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The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

kickstarter.com

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Re: The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

#61

Post by maxxxxx »

surprised_dev wrote: post #51

Always when I see concepts like this I feel like it's a great idea but after few minutes I really can not think of a use-case for me. First I would like to have a phone with x86 cpu so I could run the same software as on my desktop, without real desktop cpu it will be hard to use device like that as laptop replacement. Secondly why would I like to carry something like that instead of normal laptop. I understand I can…

I would like a docking station that has a fast CPU and lots of RAM. When the phone is plugged in, you can use the computing power of the docking station instead of the phone CPU. And it should run windows or OSX apps.

Re: The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

#62

Post by jszymborski »

aj7 wrote: post #48
soared wrote: post #21

How many times do we have to watch this exact kickstarter project fail to deliver? There have been countless made for phones, raspberry pis, and tablets. Maybe they'll ship, but the ux is trash especially considering you can get a chromebook for $100 more. What is the actual benefit of this device? Instead of toting around a chromebook, you tote around the shell of a chromebook? My laptop is never 'out of sync' that…

Clearly you don't tote around anything. (But the phone.) What if your main cpu, os, and memory were always with you? An alter cocker like me is not going to shlep a laptop on a plane. And there are as many of me as you.

That's awfully bad security hygiene. I would never plug my phone into a public laptop shell w/o assuming I was being keylogged and MITM'd.

Next we'll be using free wifi at airports w/o VPNs! Thick of the insanity.

Re: The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

#63

Post by maxxxxx »

projectramo wrote: post #4

Can anyone comment on the likelihood of being able to create this for the amount they propose? I have been burned by hardware devices on kickstarter, and I have heard my hardware friends say that it is much harder, and sometimes they can tell right away that they cannot deliver the product for the amount raised. I don't know if that is true here or not. Just wondering if someone knows if this can be done. (I know, ke…

It sounds pretty aggressive to me to too. Almost unnecessarily aggressive. I bet people who pay 99 would also pay 149.

Re: The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

#64

Post by Roboprog »

rsync wrote: post #18

I'm confused by this stretch goal: $1M - Option to upgrade to 1080p HD screen (w/ additional cost) ... which would suggest that the original screen spec is actually lower than "1080p" ? Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/732/

Re: 1080p.

We lived with 480i in our most-used display for a very long time :-)

(comment written on my aging MBP with a 700-something screen, rather than 1080/retina class display)

Re: The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

#65

Post by glhaynes »

danr4 wrote: post #25

This is something I think Apple should focus on. Well maybe after the car they are building. They already control both hardware and software aspects of their devices, so compared to other companies, they are in the best position to make it so that all their devices are basically the same device, only with a different interface and form factor. This doesn't mean they shouldn't work separately - if I'm playing a game o…

It sounds like maybe you want Apple's "Continuity" features, especially Handoff? It's not quite as simple as your scenario (you'd have to do two separate "handoffs", one for the article, and one for the conversation), but it's close.

Here's a description of them today; their OS updates this fall will also add a universal clipboard. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204681

Re: The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

#66

Post by Kurtz79 »

ajiang wrote: post #60
Kurtz79 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, I'll repost here. I having trouble wrapping my mind around how this might possibly work. It is mentioned that "all that it takes" is launching the application on the phone. Then what ? All that is shown on the video is a static screenshot. Assuming this application is able to generate video-out through USB or communicate via USB with another CPU, without OS or the phone manufacturer's support, will this applica…

Ah so we are the makers of Andromium, an android app that provides Android in the desktop interface. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andromium....

That's great, I'll try it, how does it work ?

Re: The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

#67

Post by satysin »

DigitalJack wrote: post #15

Motorola did this 5 years ago. Nobody cared. http://www.digitaltrends.com/buying-guides/a-complete-guide-... I think the main problem is who wants to carry around a laptop that you have to plug your phone in to use? That's a pretty big "Accessory." I mean, if you already are carrying something around as big as a laptop, why cripple it with phone hardware? I think a more compelling use-case would be a phone dock video…

The issue 5 years ago for me was that phones were not very good 5 years ago. Now processors in phones are excellent and they are pushing out 1080 or even 1440 res on the phone and have 4+ GB RAM.

For having a full screen version of Office or browsing it looks great. Plus it is only $99 and all my data is on my phone so if it gets broken or lost it isn't a big deal (although if my phone gets broken or lost it is a big deal, depends if the trade off is worth it to you).

I love the idea and I think for some people it would be all the "computer" they ever need.

Re: The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

#68

Post by satysin »

_ea1k wrote: post #8

What is the advantage of this over something like a Chromebook? It seems like throwing a phone-grade CPU in it and giving it a little more capability would be more worthwhile than being completely dependent upon a tethered phone.

Anyone have any benchmarks of a phone CPU compared to a Chromebook CPU (Celeron or Atom I would guess?)

Re: The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99

#69

Post by jszymborski »

schnevets wrote: post #35

I don't understand why these products are always pitched as a consumer product when this is an enterprise dream come true. People are fickle and refuse to change their personal habits, but using my phone as a thin client sounds a lot more appealing than having separate laptops for work & play.

The problem I see with this is that, even if the phone is work property, it's still often used for play as well as work (because who carries around a work mobile as well as a personal).

Blackberry tried to address this problem, but I think we all can agree that they were unable to address pretty much any problem at that point.

A little OT but...

I'd very much like to see a Qubes-like OS for my phone, so I can use one VM for e.g Work, another for Banking, another for Personal, so I don't have to worry about a messed up permission system or my Banking creds being leaked by some rando gobble-all-your-info app-of-the-month.

Of course that's just a dream until battery life and ARM CPUs approach laptop performance.

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