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Since I wanted a 7-8 inch tablet to replace my aging nexus 7 (2012){Kinda funny since its only last year} I just got a Dell Venue 8 Pro with the full version of windows 8.1- Bay trail SoC and it's pretty nice and snappy and it came with office 2013. There are a few things that I need/want to migrate into the windows tablet, and that is trying to get google authenticatior on the tablet. There are a few 3rd party windows apps but none of them really work all that well. I considered staying with android but not being able to edit word documents, or even see the documents without formatting distortions was really annoying for me. Also not being able to add a SD card to it was also quite annoying... my venue 8 pro has 128 GB of storage now with 64 GB internal and 64 GB micro SD card. I migrated just about everything over to my windows tablet including email, cloud storage, but the authenticator is the only thing I haven't been able to figure out.

Anyone have any ideas for this? Or do I need to disable authenticator on everything and just have it text a code to my phone instead...? {Don't have a smart phone or else I would have just put google authenticator on my phone}.

I am also considering getting a new android phone, but what do you guys recommend? The samsung galaxy nexus 4? google nexus 5?

Even WinAuth (which is probably the most potent third-party authenticator app) says it's really designed as a backup to using a phone. I'd be really hesitant to trust anything third-party without official first-party support, though that's not based on any bad experiences. Just my own paranoia at the idea of being locked out of something. I use Google Authentication as well as Battle.net's official clients on my phone.

As for the idea of getting an Android phone, look at T-Mobile's month-to-month. If the coverage is good in your area, then jump on it. The price is great. My issue is that since I don't live in a top-100 metropolitan market (I'm in a top-200 market but not actually in that city), I had spotty data coverage. GPRS-only in a town of 15k 5 miles from here, occasionally spotty coverage in my home town of 35k (which also includes kind of bad reception at my house but maybe the aluminum siding is a contributing factor). If it works for you, the price can't be beat, and then that means you should get a Nexus 5 from Google Play since it supports T-Mobile's LTE and HSPA+ bands. Or if you want to save some more money, maybe look into a Moto G, which doesn't support LTE but it's only $200 for a 16GB version and will get KitKat in January.

Yeah I think I just need to give up on trying to make google authenticator work on a windows tablet. I love the tablet since it's running a full version of windows 8.1 and uses the baytrail x86 SoC so I might try to set it up to dual boot to linux some time soon. Does anyone know of a good linux distro with that works even marginally well with tablets?

I live in a pretty small town in part of a larger metro area and the land is pretty flat so most people I know that have T-mobile get pretty good coverage with T-mobile. The problem is that everyone that I talk to regularly is on verizon and talking to them with my verizon phone is free. Tho many are switching over to skype and switching to a month to month type of cheap plans.

If the data coverage with T-Mobile is good you might be able to port your Verizon number to Google Voice and use GrooveIP for calling. The full version allows voice calls over cellular data.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... voip&hl=en

The Nexus 5 is the Android phone to get currently.

I'm interested in the Moto X and Moto G, but I don't have any direct experience with them. It's also a little early to say what kind of support Motorola is going to provide.

Then there is Cyanogenmod which works best with Samsung phones.