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We're Andromium. Making the Superbook, a $99 Android Laptop Shell. AMA

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: We're Andromium. Making the Superbook, a $99 Android Laptop Shell. AMA

#111

Post by ethanpil »

Whats your plan on competing with China copycats, who are no doubt already working on a lower cost clone of your product?

Since its such a great idea, but uses mostly off the shelf parts and doesn't require much specialization, its a perfect target for them.

Look at the patterns: They quickly cannibalize and eventually completely commoditize the market for easy-to-copy products by flooding ebay, amazon, aliexpress, etc with comparable but cheaper items, some of which are probably going to be made by your own supplier/factory in China. Eventually the best of these these get on Engadget or Gizmodo and that's it.

Examples: Android tablets, Google Cardboard, Android Phones, Phone Batteries, etc.

Certainly many will have inferior packaging and engrish manuals. But some will be good enough or better than your product... I would be terrified to base a business around this type of item.

Re: We're Andromium. Making the Superbook, a $99 Android Laptop Shell. AMA

#113

Post by rsync »

ajiang wrote: post #68
wiredfool wrote: post #64

Is it plausible that this could work with a raspberry pi? Or hell, even as a tty/dumb terminal for a random linux box?

Haha..keep it a secret: http://imgur.com/PViKxMD Actually have only sneaked this to our commenters. Will do an update to everyone soon...

Hmmm ... aren't there little stick sized computers (not the HDMI ones for media centers) that could be the brains of this and plug directly into the USB port without a cable/dongle ?

I would be very interested in that - a fully functional laptop whose brains are the size of a quarter or a pack of gum ...

Comments ?

EDIT: ahh, I see your picture of this running off of a pc stick: http://imgur.com/a/eTbtm that is very, very interesting.

However, the intel compute sticks male plug ("the plug") is HDMI ... are there any compute sticks like this whose plug is male USB and could be connected without a cable/dongle/adaptor ?

Re: We're Andromium. Making the Superbook, a $99 Android Laptop Shell. AMA

#115

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

Okay: Will you opensource you app?

On a related note, will you have a well-defined API for other apps to have first-class support for this thing?

I think that's everything... ooh! ooh! No it isn't!

You said that the superbook would be suitable for coding. so will you provide any of:

1: A terminal emulator

2: An X Server

3: Emacs

Thank you for your time.

Re: We're Andromium. Making the Superbook, a $99 Android Laptop Shell. AMA

#116

Post by aaronchall »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #115

Okay: Will you opensource you app? On a related note, will you have a well-defined API for other apps to have first-class support for this thing? I think that's everything... ooh! ooh! No it isn't! You said that the superbook would be suitable for coding. so will you provide any of: 1: A terminal emulator 2: An X Server 3: Emacs Thank you for your time.

You can get Termux on Android and run Emacs! I even run Spacemacs.

https://termux.com/

I don't think Termux comes with an X server though... However, looks like X server is available on Android for a while now:

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/03/06/1837245/x-server-no...

Re: We're Andromium. Making the Superbook, a $99 Android Laptop Shell. AMA

#117

Post by a3_nm »

ajiang wrote: post #33
daveguy wrote: post #26

How well does it work without Andromium? For instance: Can I enter directly to the phone with the keyboard? Does the phone screen show on the large screen without Andromium? Is the large screen a touch screen? Even more important -- if I have a rooted/virtual machine instance of a standard Linux distro running on my smartphone, can I use that? Do I have to use Andromium if I have a setup like a rooted chromebook? Tur…

Final question: Closed source right now. Having spoken to some early Mozilla employees, considering open source. Full list of permissions can be found on the app page: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andromium.... There a ton of permissions we ask for in order to make the experience smooth. To be honest, we've been focusing less on privacy and more on just making a solid desktop experience. We can d…

Please open source the app so that it can be hacked by users and distributed outside of the official channels. I avoid running proprietary software on my phone, in particular I do not have Google Play, so the superbook looks a lot less interesting to me if it requires a closed source app to work smoothly.

Re: We're Andromium. Making the Superbook, a $99 Android Laptop Shell. AMA

#119

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

aaronchall wrote: post #116
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #115

Okay: Will you opensource you app? On a related note, will you have a well-defined API for other apps to have first-class support for this thing? I think that's everything... ooh! ooh! No it isn't! You said that the superbook would be suitable for coding. so will you provide any of: 1: A terminal emulator 2: An X Server 3: Emacs Thank you for your time.

You can get Termux on Android and run Emacs! I even run Spacemacs. https://termux.com/ I don't think Termux comes with an X server though... However, looks like X server is available on Android for a while now: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/03/06/1837245/x-server-no...

Alright!

Re: We're Andromium. Making the Superbook, a $99 Android Laptop Shell. AMA

#120

Post by niftich »

ajiang wrote: post #4
type0 wrote: post #3

Does my phone needs to have MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link) to be able to connect it? or how does it work via USB?

No MHL needed. We use a DisplayLink 4xxx series chip that converts video data over USB. Works with Lollipop and above. See: http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/android

DisplayLink is pretty neat and supports the one-cable solution really well; but can you share some of the thought process behind choosing it versus MHL (the old, USB-micro-B one) or one of the new USB-C alt modes (DP or new MHL)?
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