Space Desk or how to give good use to an old Phone, Tablet or iPad

[Cableguy]

I finally got a new job a about a month ago, and for the first time I am forced to use a Mac laptop... an Air .... something, who cares?
But this also forced me to use a secondary screen, something I never really needed before, but now... man, the extra space really makes a difference in my workflow!
So, It got me thinking.... how to transform an Old Android tablet I had around ( a T210 TAB3 ) into a secondary screen...
At first, and being a tinkerer, I look up hardware mods... and while searching, I came across Space Desk (www.spacedesk.net).
Maybe this isn't that new for some of you, but for me this meant I could try and use the Tablet without risking breaking it.

My first issue was... man, this tablet is OLD!!!
And I had it in stock ROM (Android 4.1.2)! Nothing really worked as it should... specially GPlay! I spent ages trying to get the dahm thing to even connect to Gplay normally...
So, after many failled attemps, I did what most of us would... I gave up.... I went over to XDA-Developers and started my search for my temporary holly graal!
First things first... in order to be able to flash a custom rom, first I needed a custom recovery! and so, I flashed via ODIN (yes it still works under win11) the TWR Recovery, and then I flashed a few ( 5 in total) Custom Roms, each of them with the same major problems.... Either WIFI was instable, either GPlay services didn't launch.... Then finally, on my fith ROM flash, It worked, I got that forgotten, half dead tablet into usefull life again! Now all I need is to design and print a custom bracket to attach it to my laptop, and I'm done! And the best is, I cn use the touch abilities of the tablet!, as well as the screen rotation!
This is going to be neat!

 

[hatzisn]

Could you make a tutorial on how this is done? I also have an Android 4 tablet. What was the model of your tablet?

 

[Cableguy]

Could you make a tutorial on how this is done? I also have an Android 4 tablet. What was the model of your tablet?

Which part? The space desk is quite simple, as it consists of a server app (windows) and a viewer app for the extended display, being it an old phone, tablet or iPhone/iPad.

The ROM flashing is also not that difficult, although it can take same trial & error, and also comes with some risk of bricking your device.

Countless tutorials exist about the subject, but the "place to go" is undoubtedly xda-developers

 

[Cableguy]

There are many ways of doing this. Installing a Custom ROM is NOT ILEGAL BUT IT WILL VOID YOUR WARRABTY! You have been warned!
Most recent Android devices come already with a bootloader capable of installing a custom ROM from a zip file.
Each device has it's own key combo to enter the Recovery Mode, and if your device doesn't let you into RM then you most certainly need to install a custom Recovery, Like CyanoMod or TWRP (these are the 2 most common). To install a Custom Recovery, You will need to use ODIN through USB.
Find your device's compatible Custom Recovery (xda-developers is the site for this) , download it onto your PC, and follow the instructions present in the thread from where you got the link for the download. be sure to follow the ODIN route for this, specially if you have an OLD tablet like mine T210 Samsung Tab3 7".
Once the Recovery is installed, then the hard part begins... Finding a suitable ROM that works! BE VERY CAREFULL, THERE MAY BE SUBTLE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ROMs, like in my case, there are a few different versions of the TAB3 73 tablet, and mine being T210 with a variant T210R with gsm capability. ROMs designed for these two variants will work FOR MY TABLET, but for example, ROMs for the T211( Same Tablet, different board/series) will not work for my tablet. SO DO BE VERY CAREFULL WHEN FLASHING YOUR NEW ROM!
You will find a plethora of ROMs, some "vanila" with only the barebones of android, other with everything you could ever imagine being used in a ROM, some with SuperUser( ROOT ), some without.
As I said in my original post, it took me 4 different ROMs, and only the 4th worked as it should... but was FULL of bloatware and apps I didn't need... but, since they came with the rom, the only way to delete them was to use a Root enabled uninstaller!
And I went from over 400 installed apps (android system apps included) to less that 120, and an on-screen presence of only about 20 apps, when before I had at least 150!

SO, there's not a "simple" tutorial, since every device is different, and you will have to do some research, but even a 10+years old tablet can still be useful!