The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99 • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by jonknee » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

jszymborski wrote: post #69

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…

> 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).

A lot of people carry around two phones, specifically the same type of people who have two laptops.

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

#72

Post by schnevets » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 4:47 PM UTC

jszymborski wrote: post #69

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…

I went from a compliance-heavy field where everyone received a second work phone to a laid-back, BYOD office, and I oftentimes miss the former. I didn't have to deal with a split environment, and I never had issues with contacts or messages failing to sync.

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

#73

Post by AjithAntony » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

Kurtz79 wrote: post #66

ajiang wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/android

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

#74

Post by chaostheory » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

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…

I'm not really sure why people keep thinking that you're supposed to lug this around. If I were to get this, I would only use it at home when a keyboard and bigger screen would be nice; or I would buy one for the office and the house. imo the whole point of this is so you wouldn't have to carry anything huge anymore.

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

#75

Post by thejeremyweaver » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

Dear Apple,

Please make a similar "accessory" for iPhones. I'd gladly pay 5x or more, and I'm probably not alone.

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

#76

Post by sneak » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:04 PM UTC

thejeremyweaver wrote: post #75

Dear Apple, Please make a similar "accessory" for iPhones. I'd gladly pay 5x or more, and I'm probably not alone.

Give them another year or three to unify macOS and associated hardware onto ARM and you will absolutely get your wish.

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

#77

Post by 0x6c6f6c » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #61

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.

And it would.. what? Use the display of your phone?

Otherwise you're literally describing a computer.

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

#78

Post by optforfon » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:10 PM UTC

You can get a cheap Chromebook (which, though inexpensive are actually quite nice quality wise), install crouton on the chromebook, install Lil'Debi on the phone and have an X-server connection over USB. It'd cost about the same and you'd get to have an extra usable device

The way I see it, the only way I think it can really take off (as a niche product) is if the screen and keyboard are amazing (like a Pixel) and it's ultra thin (thinner than a Mac Air). Then I'm sure there is a crowd that wants to have their whole lives on their $700 super flagship cellphone and will have this very slick interface for when they want to access it with a bit more screen and keyboard.

I didn't really read into the details, so maybe you guys are already doing this, but you could also have the whole setup work from any given computer with a keyboard and screen

If you have something like that.. you could charge a LOT more.

Very slick kickstarter btw. Wish you guys the best =)

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

#79

Post by 0x6c6f6c » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

satysin wrote: post #68

_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?)

Don't forget ARM vs x86 program compatibility. Even with a chroot environment to run GNU/Linux distros on an Android phone, you won't have compatibility with some programs due to the architecture of the processor.

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

#80

Post by diadatp » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #40

It would probably be a bit fiddly given how every phone is a little different, but it would be cooler if you could slot your phone into the case instead of having it dangle from a cable. That said, I'm not sure there is much point to this when you could just carry around a netbook. The phone integration is almost guaranteed to be glitchy thanks to fragmentation on Android and trying to use apps outside of their expec…

They sell a "Universal Side Mount" as part of their "Superbook Special" bundle. That should solve the dangling from a cable issue and enable front facing camera use.