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Samsung DeX

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Re: Samsung DeX

#181

Post by y4mi »

terminalcommand wrote: post #165
joenathanone wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, I browse the web differently on desktop, for example on desktop if I visit HN, I might open 5 different links and their comments at once before visiting them one by one. In the middle of that I might open email, and then open tabs from the email. I could easily end up with several windows with 6-7 tabs in each open. That sort of thing I would never do on my phone or tablet, just because of the form factor I k…

I'm currently using an iPhone 5, have 11 tabs open and am streaming music from spotify. Other than occasional crashes and a tiny bit of lag, my aged phone handles it very well. On the other hand, when I'm on the desktop I open multiple browser instances with 20+ tabs open on each of them. I guess I have a problem :).

i generally have around 50 to 100 tabs open on my phone, previously HTC One (the first m7) and now Hauwai Honor 8. Buts thats not what your parent was talking about. It takes time to close tabs on the phone.

yes, its (at least on android) just swiping twice (once from the top to open the window view and then to the side to close it), but even that takes more effort than just mouse-wheel clicking on the tab.

After that tab is closed, the browser needs to rebuild the new/old tab. thats even more time you wouldn't have on the desktop.

everything just takes a little longer on the highly performance optimized phone, and it adds up to stop - at least me - from just going into the comments threads. especially because actually opening takes even longer, as you'd have to long press on the link to get that option.

now, with this device you'd be able to actually click/close tabs as fast as on your general desktop. Suddenly, the device is no longer constrained by the slow inputs that the user is giving. And now, the phone will actually need to perform that much better with the same amount of resources. I haven't used the DeX and don't know wherever its able to handle that, but thats (i think) the thing most people hearing about it are worried about.

Re: Samsung DeX

#182

Post by teamhappy »

pjmlp wrote: post #176
bigiain wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except most people don't think of themselves as "someone who spends $700 on a phone", they pay $x9.95/month for $y00 minutes talktime plus $zGB of data and they get a "free" phone every two years... I doubt any of those people would think it's a good idea to spend an extra ~$15/month for a thing that lets them plug a screen/keyboard/mouse into their "free" phone.

Not everywhere. Here in Europe, contracts are the exception not the rule. Most people just charge with 15 to 20 euros their SIM card whenever they feel like it, and have to pay full price for mobile phone. Or pay it in rates to only have it unlocked from the network at the end of two years, so they are going to use that phone until it dies or gets stolen.

> Here in Europe, contracts are the exception not the rule.

I'm pretty sure that hasn't been true for years.

Re: Samsung DeX

#183

Post by gyaru »

petecox wrote: post #120
cbhl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest problem is the price point. The person who most wants to use their phone as a PC is the person who can't afford spending $4000 on the entire suite of Apple devices. That person probably also can't afford a $100 dock (let alone a $300 one) for their phone. When someone makes a USB-C/Thunderbolt/Intel/Windows device that is phone sized but runs legacy Windows applications (like MS Paint and Quickboo…

Don't get hung up too much on the price. They charge that because they can. Expect Xiaomi to release a $25 knockoff for their phones if there's ever a demand for it. I suspect there's very little in the dock hardware itself over a standard USB-C OTG charging hub with HDMI passthrough and an ethernet port. Maybe I'm wrong but the rest is just software on the phone?

It is indeed only software, I bought a $25 USB-C to HDMI dongle on Ebay and it works just like the Samsung DeX device.

Re: Samsung DeX

#184

Post by oblio »

neotek wrote: post #142
oblio wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's still too early from a hardware performance/connectivity point of view. Once your average $200 smartphone is powerful enough to power a normal desktop when plugged into a trivial, cheap and ubiquitos connector (USB C?), this kind of thing will take off. I have no idea how the software will look though. Maybe it will be just a fancy and reall easy to use remote connection, in the end?

Smartphones are already more powerful than the desktop computers of, say, a few years ago and are already capable of comfortably running a browser and an office suite without any performance problems. So it isn't a question of computing power, it's a question of utility: who actually needs this? What benefit does it provide over and above just having a cheap PC to do PC things and a smartphone to do smartphone things…

Right now? There's no point cause you skipped part of my comment.

It should be trivial for me to turn my phone into a computer. I should need only a $20 USB hub in order to power my phone and connect it to a keyboard, mouse, one or even several screens. Or even connect them wirelessly.

Then, the OS should trivially handle this case and offer me access to high quality desktop apps.

I don't think either condition is true now.

When this point is reached I'm pretty sure half of the laptop sales will evaporate within a short time.

