I made 5 tweaks to my Android tablet, and it works better…

My favorite travel set up for work and entertainment.

Tashreef's fascination with consumer technology began in the school library when he stumbled upon a tech magazine, CHIP, which ultimately inspired him to pursue a degree in Computer Science. Since 2012, Tashreef has professionally authored over a thousand how-to articles, contributing to Windows Report and How-To Geek. He currently focuses on Microsoft Windows content at MakeUseOf, which he has been using since 2007.

With hands-on experience building websites and technology blogs, he brings practical developer insights to his technical writing. You can view his complete work portfolio at itashreef.com. You might also stumble upon his short how-to video explainers, simplifying complex topics. Beyond writing, Tashreef enjoys creating short explainer videos, gaming, and exploring animated shows. Chromebooks are more capable devices than most people realize, but I was never tempted to get one.

My work requires native apps, from video editors to local LLM tools, and a Chromebook can't handle that as a daily driver. However, things are different when I'm travelling. I often need a lightweight device for basic writing and editing without the baggage of a full-sized Windows laptop. So when I planned a short trip recently, I decided to ditch my laptop and rely on my Android tablet instead. The problem, of course, was that tablets aren't cut out for serious writing and editing.

A virtual keyboard is nowhere close to a physical one, and the touch-first interface feels clunky for real work. But after tweaking a few settings, my Android tablet now feels like a Chromebook, and I think I've found a perfect little travelling setup without too many compromises. This doesn't involve any complicated technical process or custom ROM flashing. It's just a handful of apps and settings that turn a regular Android tablet into a Chromebook-like device.

Chromebooks, much like any laptop, come with a built-in keyboard and touchpad, which is what makes them practical for real work. An Android tablet, on the other hand, is not ideal if you want to do serious writing with a virtual keyboard that takes up half the screen. The fix, of course, was an obvious one. I connected my Logitech MX Keys Mini Bluetooth keyboard and MX Master 3S mouse to the tablet.

The MX Keys Mini is compact enough for travel, and the typing experience is surprisingly a lot better than what I get on my laptop. Both Logitech products let you pair with multiple devices and switch between them with a button press, so I can use them with my laptop and tablet without re-pairing every time. Once connected, the tablet immediately felt different. I could type at full speed, use keyboard shortcuts, and navigate with a cursor instead of tapping the screen.

Android has always had solid multitasking, letting you run multiple apps side by side on the same screen. While I regularly use split screen on my Samsung phone to work with multiple apps, this capability becomes much more useful on a tablet's larger display. On my tablet, I can have a web browser on the left and Obsidian on the right for writing, which closely mimics how I work on my laptop. Most Android tablets support this out of the box, but the exact steps may differ depending on your device.

On my HONOR tablet, I had to first enable the feature from Settings > Accessibility features > Multi-Window. After that, tap the recent apps button and tap the multi-window icon on the app you want to split. The floating window mode is also handy for quick tasks like pulling up a calculator or a chat app while keeping my writing app in full screen. Working from an Android tablet, one thing I missed from my Windows setup was the taskbar.

Android tablets let you pin app shortcuts to the home screen or search for them, but it's not as intuitive as having a persistent taskbar at the bottom of the screen. That's where the Taskbar app comes in. It adds a horizontal taskbar to the bottom of the Android screen, complete with a Start menu. The app adds a few frequently used apps to the taskbar by default, but you can pin your preferred apps from the recently used list.

You can also search for any app directly from the Start menu, just like on Windows or a Chromebook. The taskbar also shows the time, date, network status, and battery information on the bottom right side. If you find the taskbar distracting when you switch to tablet mode for streaming or reading, you can collapse it with a tap. I would have preferred a way to adjust the icon size, which is currently missing, but it's not a deal breaker.

Even though the tablet has a bigger screen, it still runs a mobile operating system. That means the web browser loads mobile-optimized pages by default, and that can be a problem if you need to use it for work. For instance, when I want to access the CMS editor or check the stats page, the mobile versions are practically useless. Fortunately, it's easy to force Chrome to load desktop sites. You can do it on a per-page basis by tapping the three-dot menu and selecting Desktop site, but doing this for every page gets tedious.

Instead, I set Chrome to load all websites in desktop mode by default. Go to the three-dot menu > Settings > Site settings, then tap Desktop site and toggle it on. Now Chrome loads every website in its desktop version, which makes web apps, editors, and dashboards much more usable. This one setting alone made the biggest difference in my browsing experience. Websites that were frustrating in their mobile layouts now display full menus, toolbars, and layouts that take advantage of the tablet's screen size.

The last piece of the puzzle was a proper file manager. The built-in file managers on most Android devices are basic and fall short when it comes to network access, cloud integration, or advanced file operations. After a bit of research, CX File Explorer is the app I settled on. It's free, completely ad-free, and has an interface that feels closer to a desktop file manager than anything else I've tried on Android.

The app is fast, even on older devices, and it supports SMB/LAN connections for wireless file transfers between my tablet and PC over Wi-Fi. I can connect to shared network folders, access cloud storage like OneDrive and Google Drive, and move files between them without issues. What I like is the PC-style copy and move dialog that shows transfer speed and progress, a recycle bin for recovering accidentally deleted files, and the folder size view that tells me which folders are eating up the most space.

It's a small app that punches well above its weight and makes the tablet feel much more capable as a work device. This setup obviously doesn't replace a full laptop. You're still limited to Android apps, and some tasks that require desktop software simply won't work here. The Taskbar app, while useful, isn't as refined as a native OS taskbar, and split-screen multitasking can feel cramped if you're working with more than two apps.

But for what I needed on my trip, writing, basic editing, browsing in desktop mode, and managing files, this setup handled everything. I didn't miss carrying a heavier laptop, and the tablet was light enough to use on a train or in a coffee shop. If you already have a Bluetooth keyboard and an Android tablet, and don't want to splurge on a new Chromebook, this setup is all you need.

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