When you buy a new device, you usually know exactly what you’ll use it for. However, when it’s given to you as a gift, its role in your life tends to be unclear.
One moment you tell yourself the tablet will be for streaming. The next moment, you decide reading non-fiction books is exactly what it was made for.
Before you know it, the device is sitting on your shelf, collecting dust.
That was my Xiaomi Redmi Pad before I turned it into an extended display for my laptop.
Now, the budget tablet has gone from being a device that had no use to being the solution to one of my biggest workflow hiccups.
One laptop screen kept me jumping between windows
My idle Redmi Pad was the obvious second screen
I do my work on my HP Pavilion x360. So I write, read, research, and create designs across multiple windows at once.
Plus, depending on the task, I also have a window open for Claude, File Explorer, or Google Keep.
That’s a lot of windows to juggle while trying to do meaningful work.
And considering I move my pointer through my bar-soap-sized trackpad, every extra scroll between windows adds to the exhaustion I feel at the end of the day.
That’s why I was delighted when my abandoned budget tablet joined my work gear.
Now, instead of hopping between windows repeatedly, or jam-packing my display with split-screen, I look over to my tablet on the left. What a superb way to use an abandoned budget tablet.
But just as superb, though, is the software that made it all possible.
Spacedesk is a decent option for budget tablets
And it doesn’t even cost a dime
Most recent, high-end tablets come with the ability to be used as a built-in monitor. That’s rarely the case for budget tablets, especially not for old, end-of-support tablets like my Redmi Pad.
So, to make my setup work, I had to look to third-party apps. I found several strong options, like SuperDisplay, Duet Display, and Wired XDisplay.
However, I chose Spacedesk because it was the only free option I found that lets you connect via USB and Wi-Fi.
The setup took about 10 minutes
And my Windows settings took most of that time
To use Spacedesk to connect my tablet to my PC, I followed a couple of steps:
- Install the Spacedesk driver on the laptop from Spacedesk’s website, and get the Spacedesk viewer for the tablet from the Play Store.
-
On the tablet, find Spacedesk in the battery settings and change Battery saver (recommended) to No restrictions. This keeps
Android from stopping the app in the background
. - Open the Spacedesk Driver Console on the laptop and tick USB Cable Android under Communication Interfaces.
- Plug the tablet into the laptop with the USB cable.
Turning on USB Cable Android in step 3 disables other apps that use the USB cable, including file transfer over USB. Untick it to use them again.
After my tablet displayed content from my laptop, I had to make a few adjustments in my Windows display settings.
I changed my tablet screen’s function from Duplicate these displays to Extend these displays. Then I dragged my tablet’s box to the side of my laptop to match where the tablet sits on my desk.
For the scale of content on my tablet’s screen, I set it to 200% for the easiest viewing.
My USB setup was unknowingly running over Wi-Fi
The cable was just innocently charging the tablet
When I started using my tablet as a monitor, I noticed the content on the screen, particularly my cursor, moved very slowly.
The pages were sharp and clear, but the movement was extremely slow. When I opened the Driver Console on my laptop, I noticed my device connection was listed under Local Area Network instead of USB.
That meant the connection between my tablet and my laptop was over Wi-Fi, not USB. That’s why my tablet was lagging.
To connect my devices via USB, I turned off my tablet’s Wi-Fi and ticked USB Cable Android under Communication Interfaces on my laptop’s Driver Console.
After I connected via USB, the lagging was gone. I could finally enjoy a smooth and seamless experience.
My checklist finally has its own screen
And it’s already killing my clumsiness
Sometimes my mind gets jammed with too much information, and I forget to do important things.
In those situations, I usually reach for my checklist and follow the items one after the other.
However, it only takes three or four app switches to forget I was following a checklist.
For a long time, my workaround for this has been to use the split-screen feature. Checklist on the left, real work on the right.
But often, the app’s distortion from split-screen gets in the way of my work more than forgetting the checklist.
So I usually forgo the list. But now, with my dual-screen setup, I keep the checklist on my tablet’s screen while I work through the tasks on my laptop.
My idle tablet now has a permanent dual-screen job
Putting my Redmi Pad back to work after months of collecting dust made me realize how useful the old tablet still is.
So, if you own an unsupported budget tablet that has been sitting idle for a while now, I urge you to consider pairing it to your laptop as an extended display.
Bear in mind, though, that Spacedesk’s free version expires on Dec. 31, 2026. However, what comes next is largely uncertain.
The company withdrew its free offering at the end of each of the last two years. In both cases, it released another free version the following year.
