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Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

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Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#31

Post by flerchin »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #22

> When was the last time you felt your smartphone really couldn’t cope? Every day since a couple years now. > I struggle to recall the last time an app jerked and juddered into life. I don’t. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t that way at first. It’s just that over time my phone just slowed down. Purging it of its data and unused software did nothing, I just had less and less available memory over time, and maps grew sl…

This has not been my experience, and I suspect an unusual situation on your part.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#32

Post by rchaud »

mkonecny wrote: post #17
ddejohn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember what the project was called, but many years ago I remember seeing a concept for a Linux phone that also doubled as your desktop when plugged into a hub.

All Samsung Galaxy phones have a built in desktop OS called Dex. I remember plugging my monitor usb-c cable to charge my phone and being blown away when a desktop UI appeared on the monitor

DeX is very good, lot of fun to use with a lapdock. However, you need to check if the particular model of phone supports it. Usually it's the more expensive models, so Galaxy S, Galaxy Z Fold/Flip, Galaxy Tab S, and 1 single model of A series, the A90 5G.

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS10001955/

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#33

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

ebiester wrote: post #15
ddejohn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their point is about battery life, and that a thicker phone is the compromise they're willing to make. They don't want a thicker phone just for the heck of it.

I think they are talking about a battery phone case somewhat like the Alpatronix Battery Case (if you want to look around - I just found one at random.)

That's probably going to provide a lot less battery than just increasing the phone thickness, wouldn't it? There's a lot of redundant layers of encapsulation in that approach.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#34

Post by cosmic_cheese »

SoftTalker wrote: post #27
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single monitor is probably doable by the majority of phones on the market, but multi-monitor is another story. I’m not sure that most phone SoCs have the hardware to support more than one, which would mean that additional monitors would need to be driven via software ala DisplayLink which might make the phone get hot and negatively impact battery health. The other issue is demand. I suspect that the number of people…

I'd be somewhat interested. Single-monitor is good enough for most people for home computing stuff. And touch-screen interaction on a tiny screen sucks for anything like spreadsheets, composing documents, dealing with PDFs, or dense forms. I would probably come down to separate devices however, in the interests of security and continuity. A phone is much more likely to be lost or stolen than a computer on a desk at h…

Another thing in favor of separate devices, is that for lightweight usecases that benefit from traditional desktop UX (like spreadsheets, as you mentioned) even cheap PCs have been extreme overkill for the better part of two decades at this point — the latest greatest desktop hardware is barely better than a mid-late Core 2 Duo booted off an SSD for productivity.

One could buy a cheap mini-PC and put some flavor of Linux on it and it’d serve office software duty for upwards of 10 years without issue. Even accounting for FOSS aftermarket Android distros, smartphone hardware doesn’t have that kind of longevity.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#36

Post by totallywrong »

mech422 wrote: post #25
mkonecny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Samsung Galaxy phones have a built in desktop OS called Dex. I remember plugging my monitor usb-c cable to charge my phone and being blown away when a desktop UI appeared on the monitor

that is pretty cool - wonder if it supports keyboard/mouse too ?

It does. And you can also use the phone screen as trackpad while in Dex mode. It's actually a pretty good desktop environment for Android.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#37

Post by Tostino »

mech422 wrote: post #25
mkonecny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Samsung Galaxy phones have a built in desktop OS called Dex. I remember plugging my monitor usb-c cable to charge my phone and being blown away when a desktop UI appeared on the monitor

that is pretty cool - wonder if it supports keyboard/mouse too ?

It does.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#38

Post by rchaud »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #22

> When was the last time you felt your smartphone really couldn’t cope? Every day since a couple years now. > I struggle to recall the last time an app jerked and juddered into life. I don’t. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t that way at first. It’s just that over time my phone just slowed down. Purging it of its data and unused software did nothing, I just had less and less available memory over time, and maps grew sl…

Not my experience at all. I have a 2016 Galaxy S7 in a drawer that would still be fine as a daily driver were it not for the worn-down battery. I have a separate phone from 2020 that I was using as a TikTok device (quite resource-heavy app) and it runs fine even now.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#39

Post by mattlondon »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #22

> When was the last time you felt your smartphone really couldn’t cope? Every day since a couple years now. > I struggle to recall the last time an app jerked and juddered into life. I don’t. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t that way at first. It’s just that over time my phone just slowed down. Purging it of its data and unused software did nothing, I just had less and less available memory over time, and maps grew sl…

Not experienced this at all. Spare storage space (different from RAM, which is not where data is stored long term) should not impact performance.

Perhaps you have malware installed on your device?

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#40

Post by ddifof »

ddejohn wrote: post #7
jmkni wrote: post #5

With USB-C, surely we are at the point where we can plug our phones into a hub with a couple of monitors attached and get a proper desktop environment?

I can't remember what the project was called, but many years ago I remember seeing a concept for a Linux phone that also doubled as your desktop when plugged into a hub.

There was a company named "always innovating" around 2008ish which sold a hybrid of phone/tablet/laptop. Funnily enough, the website still exists [1].

[1] https://www.alwaysinnovating.com/products/smartbook.htm

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