Live data from Hacker News

$99 “laptop Shell” for Raspberry Pi or Windows 10 Continuum

indiegogo.com

31–36 of 36 posts

Re: $99 “laptop Shell” for Raspberry Pi or Windows 10 Continuum

#31

Why do these things always include a discrete touchpad? Why not a series of phone-specific-form-factor caddy that snaps into the laptop where the touch pad is, that you can slide your phone into?

Because that would require OS level integration with the phone.... Even with full screen apps, swiping in from at least one direction is usually the "escape" ... Also, phones come in many form factors, and creating face adapters for multiple devices would be difficult, to say the least... though options for 3d printed services may alleviate some of that. What I'd really like to see is a Bluetooth standard for full re…

I don't think it would. Many full screen apps like Kindle require two swipes from the top before it brings down the system menu (first shows the status bar, second slides down the menu). Maybe iOS is different?

You already have a fantastic multitouch device in your pocket, and many of these cheap shells have a horrific touchpad touchpad experience. Maybe shells for the major form factors would actually be cheaper than putting together a touchpad experience that doesn't make you want to chuck the device out the nearest window.

Re: $99 “laptop Shell” for Raspberry Pi or Windows 10 Continuum

#32
I should plan to use the RPi as a second computer. Only thing to do is find an used LCD screen, but I'm not sure if an SD card can really sustain daily use (I think flash memory is not really meant to sustain many read/write), or if it's still possible to find USB hard drives under $30 (a 100GB should be cheaper than a 128GB USB flash drive, but again I don't think that 100GB hard drive are still being built).

The RPi is great, but there aren't good enough starter packages that can really convert it into a full computer. There are many second hand LCD screens out there that could be sold with a RPi.

Re: $99 “laptop Shell” for Raspberry Pi or Windows 10 Continuum

#33
post #22
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get an entire functioning laptop for under $100 these days. http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Acer-Asp... It doesn't run Windows 10 very well, with only 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage (neither of which are user-upgradeable), but is actually a surprisingly nice with a light Linux distro.

Holy cow, I never knew that was a thing! Do you have one? I need a cheap laptop/tablet/something that runs well enough for PDFs with ~200 pages (for pen-and-paper RPGs) and that's about my only use case. My poor little lenovo T60 from 2007 is just not up to the task, even after I took Windows off and put on Mint.

Take Mint off too and try with Lubuntu or Antergos, the latter with the XFCE Desktop Environment (or OpenBox, but I never tried this one personally).

Re: $99 “laptop Shell” for Raspberry Pi or Windows 10 Continuum

#34
post #32

I should plan to use the RPi as a second computer. Only thing to do is find an used LCD screen, but I'm not sure if an SD card can really sustain daily use (I think flash memory is not really meant to sustain many read/write), or if it's still possible to find USB hard drives under $30 (a 100GB should be cheaper than a 128GB USB flash drive, but again I don't think that 100GB hard drive are still being built). The RP…

"I should plan to use the RPi as a second computer. Only thing to do is find an used LCD screen"

'7″ Touchscreen Monitor' designed fro Rpi ~ https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-touch-disp...

Re: $99 “laptop Shell” for Raspberry Pi or Windows 10 Continuum

#36
I've backed this, mainly because I'd like to encourage getting the most out of our smart phones, especially in the corporate workplace. Combine this with virtualisedapps (Citrix, etc.) and you have a very usable workstation that is also portable and a LOT cheaper than a laptop. I don't expect everyone in our org to be able to replace their laptop with this, but it's definitely possible for 40% of our organisation.
Post reply on HN