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Onlive Desktop Now Available For Android Tablets – Your Own Personal Windows 7 PC In The Cloud For Free

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After seeing an iPad release a few days ago, Onlive has finally released their powerful Windows 7 Desktop app for Android tablets. So what exactly is Onlive Desktop? Well, it’s basically your own personal high-performance PC running on Windows 7 in the cloud, and accessible on your Android tablet. Just like the original Onlive app let you stream demanding PC games to your tablet using Onlive’s servers, this will let you stream Windows 7, giving you all the functionality of a PC, but in a more portable package. Well, I should say most of the functionality.

There are different levels of Onlive Desktop with the most basic — free service — giving you access to Microsoft’s Office suite like Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Reader with 2GB of online storage. The Plus version gives you full Internet Explorer web browsing (“up to over” 100Mbps speeds) as well as Dropbox access.

Features include:

  • Instantly view, edit and create documents using actual Microsoft® Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint
  • Easily transfer files between OnLive Desktop and other devices
  • Experience high-performance, instant-response PC applications
  • Interact with lag-free animation and video
  • Works with most Bluetooth keyboards and mice (left-click only)

Once again, this service is completely free and you can signup at Online.com/desktop and the Market link for the app provided below. I’d just like to say that Onlive totally stole this idea that I’ve had floating around in my head for years now. Glad to see someone jump on this, now we just have to wait for the Windows 8 version to really stick it to Microsoft.

Thanks, @M1tchs!

[Market Link]

Chris Chavez
I've been obsessed with consumer technology for about as long as I can remember, be it video games, photography, or mobile devices. If you can plug it in, I have to own it. Preparing for the day when Android finally becomes self-aware and I get to welcome our new robot overlords.

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30 Comments

  1. Isn’t this basically the same as splashtop?  Speaking of which, splashtop THD was just released today

    1. Writing it up now.

      And Splashtop is sort of the same thing but you have to use your own desktop PC from 1996 with a thousand viruses for streaming. =/

      One day, I’ll build my own desktop and then switch to Splashtop =) 

      1. Oh I missed the fact that you don’t actually have to have a computer to use this… that’s really nice, especially if you have a mac and a tablet (or no pc at all)

    2. These guys have the fastest servers ever, and I have never seen them go down. I have been using their gaming system for ~ a year.

      My internet goes in and out constantly, and it’s too slow to use Splashtop.

  2. This is just a consumer version of  Citrix XenServer.  Corporations have been doing this kind of thing for a year or so now.

  3. Unless I’m reading the service wrong…

    Why would I want to access some random desktop in the cloud, with no idea how they handle security and privacy, rather than my own? This doesn’t make sense at all if you aren’t in a corp running their server software.

    1. If you’re like me… you don’t have a PC =(

      1. you dont have a PC…?

        1. Just my Macbook and my home Windows XP desktop that takes 5 minutes to load Google.com =/

          1. More ram man is all you need.

          2. haha same with me. i have this POS dell latittude D600 laptop that was giving to me by my sister with broken keys, 512mb RAM, no wifi ( bought one of those cheap usb wifi antennaes but my cd drive doesnt work :( so i couldnt install it), have to keep it plugged in or else the battery dies 20 min. later  and my old desktop same shitty specs from 2004 that takes like 10 min just to load up and just couple days ago the keyboard stopped working for some reason now i can log in :'( i think im gonna donate them to goodwill

            i gave up on those and just use my gs2 which is more powerful

          3. I ONLY have a CR48 running Ubuntu. :(

            I dropped my Macbook down stairs.

          4. build your own pc…? Its really easy…

    2. If you’re working with an online PC, why would you do anything to hurt your privacy? I mean who would go and check their bank account or their credit score with this?

      I don’t think writing up a paper or finishing your powerpoint is something to worry about. I mean what would a hacker want with that anyways?

      And Onlive has been out for some time with their gaming servers. So I’m pretty sure there is high grade security.

      1.  Now if you are working for a high profile company and your powerpoints are for internal use then yeah serucirty would be a very big deal but for those that are just using it for school work then yeah not such a big deal.

  4. It’s says…. “This app is incompatible with all of your devices”

    It seems my country – United Kingdom – is excluded.

    1. I get the same message here.. Norway is excluded as well..

    2. I believe that may just be the app. Go to AndroidPolice, they have a mirror..

      It said it was incompatible with my A100, but I just ripped the APK and it works fine.

      1. Many thanks – Ok now on Asus Transformer but despite the 5.3″ screen on my Galaxy Note the app came up with something saying it requires at lear a 7″ screen.

        1. Yeah, it said the same when I installed it on my Google TV… even though the screen is 32 inches… haha

    3. I hate when they do exclude apps internationally :/ 
      2 month ago when i was abroad, I found out that I can not purchase outside the US! Does anyone knows why is that? I mean I want to BUY a book, I want them to give them money and they are saying no because I am not in the US?

  5. Well that companies stock will drop hard when windows 8 tablets arrive.

    1. Why? You can have the best of Android and Windows 8…

      Also, their main service is games, and they just keep growing.

    2.  after using it… I don’t think so… the learning curve for this product is easy because it’s the familiar standard… It will take Win 8 more time to gain ground because win 7 is the business standard and most people will prefer it for a while still… I believe this company will probably release a win 8 version…  but this is a great alternative and feels the void for us who have android but sometime need fully functional office products. This also is a good product for small businesses that can’t afford a server farm to push vpn and rdp.

  6. I like Onlive desktop…very functional in the classroom with ipads…students can switch from app to doc creation quickly!

  7. I would rather use a RDP app to connect to my always-on desktop.. in a pinch this would work great though.

  8. Standard. U.S only for this. Wouldn’t mind a disclaimer in the article next time

  9. Using it on my asus transformer… very smooth… onscreen keyboard could be better… having  the “real” excel is priceless… it does need native dropbox, lastpass, xmark and firefox with extensions/addons. Also, the paid account should alow more visual control over the desktop and wallpapers… The desktop looks like one big “ad” and if I paid 4.99 I shouldn’t have to promote the app… but 4.99 a month is cheap for turning my transformer into a functional win 7 tablet… i’ve used splashtop and it can be very slugish… plus this alternative gives me a second pc and without tying up my desktop… splashtop has alot of disconnects which hurt the whole experience considerably… I have a very good home network and laptop… I stream to several HD devices without any drops but splashtop was very buggy…  the background services were hard on my laptop  it also seem to slow it down even when not being used… which is not a good trade off if you want the freedom to connect whenever… so for now this alternative is really good for me…

  10. Its ridiculous that this is incompatible with the Acer A100-I got shafted on all the good stuff today unless I want to spend 17 bucks on TSF launcher…

  11. if they get this working on Chromebooks or netbooks….. the death of laptops as we know it. that is if you have fast internet access where ever you go.

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