If you believe that carrying a laptop to get consistent access to your data is the only way, think again! Today, smartphones and tablets have revolutionized the way data is shared, used, and accessed. With a variety of great apps and native functions, carrying your data and using your smartphone and/or tablet as a laptop replacement is no big deal. And, when you’ve got Android, you won’t find yourself short of apps that serve the purpose of a laptop.

We are not asking you to ditch your classy-looking notebook, but all we want is to make your life easy by replacing your laptop with extremely useful Android apps. The primary purpose of carrying a notebook around is to have uninterrupted access to your data, but sometimes, carrying the extra weight around is too much of an inconvenience.

This post is meant for people who hate carrying their laptops around but still want consistent and reliable access to their data. There are a lot of Android apps available on the Google Play Store that let you access your files, pictures, music, and other stuff on the go. Today, many high-end Android phones and tablets come bundled with some useful apps to help you get started on traveling light but armed with all your necessary files.

In what follows, we shall take a look at some of the best Android apps that can surely lure you towards using an Android device as a useful replacement to your laptop.

Poweramp Music Player

Music, dubbed by many as “food for the soul”, is something you can’t miss! And, if you have an Android device, then transferring music from your laptop to your phone or tablet is a piece of cake. With the powerful and extremely well designed Poweramp Music Player app for Android, your music listening experience is bound to reach new heights.

The Poweramp Music Player boasts a slick interface, eye-catching killer looks, and a plethora of amazingly great features to rival any good music player you’ve installed on your notebook. The app presents you with plenty of options to navigate to your local music files as desired. You can play music tracks by folders, albums, artists, genre and much more. Among other features, you get a customizable music equalizer with dozens of audio presets, bass and treble effects, as well as several other customizable options.

Poweramp Music Player is free to try, and just US$4.98 to buy.

MX Player

Agreeably, watching movies on the laptop is a favorite pastime of most users. Without a doubt, the MX Player app for Android is the best video player to have hit the Google Play Store to date . The app became an instant hit among users because of its capability to play high quality videos of almost any known format.

The best part of the entire MX Player for Android package is that it plays most of your videos without requiring you to install any additional codecs whatsoever. MX Video Player supports full-fledge media controls that one can expect from a quality media player. It also supports displaying subtitles (of multiple formats), and lets you jump to desired playback position by simply scrolling on the subtitle text.

MX Player for Android is available for free in the Google Play Store However, you can also opt for US$5.27 better optimized and ad-free version called MX Player Pro.

Instagram

Instagram, boasting an impressive count of 30 million registered users on the iOS platform, was recently released for Android. The primary objective of this app is to make photo sharing easy, interesting, and optimized while you’re on the go.

The Instagram app for Android combines fabulous retro filters bundled with multi-platform support. All these features make this app an extremely simple way of expressing one’s sentiments, talent, and mood by sharing some memorable photos. To sum it all up, Instagram is the “Twitter” of photos.

To further help you embellish your photos, Instagram for Android offers the “lux effect” that can automatically adjust the brightness levels of your rather dull-looking photos, and convert them into something much more vivid and appealing. Since Instagram does not have a desktop client, it’s a no-brainer to spend a few bucks in getting yourself a smartphone, so that you can get your hands on this photo-sharing sensation.

Instagram is available for free on the Google Play Store.

WhatsApp Messenger

One can hardly afford not to stay in touch with one’s contacts for too long. Your routine desktop messengers are a good way to get hooked to your social worlds, but when it comes to connecting to your important contacts on the go, Whatsapp Messenger is your best pick.

This cross-platform app is available for almost all renowned mobile platforms, including Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7. This means that people with smartphones can afford to have it installed on their devices.

Whatsapp Messenger is famous for its ability to connect you to your mobile phone contacts via the internet (W-Fi/3G), so that you can share text and multimedia messages in real time without having any fear of losing precious mobile data bytes. What’s even better about the app is that it uses your very own phone number to get you subscribed to the network, and lets you indulge in group chat with as many contacts as desired.

Whatsapp Messenger is free to try for the entire first season of subscription, after which you’re required to pay a meager US$0.99 per year to stay connected to your near and dear ones.

Dropbox

There is no denying the fact that cloud computing is the future of technology. Dropbox comes across with the reputation of being the pioneer and giant of the online data backup and cross-platform, real-time data synchronization and restore solution providers.

With the official Dropbox Android client, you no longer need to resort to your computer to access your personal cloud content. The mobile app of the service lets you remotely access, manipulate and share Dropbox data from virtually anywhere via your Android device.

In addition, it supports the option of automatically uploading your locally stored mobile photos straight to the cloud, and sports a neatly designed photo gallery so that you can natively browse your image collection in full-screen. The app, however, lacks complete folder upload support for the Android client.

Dropbox is available for free in the Google Play Store and you can download the desktop client via Dropbox’s official website.

Plan B

A modern-day mobile device, such as a smartphone or a tablet, is likely to carry all your precious information. Therefore, you must ensure that you have a protection mechanism enabled on your Android. For this purpose, the Google Play Store offers a slew of apps, but none surpasses the effectiveness of Plan B — a free app that can be installed on a lost Android device to remotely trace its geographic coordinates.

