I got one of the lapdocks for the Atrix a few years after the Atrix because you could hook it up to a Raspberry Pi and it'd work. Broke the HDMI port at some point though, mini HDMI is just too fragile.
This website is pretty badly designed. The home page should be selling me on what phones this works with, and why I should trust these people to pull it off when a bunch of other projects have come and gone that failed to do the same thing.
> The home page should be selling me on what phones this works with
Anything that can be connected to an external display, keyboard, and mouse.
> why I should trust these people to pull it off when a bunch of other projects have come and gone that failed to do the same thing.
My NexDock has served me well for 7 years. Even if the company flopped tomorrow, it would continue to serve me for years. I don't see the risk here even if you don't trust the company to continue to thrive.
It's reasonable as far as membrane laptop keyboards go imo. It feels solid (along with the rest of the build quality), and has a pretty good travel distance.
And while the site is badly designed, it does not have to explain why you should "trust these people". They should tell you what the product is, and for you to decide whether you like this product enough to buy it. Unless you suspect they'll run with your money (this isn't a kickstarter) or that the product claims are untruthful, trust is irrelevant.
The reason companies in this space fail is just because too few people have been interested in this class of product. Maybe one day, when smartphones are more powerful and these products are convenient enough.
Agreed that the website is mid but I don't get the part where you say:
> when a bunch of other projects have come and gone that failed to do the same thing
This has been "pulled off" successfully for a long time now. Nexdock themselves have been around and shipping different "convergence" products since at least 2016.
I started using my new 18" monitor attached to my phone.
I just need a second phone so I can control my phone now. The Samsung remote control alas doesn't work with Linux, otherwise maybe I could try that (although I doubt it's really be all that.for this remote control case).
I've had a NexDock for about 7 years or so. Definitely a nice tool to have. I don't really have a normal laptop besides my work laptop anymore. I primarily just use my NexDock with either my phone or my Steam Deck. I've also used the dock with Raspberry Pis in the past.
The older model that I have has a pretty terrible trackpad, does not have a touch screen, and does not fold back (I normally use my ergonomic keyboard with it). I think these are all resolved in newer models though.
I've just been using a small folding bluetooth keyboard and a mini-bluetooth mouse. Both are easy to carry around and fit in pockets. I find the steam deck's screen large enough to use on its own, although sometimes I plug it into an external monitor over HDMI.
I use an overlay of /usr to add things to make the steam deck more useful.
Can you elaborate on your /usr overlay? I haven't gone very far with modifying my software setup on the Steam Deck, but I have been considering it for a while.
Ummm sure. Basically I didn't want to irrecoverably screw up my steam deck. So, I setup a partition on the SD card and pointed a /usr overlay at it.
mount -t overlay -o "lowerdir=/usr,upperdir=/run/media/OVERLAY/overlay/usr,workdir=/run/media/OVERLAY/workdir/usr" none /usr
Personal choice, I didn't set it to automount, since I really wanted to ensure boot process was same. I just mount it later.
Idea being that every once in a while I pop out the SD card, run the standard steam update, then wipe the overlay and reinstall the stuff I was using (I have a script to make that more convenient). If it seems I really did somehow mess up their setup beyond repair I can just remove the card, reboot (I did do that once, but I don't think it was my fault).
Main issue I've run into is the fact that Valve upstream repo is a hackish snapshot of Arch that is not maintained and was not entirely consistent at time of creation and is using old gpg keys. So, while 95% of stuff installs using it, there's 5% that requires installing while ignoring the signature and just trusting valve's server, or pulling in an older lib (I symlinked in one from valve's steam runtime once).
The other not-ideal thing about Valve is they really don't prioritise security patching, at all. It's astounding given the device does have an sshd running. Not to mention older problems like wifi vulnerabilities. Fortunately the recent ssh cve has a config workaround, or I'd probably just force-install an sshd from arch instead, or disable starting at boot.
