Many Android tablets are currently boasting about the presence of a fully functional USB port to allow you to connect to your flash drives or dongles. And obviously, for this extra feature, they are charging more.
However here is workaround for that, which may help you save that bit of money, as published on CNET. The workaround is quite simple. A cheap cable called the On-The-Go cable, popularly known as the OTG cable. Well, if you haven’t heard about it, don’t worry, we are here to help you on it.
With the iPad Camera Connection Kit allowing users to connect a variety of unexpected USB devices (like a MIDI keyboard) to their iPads, the next logical question was, “Is there something similar for Android?”
Although it’s not advertised or sold by any of the big Android phone manufacturers, the solution is a cheap cable called a USB On-The-Go adapter.
The $1 cable magnificiently works with many Android devices, including the famous ones
- Samsung Galaxy S II (S2)
- Samsung Galaxy S III (S3)
- Galaxy Nexus*
- Nexus 7*
- Droid RAZR
- Samsung Galaxy Tab
- Acer Iconia Tab A200
- Acer Iconia Tab A500
- Archos G9
- Notion Ink Adam
- Motorola Xoom
- Toshiba Excite 10
- Sony Tablet S
*Although the Galaxy Nexus family supports many USB accessories, it does not support mass storage devices, like USB thumbdrives.
How Does It Work?
The Answer is simple! Just plug-in the mini USB end of the OTG cable to your device, and the female end will allow you to insert your mass storage or input device, like keyboard, mouse etc. Tadaa! That’s all! Even more exciting thing is, this work around also allows wireless mouse to also work on your Android device.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpQtlAW3mag[/youtube]
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