Tablet or Phone - Android

Question

Is there a way to check if the user is using a tablet or a phone? I\'ve got problems with my tilt function and my new tablet (Transformer)

Answer 1

For those who want to refer to Google's code of deciding which devices will use a Tablet UI can refer to below:

  // SystemUI (status bar) layout policy
        int shortSizeDp = shortSize
                * DisplayMetrics.DENSITY_DEFAULT
                / DisplayMetrics.DENSITY_DEVICE;

        if (shortSizeDp < 600) {
            // 0-599dp: "phone" UI with a separate status & navigation bar
            mHasSystemNavBar = false;
            mNavigationBarCanMove = true;
        } else if (shortSizeDp < 720) {
            // 600-719dp: "phone" UI with modifications for larger screens
            mHasSystemNavBar = false;
            mNavigationBarCanMove = false;
        } else {
            // 720dp: "tablet" UI with a single combined status & navigation bar
            mHasSystemNavBar = true;
            mNavigationBarCanMove = false;
        }
        }

Answer 2

If you are only targeting API level >= 13 then try

public static boolean isTablet(Context context) {
    return context.getResources().getConfiguration().smallestScreenWidthDp >= 600;
}

cheers :-)

Answer 3

below method is calculating the device screen's diagonal length to decide the device is a phone or tablet. the only concern for this method is what is the threshold value to decide weather the device is tablet or not. in below example i set it as 7 inch and above.

public static boolean isTablet(Activity act)
{
    Display display = act.getWindow().getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay();
    DisplayMetrics displayMetrics = new DisplayMetrics();
    display.getMetrics(displayMetrics);

    float width = displayMetrics.widthPixels / displayMetrics.xdpi;
    float height = displayMetrics.heightPixels / displayMetrics.ydpi;

    double screenDiagonal = Math.sqrt( width * width + height * height );
    int inch = (int) (screenDiagonal + 0.5);
    Toast.makeText(act, "inch : "+ inch, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    return (inch >= 7 );
}

Answer 4

public boolean isTablet() {
        int screenLayout = getResources().getConfiguration().screenLayout;
        return (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 11 &&
                (((screenLayout & Configuration.SCREENLAYOUT_SIZE_MASK) == Configuration.SCREENLAYOUT_SIZE_LARGE) || 
                 ((screenLayout & Configuration.SCREENLAYOUT_SIZE_MASK) == Configuration.SCREENLAYOUT_SIZE_XLARGE)));
    }

Answer 5

If screen size detection doesn't return correct value on newer devices, give a try:

/*
 Returns '1' if device is a tablet
 or '0' if device is not a tablet.
 Returns '-1' if an error occured.
 May require READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
 permission.
 */
public static int isTablet()
{
    try
    {
        InputStream ism = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("getprop ro.build.characteristics").getInputStream();
        byte[] bts = new byte[1024];
        ism.read(bts);
        ism.close();

        boolean isTablet = new String(bts).toLowerCase().contains("tablet");
        return isTablet ? 1 : 0;
    }
    catch (Throwable t)
    {t.printStackTrace(); return -1;}
}

Tested on Android 4.2.2 (sorry for my English.)

Answer 6

As it has been mentioned before, you do not want to check whether the device is a tablet or a phone but you want to know about the features of the device,

Most of the time, the difference between a tablet and a phone is the screen size which is why you want to use different layout files. These files are stored in the res/layout-<qualifiers> directories. You can create an XML file in the directoy res/values-<same qualifiers> for each of your layouts and put an int/bool/string resource into it to distinguish between the layouts you use.

Example:

File res/values/screen.xml (assuming res/layout/ contains your layout files for handsets)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
  <string name="screen_type">phone</string>
</resources>

File res/values-sw600dp/screen.xml (assuming res/layout-sw600dp/ contains your layout files for small tablets like the Nexus 7)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
  <string name="screen_type">7-inch-tablet</string>
</resources>

File res/values-sw720dp/screen.xml (assuming res/layout-sw720dp/ contains your layout files for large tablets like the Nexus 10):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
  <string name="screen_type">10-inch-tablet</string>
</resources>

Now the screen type is accessible via the R.string.screen_type constant.