> Simply plug your phone into an HDMI screen, connect up a keyboard and mouse, and you’ve got a lightweight desktop experience you can take anywhere.
No, I can't take it anywhere, because few places I go to have a HDMI screen and keyboard ready for me. And to the ones they do, I carry my laptop.
The use case for me is mostly hotel stays. When travelling for fun I don't particularly want the weight (and risk) of packing my laptop, but I would like to be able to play movies and music on the hotel TV. With a cheap light keyboard I could also do email and similar light admin things with the benefit of the bigger screen.
Until recently I was also travelling frequently for work with a heavy MacBook running a variety of Enterprise malware that would prevent me from doing any personal stuff with it - being able to use my own phone for light leisure activities that I normally do on the personal laptop would have been very useful for the boring hotel evenings. Adding another kg+ of laptop to the already heavy backpack was too annoying to put up with - my cheapo bluetooth keyboard and mouse weigh in at a much more acceptable 280 grams.
In short, there's a use case - but most phones are too locked down to take full advantage of the possibility.
This is why my iPad Mini is my main travel device. Small enough that it fits in my pockets. But the screen is big enough that it's comfortable to use. More comfortable than the Pro Max. Have a cheap bluetooth keyboard with integrated stand so the mini can be used as a laptop. Take the mini with me when I go places and leave the keyboard in the hotel. Would make me sad if someone stole the keyboard but it's a far smaller loss than if a laptop was stolen. Gives me a more peace of mind.
If only the Mini had true 4k output, it would be absolutely perfect. But it only does screen mirroring which limits it when plugged into a monitor or hotel television.
I tend to bring my AppleTV + HDMI cable with me whenever we travel.
Its small size makes it largely inconsequential from a luggage point of view and it’s already fully set up with all my streaming apps.
It also doesn’t tie up my phone if anyone else wants to watch TV.
Yeah, I'm considering a pi500 as a similar alternative. I need to check the weight, but if it's low enough and they release a version with m2 I'll surely try it.
Yeah, agreed that that's a nice use case.
And given a sufficiently flexible phone, it'd be nice to have a mode selector pop up when you plug into a new display. Pick between screen mirroring, desktop mode, and a media center, and optionally remember the choice for next time.
I'm not sure why you neatpick that. I feel the complete opposite. HDMI screens are everywhere. Usb-c ones less but still present.
I have a screen at work, with keyboard and USB hub. Same at home. And at most of my friend's homes. I have a screen (tv) in a hotel and flats to rent. I even had one in a cabin recently (use them with tv stick for my kid's shows).
I also have an external USB/HDMI screen that is lighter than a laptop, that I sometimes carry for multiple reasons.
Keyboard is a bit harder, I won't have it provided in a hotel, but there are plenty of small and light models, foldable etc..
I choose current phone specifically for usb-c/HDMI option and a full desktop experience and use it often. It's easy, it's fast, it's stable. Perfect for mobile gaming with a small BT gamepad as well.
I struggle to find a place without a HDMI screen waiting for me.
> I struggle to find a place without a HDMI screen waiting for me.
It seems like this comes down to personal experience. I have literally never seen a place I could plug my phone into an HDMI display (even if I had cables for that, which I don't). As such it strikes me as very impractical, but it sounds like your experience has been drastically different so we come to different conclusions.
It's not personal experience. It's a segment of the market and also a lack of familiarity. The Macbook Air ships with only USB-C Thunderbolt and a large group of people are fine buying a dock to connect it or HDMI to thunderbolt.
While reading this article I thought it'd be interesting to read this on Android desktop mode and went looking for a cable while forgetting I could just unplug my USB-C laptop.
> I also have an external USB/HDMI screen that is lighter than a laptop
How much lighter is it than say a Surface Go that can run Windows or Linux? If they are about the same then it doesn't make sense to fiddle with Linux on a phone. Comes with a keyboard too.
I see that this thread became a "throw random edge cases and diverge the discussion".
How does Surface Go states against other commenters comment that suddenly brought poverty into the mix? :) how does Surface Go address poor people, because it's not cheap where I live.
It's a discussion that doesn't make sense.
You never said anything about affordability.
> It's a discussion that doesn't make sense.
That's on you for lack of context.
i struggle to see your point.
Your suggestion is that people should carry around four devices with them, poorly integrated, clunky, all for the experience of plugging to their phone? At that point, what advantage is there over a laptop?
No. I'm just saying that "there are no HDMI devices near me" is weird and hard to achieve.
To use my phone as a desktop all I need is the phone itself. USB cable I most often already have to charge it. Phone works as a keyboard and mouse and I have large screen to browse web, play, watch videos. ZERO new devices, only things I already carry and a screen that is already there.
i disagree entirely.
Think about a poor person. Are they better served by a laptop or your proposed solution of four different devices?
Even in my own daily life, i struggle to find places where your solution is practical.
People probably don't think about a poor person enough or they would come up with more solutions that benefit everybody.
Some only conceptualize scenarios that include those that are quite wealthy, whether intentional or not.
Even if you are not poor, one of the most respectable things you can do is to re-use and recycle rather than consume new.
