I recently got a Toshiba Thrive Android tablet. This is a wifi-only device and has pretty much replaced my laptop and phone for most purposes. However, I was getting annoyed with the constantly switching between the phone and tablet just for SMS messages. I know, I know, a major first world problem.

There’s quite a few services out there like DeskSMS and MightyText which will send your SMS messages from your Android phone to either a website or Google Talk but unfortunately they tend to have quite a delay and are not convenient for ongoing conversations. But I managed to stumble on to TexTab which connects your phone and tablet together via bluetooth.

TexTab is an application that runs on both your phone and tablet and walks you through the process of linking the two via bluetooth.  There’s not much to show on the phone app but the tablet app where you can send and receive the messages is quite slick.

After setting up the connection I went into settings and enabled the autoconnect feature and I rarely ever have to do anything to get the connection between the two devices established.  If you do want to manually connect them the app comes with a handy widget which can enable and disable the TexTab functionality.

While at their best the web based services can take 15 or 20 seconds before messages appear, the TexTab is instaneous. Or in the case of my slow and ancient original Droid, the tablet will signal that I received a text before the phone does.

My only complaint about this app is that while incoming messages get sent from the phone to the tablet, outgoing messages do not. This is not a problem when using the tablet primarily but if you’re in a situation where you’re switching back and forth it’s a mild OCD annoyance.

You can give the free version a try and once you’re comfortable that everything works, it’s a mere $1.99 for the full version.