I'm Scott Stein, senior editor of CNET and how much would you pay to turn your iPad into a Windows 7 computer?
Well, would you pay nothing?
Would you pay $5 a month?
Would you pay more than that?
That's the sticky situation with OnLive Desktop, a service that went live in a free version back I think about a month and a half ago and is now going into a Plus mode for $5 a month.
Not it rents you a virtual desktop space, Cloud-served that runs Windows 7 but it's a very limited version.
It's got Microsoft office apps and now in the Plus mode, you've got Internet Explorer, Flash-enabled to use over an internet connection.
Now, it has to be strong enough to be able to work on OnLive and we found that sometimes the signal that we have in our office was good enough.
Other times it said it wasn't quite up the smart.
So does Flash work?
Yeah.
It works great and you can play videos.
You can play Flash ads or if you wanted to do that Flash gaming and it allows you to use basically any website but then again, you have to pay $5 a month.
Now, for some people like enterprise, that could be useful.
For the average user, you're probably gonna cough at the idea of having to rent a flash browser.
The technology does work as advertised though and if you wanna play around free OnLive Desktop does exist on the iPad right now and you can play around with 2 gigabytes of storage space and use the Microsoft Office Suite of apps.
Now, you can access your files via web browser interface that allows you to pull files on and off that you save.
However, you can't tweak the settings.
If you try to play around with and change any of the Windows 7 settings on your rented OnLive Desktop space, it will revert the next time you start a session.
However, on the web browser, you can save all your bookmarks for later use and you can download files.
So if you wanna download some pictures and then reupload them let's say your blogging on the go, well, you can do that with this.
Plus, you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard or use a stylus to give this a full computer-type feel.
Now, you can't use a mouse so forget about that.
However, in the forth-coming Android version, you will be able to use a mouse.
So that is something to look forward to.
Now, OnLive Desktop will also have a Pro version that has up to 50 gigabytes of storage.
It still has only 2 gigabytes in the plus mode which is really low but it is compatible with Drop Box so you can drag files on and off from that if you have an account.
So there you go.
Fresh cam work on an iPad for a price.
I'm Scott Stein and that's a look at OnLine Desktop Plus for the iPad