Provided Internet connection is enabled on your device, all you need to do is install Plan B by visiting the Google Play Store. The app will automatically and remotely enable GPS on your lost device, and help transmit its geographic coordinates to the email ID that you used to register your device with the Google Play Store.

The location of the device is traced continuously, and updated on the map accordingly. To trace your device’s coordinates for a prolonged period, you need to send a text message to your mobile number from another device, and receive the coordinates via text.

We believe that such services are available for lost laptops as well, but none of them come with these simple operating instructions.

Plan B is available for free in the Google Play Store and you have to download it to your phone after losing it.

Studious

Gone are the days when you had to carry your bulky laptop to class to keep on top on your study plans, class routines, and lecture notes. With Studious for Android, you won’t need to worry about another missed lecture again.

Studious keeps you apprised of all your class schedules, upcoming lectures, important notes, test reminders, and everything relevant to your daily routine study activities. Aside from being your study partner, Studious can manage your phone by activating auto silent mode during class schedules. You are also consistently reminded about your due homework and tests.

With this app, you can take notes, save them, and even capture images relevant to your study. Of course, depending on whether your institute allows the usage of phones or tabs during class hours, Studious is a must-have app for students looking to manage their studies. Studious is available for free in the Google Play Store.

Google Docs

With the advent of Android and other smartphone platforms, the need for carrying bulky laptops has been greatly reduced. Most of us carried a laptops to be able to access our documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs–and also to make new ones. But, that role of laptops may have diminished somewhat with the coming of Google Docs for Android.

Google Docs for Android is a great and absolutely free solution to all your office productivity needs. With Google Docs installed on your Android phone or tablet, you can be at ease when creating, editing, and uploading your documents. As the app has been specifically fine-tuned and designed for Android, you don’t have to switch to the web version and battle the over-scroll.

The UI is chic and there are plenty of options to create, save, and download your documents on the go. The use of conventional desktop productivity suites has been greatly reduced with apps like Google Docs. Google Docs is available for free in the Google Play store.

AfterFocus

No matter how hard you try, your laptop remains a complete failure when it comes to taking and sharing pictures — with little or no modifications — in real time. One of the strongest points of the modern-day Android smartphone is its strong camera and all the robustly built camera replacement apps. These apps help make your otherwise-ordinary-looking images look like they were captured using state-of-art DSLR cameras.

While most photo editing and embellishing apps out there are extensively rich in the number of various photo filters and effects, only very few allow you to apply DSLR-like motion blur and camera lens effects to your images. These photographic filters are needed to focus on a particular object within the photo.

Say hello to AfterFocus — a free photo editing Android app that not only supports the said feature, but also brings Instagram-like photo filters and various aperture effects to your photos. Using the app, all you need to do is scribble with your fingers on the desired areas of the image to set the focus on your preferred object, apply a few filters to make the image more appealing, and share your masterpieces with your mates on the go.

You can download AfterFocus from Google Play Store for free.

Temple Run

Although some of us think that PC gaming is better than that on smartphones, the current scenario has begun suggesting otherwise. With most renowned game development labels already producing for Android, mobile gaming experience is quickly matching the pace and entertainment offered by PC gaming.

In case you carry your laptop for the sole purpose of opening the lid and playing your favorite game, then you might want to ditch it for your high-end Android phone or tablet. There are some remarkable 3D games out there, but none of them comes even close to matching the addiction of Temple Run.

Temple Run was primarily intended for iOS users alone, but soon made its way to Android. Now, it’s one of the most-downloaded games among Android users.

The beauty of the game is that despite supporting a simple purpose, Temple Run entices users to come back to play over and over again. With Temple Run, all you get is the game’s protagonist who comes rushing out of a temple chased by a bunch of fanatic simians. From there, it’s all about clearing all the hurdles that come your way and collecting all the perks and rewards in between and, at the same time, keeping a fair amount of distance from the deadly creatures.

Temple Run is available for free in the Google Play Store.

Arguably, it’s difficult to really pinpoint app recommendations for replacing most laptop functionalities.  After all, people use their laptops for different purposes.  But, these ten Android apps to replace laptops may not be the ultimate collection, they surely can help you get on your way to lessening your dependence on your lappy.

What about you?  What laptop-replacement Android app have you been using?

HP Compaq Airlife 100

Here’s a look at the new HP Compaq Airlife 100, an Android 1.6 powered netbook computer with a 10.1 inch touchscreen display and all day battery life, thanks to its 1GHz Snapdragon CPU.

This netbook was announced at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain and will be sold by Telefonica’s family of carriers, at least initially, but no ship date or pricing information has been given at this time.

Video and additional photos are available after the break.

