First of all I’m tired of writing reports in the evening. I’m ready to make the switch to a tablet or PDA. I know opinions are like A-holes. Right now I’m using Whisper Reporter and a laptop. If anyone has good experience getting it to work in the field with a tablet, I would appreciate your input/ tips. I know I’ll hear a slew of recommendations for HIP and HG and what not. That is appreciated too. Right now I would really like to hear what tablets are being used and what platform they are running. A good rear camera is necessary so I can leave my camera in the bag. Also either a cover with keyboard or detachable keyboard would be great for typing narrative. Thanks ahead of time!
I’m pretty sure that whisper is a windows based program and you may need to use a tablet like a windows surface pro. PDA’s really are a thing of the past and have been largely taken over by android and IOS devices. You may want to look at another software that has a option for either an android or and IOS platform. I’ve extensively used both HIP and HG and both are top notch programs with excellent customer service. Best of luck.
Dell Axim
Kinda small.
I did want to highlight that I am in Texas. I just put that out there because the template is highly important as far as software goes. I’ve tried the HG and HIP apps on my android phone. It seems like Home Gauge is not Texas friendly but I like the interface. Please correct me if I am wrong. HIP has a decent interface, I just need to see how a report looks once I do one on the PC. It seems like I need to figure out what platform works best with which ever software I go with. I’m probably leaning more towards a windows or android. We aren’t a Mac family so I don’t want to deal with compatibility issues. I’ve tried Whisper Reporter on an Asus t100. It’s a 10 in tablet with keyboard dock. Nice for typing but no rear camera. Whisper is ok but not the easiest to navigate with a touch screen. Its nice to have menus and buttons to navigate rather than how whisper is setup. It has some decent features but you need to be careful of the formatting with everything since it’s word processor based. I hope that makes sense.
Iphone 5s works for me
HIP has a TREC template. Click Open Template and select the TREC 7-4 (7-5 soon). I’ll be talking in Dallas in a few weeks at Brian Murphy’s school on Home Inspector Pro and Dan Huber will be speaking on ISN. It’s worth CE’s too!
Hey Pete, Spectacular for iPad is TREC 7-5 ready now. The modern day PDA is a tablet so we know what you mean. Do bother learning a new library of comments. Spectacular will convert your existing Whisper comments at no extra charge… We just converted a couple multi-inspector firms in Texas from Whisper to Spectacular and that makes the learning curve 10 times smoother. You don’t need to be a Mac user to use an iPad. www.spectacularhis.com… You’ll see my name on the website.
Why the subscription for Spectacular. I’m not likely going to go to a platform that charges you every month and doesn’t do anything more for you.
David, what software do you use?
The subscription is there because building software is a service. Whichever program you choose, you will pay something later whether it’s 3 years later for an update, $20 a month for cloud services, a support charge every time you need help, or something. We’re up front with our pricing and let you know that’s all you’d pay. The monthly choice is not the best price for full-time inspectors and $250/yr is not a lot to ask… That’s way less than a dollar an inspection…
I have Been eyeballing the Surface Pro 3 with a rugged case… Just thinking about what software would work best for my particular workflow.
What IS your workflow ? Is it in the same order as your printed final report ?
I use a Galaxy Note 2 and Horizon android.Then upload all and finish the report on my computer. I’ve used a lot of different software packages and like Horizon the best it’s really quick to get the report done. And the note 2 is just the right size and takes good pictures especially with a $12 led addon light that works well in crawl spaces and attic.
I know the Galaxy Note 2 is not a tablet but it’s almost as big as some tablets and if it was any bigger it would be difficult to handle with one hand. Also I have a Otterbox Defender case and belt clip so it never gets left anywhere or broken.