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Wrace's avatar
Wrace
Explorer
Apr 29, 2016

Windows/Outlook/Excel/Word Pc’s, and Android phone

I am a long time user of MS Outlook, Excel, and Word products on my work and personal pc’s running win7. My calendar is in outlook and my emails are managed through outlook via gmail and ISP provided email addresses.

I am not fond of the gmail web email site as I find it clunky and difficult to navigate vs outlook.

My phone is a Samsung S4 android which I don’t really want to replace if possible.

We have a dropbox account where we put shared excel and word files.

I need to set up my phone such that I can access my word and excel documents. I don’t plan to do a lot of typing or creating spreadsheets on the phone but I do need to access existing documents for reference when mobile.

I also need to access and manage my calendar and email while mobile and I’d like to do it with the familiar outlook interface is possible.

It looks like there are android apps for excel, word, and outlook available on google play store.

I’m wondering if others are running similar set-ups on your pc’s/phones? Do the windows apps run ok on the android/google phones?

Accessing excel and word files from the phone should work ok because the files are stored on dropbox?

My current calendar and email are stored locally on the desktop pc which means they would not be available on the phones outlook app I assume. What are my options here?


Thanks
  • The MS Office Apps for Android are pretty good. The caveat being that you need to sign up for the free Office online. Not sure how well they integrate with desktop files. I don't have a strong need for any of them except for OneNote which I find very good.

    That said I use outlook.com for my primary email address and absolutely hate Gmail. However, some time ago Gmail came out with an app called "Inbox by Gmail" that also has a corresponding web mail page. It's so good that I now forward all my email to Gmail and use my Outlook as a reply address. The only drawback I've found so far is that it doesn't let you send group emails yet, which is OK because I have to use the Outlook account occasionally so they don't shut it down. That said you should have no trouble making this work, lots of info online on how to do it.

    I also use Google calendar now instead of Outlook. Much easier and cleaner. Not sure if you can import the Google calendar into Outlook or vise versa.

    And it's easy to export contacts and import into Google, which you may already have for your phone contact list.
  • SmartPhone platforms were never designed to completely replace desktops/notebooks running Windows applications. IMO, they offer limited usability at best. More for specialized applications. Which is the reason I still carry along an Ultrabook notebook when I travel.

    However, an IT enterprise desktop support tech I know came up with a solution that works for him quite well. He basically uses his Samsung Note 4 to just remote VPN into his desktop at home, so has access to all his Windows applications and files. He carries a separate portable Bluetooth keyboard w/trackpad, and wirelessly connects his Note 4 display to any LCD which has an HDMI input. Or, otherwise, uses a pocket Pico projector to act as an external display.

    As an added bonus, he can watch his local sports teams without paying additional access fees.