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.