a beta product, PhoneMyPC is a tablet-optimized app that lets you control PCs running Windows XP or by and by.

PhoneMyPC offers remote Webcam screening, in addition to conventional remote desktop controls.

PhoneMyPC offers few distinctive features that other apps leave out, such as Webcam Preview, which lets you await through and through your PC's attached Webcam. This cool fillip feature opens up a broader vagabon of reasons to give remote-control package a try out: You can stoppage in along your berth or menage while you're traveling, spy happening your pets, spy on your babysitter, or spy connected whoever is within view of your Microcomputer's Webcam. The point is, you can spy with IT, and that's beautiful awesome.

Of the three apps I tried, however, PhoneMyPC performed the most sluggishly over a remote connection, delivering chunky images and slow refreshes. So spell this app is unquestionably interesting, I'm not convinced that it's as practical as the other two for acquiring actual work done.

Wyse PocketCloud In favor of (the Winner)

The only app in this little roundup designed specifically for business use, Wyse PocketCloud Pro is easily the most robust of the three. It supports automatic discovery finished VNC and Microsoft's RDP7 protocol, it acts as a VMware viewer, and it can control Windows PCs and Macs.

The easiest means to use Wyse is to log in with a Gmail account from both the mobile app and the desktop host. In my tests, this unfailingly made my Windows and Mack hosts immediately determinable over both Wi-Fi and transferrable connections, earning PocketCloud the eminence of organism aside far the simplest of the three apps to configure.

Wise PocketCloud Pro conveniently puts a navigation wheel at the center of the presentation.

The PocketCloud user interface is built around a centered navigation wheel that expands when you tap information technology to provide an array of control options. I found it unintuitive initially, but I grew to prefer it all over the former apps once I got the hang of it, since IT puts the navigation tools you need right in the center of the display, which is where you're nigh likely to need them.

PocketCloud is too the fastest of the apps I tested, delivering clear images of the remote screen with relatively little lag and fewer distracting visual artifacts, even over a 3G connection. Tinge-zooming works astonishingly swimmingly in PocketCloud. And if you do experience connection problems that slow the app's performance, you tooshie easy turn off elements such as the block out wallpaper to fastness things up again.

Out and away, Wyse PocketCloud Pro is the clear leader among these three Humanoid VNC apps. It's modestly priced at $15, performs well complete mobile connections, supports multiple connections, and features business organization-score TLS encoding that goes on the far side the capabilities of its competitors. It also comes in a free version that gives you most of the same features (minus stable support, multiple-connection support, and some of the high-end encryption features).