[via MobileBurn]

NEXT: HP Compaq announce Airlife 100

Video and summary of the GNB netbook/UMPC Man turns Dell netbook into a Mini 3i Android-powered phone – redfines the term pocketable

[via Computer Active]

NEXT: ASUS confirm development of Android based netbook

HTC & T-Mobile developing an Android netbook? Upcoming Android netbooks from Acer to dual-boot Windows

The enthusiastic man in the video goes onto pick up a forthcoming Hivision MID device set to land in March. In the YouTube video the MID is shown to be running Windows CE, but he asks whether Android will run on this device. The lady he is speaking to, presumably the Hivision representative, confirms and he once again asks the consumer price point. “What is the end consumer price maybe …(he doesn’t wait for her to answer) … I’m just guessing, let me guess, I’ll guess, $149.” I couldn’t help find this guy amusing, at least for his love of the $149 price point but especially as he then goes on to give a consumer supply lecture on economies of scale.

Anyway, I detract from the point a little. In short, Hivision have a number of forthcoming Android based devices, including an “affordable” netbook along with an MID device. The netbook will offer Ethernet, SD Card slot, 2 USB ports and headphones. Video after the jump.

NEXT: HTC & T-Mobile developing an Android netbook?

Man turns Dell netbook into a Mini 3i Android-powered phone – redfines the term pocketable Video and summary of the GNB netbook/UMPC

[via Gizmodo and Shanzai]

NEXT: Dell mini 3i specifications

Dell Mini 3i seen looking mighty official Android on Acer phone for 2009, Motorola Morrisson, and Dell Mini 10v

NVIDIA Tegra

NVIDIA have snuggled up tightly with Microsoft and expressed that they will be working on optimizing Windows CE for Tegra-based “smartbooks” (something between a smarphone and a netbook), as opposed to Android. According to an article over at ComputerWorld, Mike Rayfield from NVIDIA was quite clear and specific about the differences between Android and Windows Mobile, and has clearly taken ‘sides’ – at least for now. We say this because there is also news that NVIDIA is working with Google to accelerate Android when running on Tegra hardware. The downside being that it will take about a year before anything good comes of it due to “Android limitations”. According to Mr. Rayfield,

“[Windows CE] is a rock-solid operating system that has been shipped billions of times. [It also has a] low memory footprint and a good collection of apps.”

NVIDIA’s main hang up appears to be that “There’s no hardware acceleration. It’s all software…” coupled with the fact that video and graphics rendering in Android is done specifically through Java. Rayfield believes that this technique is too slow for HD video. Although NVIDIA clearly haven’t put all their eggs in one basket, they may be surprised to find that not everyone jumps at Windows CE in just the way they think. Google declined to comment on the matter.

NEXT: NVIDIA to support Android with Tegra

Upcoming Android netbooks from Acer to dual-boot Windows ASUS confirm development of Android based netbook

GNB Netbook/UMPC

Computex is now coming to an end, but Run SSD have released a video revealing a GNB netbook/UMPC that is really something a bit different. The device is tagged as the ‘750’ and sports a 7-inch touch screen running Google’s Android. It is somewhere between a netbook and even a UMPC as it is super small and super light, weighing only 680g.

Inside, the UMPC offers a solid state drive (SSD), the capacity of which ranges from 2GB to 8GB. Similarly, you can have either 128MB or 256MB of RAM. Combine this with the Freescale i.MX31 CPU and we’re looking at about 2.5 hours of battery life. On the back of the device we find a USB 2.0 connection, Ethernet, and the power-supply port. On the left side there is a 4-in-1 card reader along with the standard microphone and headphone connections. The front offers little in the way of connectivity, revealing a handful of LED status lights, whereas the right hand side of the device offers a further two 2.0 USB connections, bringing the total to three USB 2.0 connections altogether. Not bad!

The display itself is non-glossy and touch-screen. It offers the same resolution as the HTC Magic and the keyboard is apparently very good for such a small device. The whole form factor is small enough to allow you to thumb type if you so wish.

The version of Android that is running on the device appears to be nothing more than a simple 1.5 port, but this is by no means definitive that the final production version will also run this build. There is no word on pricing, release date or region availability at this point.

NEXT: HTC & T-Mobile developing an Android netbook?

ASUS confirm development of Android based netbook ECS netbook will offer Android

The video below shows the prototype device, which is alleged to run Android as the operating system. Unfortunately, however, Android is not displayed in the flesh, so we’ll have to take their word on it for now. Enjoy!

Video after the jump.

NEXT: HTC & T-Mobile developing an Android netbook?

ASUS confirm development of Android based netbook Photos of the Skytone Alpha 680 netbook with Android

It has now become apparent that Motorola may have more Android up its sleeve this year than we originally gave them credit for, such as the ‘Morrisson’. It had previously been speculated that the ‘Morrisson’ may have in fact been ‘Bigfoot’, but it would now appear as though the devices are separate when inspecting the images leaked by TmoToday.

Rounding things off for this post we leave you with footage form Dell themselves, revealing the Dell Mini 10v sporting Android and other operating systems. It would seem as though this is merely Dell having a little fun; explicit comments are made during the video that inform the viewers Dell have no plans to release said device with Android at present. Either way, we can all see how versatile the Mini 10v is. Video after the jump.