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Ask HN: Smartphone As Exclusive Word-Processor Device? (& Pinephone)

4 points by thx ↗ HN
there’s times i prefer writing longform writes on a smartphone -

is there such a thing as a smartphone shaped/sized electronic that prioritizes a Word Processor App?

is this a good use case for a Pinephone?

have read about them here on several occasions & was wondering if anyone on HN had a personal review on how a Pinephone may double as a “mini-mac” to type notes/outlines/stories on?

i.e. is interface nice?

thanks for reading

8 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 26.7 ms ] thread
PaulHoule
I type long comments into HN with tablets and it is a bad habit because it makes me look brain-damaged. It seems like the spell checker is possessed by the devil but it is even worse if I turn it off.
thx
yeah some tablets have bad ai spellcheck tho apple’s isn’t great either

have you ever used a Pinephone?

PaulHoule
Nope.

There was a time I would go to hackathons with a Barnes and Noble Nook and a bluetooth mouse and keyboard and a little stand and log in to a cloud server through ssh or RDP.

You could do the same w/ any Android tablet or phone.

It was certainly more stylish than any mac or gaming laptop.

thx
That’s pretty cool & now curious about what section of B&N you did that in
aaronchall
I would expect you to be able to get that to work on a Pinephone.

I used to carry a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard (clamshell design) that I would ssh into a server to code with (when not using Termux itself as the coding environment).

Again, it was cool, but most everyone else had laptops.

thx
Wow I need to get with it / jump on it. Even if everyone else had laptops I really like not having to interface with a screen “staring” back at me.

(It’s my experience that typing on a smartphone / tablet allows one to put it down a moment & “have a thought” without feeling the “default need” to be always looking back at a monitor, which I’ve come to find occasionally distracting)

In essence, imo you guys are onto something. Will probably give Pinephone a go sometime this Summer to test out as a longform electronic writing device

aaronchall
Here's the case I had, a review from 2014: https://the-gadgeteer.com/2014/06/12/zagg-autofit-bluetooth-...

They don't make it anymore, sadly.

I loved that it held my 7 inch tablet and worked with it wirelessly, and that the hinge was stiff enough to hold it up as I used it on my lap or standing on the subway. If only the keyboard was weighted it would have been stable to put on a table without the kickstand in the back, but that was a fine compromise given everything else it delivered for not a lot more money.

I hope your Pinephone experiment goes well. I'm optimistic for them.

thx
That is Awesome & looks Ultra-Portable

Have a feeling with fashions repeating & all something like the Nexus 7 + BT Keyboard (full-functionality lite-tech) may someday make a comeback

Really like the idea of a low-cost pc / tablet that’s always in the backpack

And thanks!