Re: Samsung DeX

#185

Post by dsq »

dogma1138 wrote: post #88
BjoernKW wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an IT consultant who travels a lot and works for different customers I'd love a smartphone that could double as a powerful development machine when plugged into a larger screen. No need to carry around and worry about a laptop anymore. For such a setup to work and really make sense though it'd have to be available as near-ubiquitous infrastructure one could expect in every hotel and every office. I suppose, howeve…

You probably are better off with a laptop or a tablet/convertible still because you can't guarantee a desk with a screen under those conditions, not to mention that the performance you can get from a phone today given it's power and thermal limitations is still quite limited. If anything I would love to see a modern version of the Droid/Milestone I never understood why Motorola stopped making them, the Milestone was…

Check out the Gemini PDA on indiegogo. Looks to be the successor of Psion or the droid 4.

Re: Samsung DeX

#187

Post by boobsbr »

guhcampos wrote: post #121
FreakyT wrote: post #13

It's definitely neat, but I feel like this has been done before without success -- examples like the Motorola Atrix, Windows Continuum, and even the cancelled Ubuntu Phone come to mind. (And, going further back in time, let's not forget the Palm Foleo!) It seems like a neat idea on the surface though, so I wonder why as a concept the phone-connected-to-desktop-peripherals thing hasn't gained more traction. My suspici…

I had an Atrix and it was awesome. I could fire it from the dock and get a full featured Linux desktop right from my phone! And keep clicking through until I got bored and turned on my laptop. Same thing with the built-in Linux desktop on a Asus motherboard I had, I don't even remember the name of the thing. I believe the concept is here to stay, but like tablet PCs back in 2003 it did not find its niche yet. There a…

Splashtop?

https://gizmodo.com/393861/asus-notebooks-getting-splashtop-...

Re: Samsung DeX

#188

Post by SyneRyder »

oblio wrote: post #184
neotek wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphones are already more powerful than the desktop computers of, say, a few years ago and are already capable of comfortably running a browser and an office suite without any performance problems. So it isn't a question of computing power, it's a question of utility: who actually needs this? What benefit does it provide over and above just having a cheap PC to do PC things and a smartphone to do smartphone things…

Right now? There's no point cause you skipped part of my comment. It should be trivial for me to turn my phone into a computer. I should need only a $20 USB hub in order to power my phone and connect it to a keyboard, mouse, one or even several screens. Or even connect them wirelessly. Then, the OS should trivially handle this case and offer me access to high quality desktop apps. I don't think either condition is tr…

User DennisAleynikov in this thread says he has it working with a $20 USB-C to HDMI cable, without even needing to buy the official Samsung DeX connector. Once plugged in, the phone lets you run desktop Android apps straight away.

Check the Samsung DeX page to see how it looks. The use case you've described is already here.

Re: Samsung DeX

#189

Post by SyneRyder »

danjoc wrote: post #73

>blah blah did it first Tablets had been done before without success, then Apple released the iPad. You don't have to be first to market to win. The failure of others in the same segment is not a predictor of future failure. Execution is everything. I was already doing this in 2013 with a Nexus 5. I had a wireless mouse, wireless keyboard, wireless display connection, wireless charging, and Linux for Android running…

The DeX stand has some regular USB ports (and an Ethernet jack!) in the back, so you can already plug a wired keyboard & mouse directly into those.

I think the DeX is limited to a 1920 x 1080p display, though.

Re: Samsung DeX

#190

Post by oblio »

SyneRyder wrote: post #188
oblio wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now? There's no point cause you skipped part of my comment. It should be trivial for me to turn my phone into a computer. I should need only a $20 USB hub in order to power my phone and connect it to a keyboard, mouse, one or even several screens. Or even connect them wirelessly. Then, the OS should trivially handle this case and offer me access to high quality desktop apps. I don't think either condition is tr…

User DennisAleynikov in this thread says he has it working with a $20 USB-C to HDMI cable, without even needing to buy the official Samsung DeX connector. Once plugged in, the phone lets you run desktop Android apps straight away. Check the Samsung DeX page to see how it looks. The use case you've described is already here.

Cool. Still, availability, word of mouth, marketing, etc.

It's one thing when a random person (no offense, Dennis Aleynikov) does it, another one when you have 6 big companies competing for this segment.

And I'm not sure the software part is here. At least not in a polished way. The closest solutions that come to mind are Microsoft UWP (but Microsoft doesn't seem to be gaining traction due to various reasons, not least because they're Microsoft and few people trust them these days...) and Ubuntu Unity (I think they've abandoned the concept?). From what I've read Android tablet and desktop apps are not really up-to-par, at least today.

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