For minimal cash outlay, surplus PC's can easily be found at zero cost which is naturally an unmatched bargain, compared to used monitors even as low as $10 each, unless you can get the monitors free also, but that's much more uncommon. Surplus keyboards are stacked up everywhere and being thrown away all the time too.
So it's really the monitors (and physical desk space) that's the limiting factor for aspiring low-cost operators. By a long shot.
It's been that way for years so by now with every multi-monitor workspace I have a PC for each monitor, even if I only run one of the PC's at a time usually. Each monitor also has at least two separate inputs which can be chosen from at any time and all the wiring is in place whether it is being actively used or not.
So between my office or home or an employment site a laptop used to be carried with me but now mainly collects dust except for "outreach" or distant travel these days. Laptop chargers still in each location so I didn't have to carry that as often.
Now it's usually only a miniPC (or sometimes two) that I carry for "full-strength" mobile deployment between locations. Chose miniPC's that run on the laptop chargers that were already at each desk. Even more convenient to carry than laptops.
Soon for the PC's that I have appropriately configured at each familiar location, I will only need to be carrying a bootable USB stick instead of either a miniPC or laptop :)
Might as well use the PC's that are already there too, along with the full-size monitors and keyboards ;)
Environment on a stick.
Not much different than the way you could put Windows XP on a bootable FAT32 Memorystick, then put the Memorystick into the Sony phone to utilize its remaining storage space the regular way. The cellphone folders don't interfere with the Windows folders. Then plug in the USB cord from the phone to a PC, boot the PC to USB and the phone acts like a bootable USB stick and your C: drive is the Windows volume on the phone's internal Memorystick.
This still works with Android and SD cards too.
It's good to have but it just ties up the phone and a separate USB stick is the real functional model.
I feel the opposite of you and not sure why you defend it. I can not think of the last time I plugged my phone or tablet into an HDMI screen I didn't own.
Projectors are what springs to mind for me. Though I guess less relevant if you work remotely.
Kinda solved by sharing on teams in a conference room now?
I could commute to the office every day with nothing but the shirt on my back and the phone in my pocket if my work-provided device were my phone. I would not need a backpack or briefcase, which means that for any errands or dinner plans after work, I don't fumble with a backpack. I already leave my preferred keyboard+mouse at my office desk.
If I needed to fly to another office for a business trip, same story: I could sit down at any desk, grab a spare bluetooth keyboard from IT (if there isn't already one on the bookable desk).
If I'm over at a friend's house for dinner and get paged, I could just ask to sit down at their desk and plug my phone in.
I would love to not have to carry a laptop around to all the places that I do today.
I remember being somewhat sold on this story by the PinePhone, but it seems like it might not be possible to buy one new nowadays.
Having just looked up the PinePhone again for the first time in a while, it does look like the Ubuntu Touch project is still alive and kicking, and compatible with some modern commercially available phones!
The main thing preventing me from having a non-standard Android phone/distribution as a daily driver is access to mobile banking apps - I'm yet to check for myself but as I understand, having an unlocked bootloader means that banking apps will consider the device "compromised" and will not work.
If phones consistently gave you a useful desktop environment when you plugged them into a monitor, I imagine that might change.
I think offices are the most likely places to have something like this, though. My company has monitors with USB-C dock inputs set up at each desk; you grab a desk and plug your laptop into it when you get there. But they're just using DisplayPort Alt-Mode, and a phone with a desktop mode would work with them as well.
I wish I could do that for work; would save me from lugging around a rather heavy laptop. :)
There are now ar glasses that do HDMI, and there are lots of portable keyboard solutions, with a trackpad or trackpoint or just a mouse.
haven't tried it, but I see glasses as an almost practical future.
Why can't the phone itself act as the input device? Sure it's not a full-fledged keyboard, but it could work wonderfully in a pinch.
it should at least work as a trackpad.
You could also use it with Nexdoc, https://nexdock.com
Lapdocks are an amazing concept, but I haven't found a single one with my preferred keyboard layout yet. Same problem as laptops in general.
you can always bring a portable screen/keyboard with you
I've yet to find a portable screen and keyboard that can even remotely compare in display quality or battery life to a MacBook Air, and the 'portable' combination is usually heavier and always clunkier to set up.
If I'm doing that, why wouldn't I just bring my laptop
Single place for all your data, easier to manage and back up. Single device to take with you.
I don't personally think there's any ease of management advantage to be gained, but that depends on whether one wants their phone to have the data that's on their computer. I don't, personally. But I think there's definitely no advantage from a "single device" when you have to take something just as big as taking a laptop anyway.
I'm not trying to shit on this as a neat tool, but my phone is not the single place for all my data, and I find it considerably harder to manage. If I'm bringing my phone, an external keyboard, and a portable screen (and, presumably, a mouse) with me, it's not really a "single device", it's more like 4 devices that poorly imitate a laptop and don't offer as much functionality
Plus, when far from a homebase, some people are going to bring two laptops anyway so they can have twice the reliability of your average person.
Don't ask me how I know . . .
I've comfortably used a 7 inch tablet as a pocketable phone, such a thing with a keyboard would likely be a "complete" solution