... oh and pulling in new signatures for people does help sometimes. pacman -S archlinux-keyring , pacman-key / --populate / --refresh-keys /-r exact@name.org ... and since /etc persists during updates, sometimes you have to tell pacman to --overwrite since a prior install might still exist there. You could work around that by backing up /etc but, eh, it hasn't been a problem so far :D - there were no collisions on first install to /etc for any of them, so I assume everything was playing nice with existing valve /etc. And, well, valve did make that directory writeable ...
I can obviously only use it with ample desk space for both the dock and the Deck, but for my use case (usually visiting family or my local maker space) desk space is not an issue. As for the experience of using it, it just feels like it's a reasonably spec'd gaming laptop when I use it with the Deck.
Not op, I have the previous model with the keyboard, and it works well but a bit janky: the screen and the keyboard are pretty good, the combination of touch screen e touchpad make it usable without a mouse for most workload.
I use it for anything, gaming, web surfing, developing and sometimes even work (it does raise a few eyebrows when I take it out of the bag)
The big problem is the connection between nextdock and steamdeck: if I connect it directly via single usb-c cable I lose the ability to charge the steamdeck (the nextdock does not supply enough energy for keeping the steamdeck charged) and I also lose a lot of io (next dock as only one fullsize usb 3.0 port) so instead I use the steam-deck-dock and connect it to the nextdock with two cable (hdmi e usb) so that I can keep the steamdeck fully charged.
I would love to find an usb-c cable splitter so that I can have a device simultaneously connected to an usb-c pd charger and a second connection only for usb data, there are some but none of them support usb alt mode necessary to use external screen.
WRT splitter. I've just been using a mini hub from Anker with pass-through charging. I keep it in the battery bag for my steam deck case. Also handy if I need to plug in an extra SD card.
I have one of the originals too, I only use it in an emergency (e.g. maintaining a Raspberry Pi) because the trackpad is so awful - I can't type on it because the cursor jumps all over the place.
That basically shattered my dream of leaving my work laptop at home on short business trips. Well, that and it weighs as much as a laptop anyway so there wasn't actually a benefit.
I've seen these before and I always loved the idea of "convergence" even though its never been successful. I remember in at least 2013 when the Ubuntu Edge had a convergence feature that would blow your phone up into a (very slow) desktop PC over DisplayPort that you would then control via the phone touch screen [1].
I suspect the reason that mobile convergence hasn't been successful is that people like owning multiple devices that fit the mood you are in. My phone is for social stuff, my tablet is for entertainment stuff and my laptop is for work stuff. The thought of cramming all of those head-spaces into one device feels stressful, like putting all my eggs into one basket. I'm always very happy when I hear about updates to DeX or new convergence docks though
* counts 4 in the living room, about 10 servers in the lab, probably 20 computers in total in my single person home not including raspberry pis, mobiles or tablets :)
Meh, it works fine for me. You can also use work profile (island app) to segment your phone a bit further.
I really love DeX and I just spent a whole week working with it as my primary computing device. I don't have a mobile dock though. The reason being that they're not an awful lot cheaper or lighter than a real laptop so what's the point.
It wouldn't be hard to trigger DEX/desktop enviroment to load a different profile. I feel like most hardware companies don't want to eat away at different segments.
(Along those lines, some phones have a "second" or "secret" profile/mode that is accessible through a different PIN code at the lockscreen, for example ...)
I see a an increasing number of people around me using phone only for stuff they absolutely need to carry around – payment/banking, loyalty cards, 2FA, maps. Maybe also some pure messaging app, some puzzle game, but that's it. No any social media, news, work etc.
Now that you mention it, that's a good way to think about it.
Of all the things on my phone, the only thing I feel like I absolutely can't live without (in my phone) is my OneBusAway app that tells me when my next bus is coming.
I've got a Samsung Android phone that I tried with a DisplayLink dock for browsing. It was able to use the Ethernet OOTB, but browsing was PAINFUL. The responsiveness is/was not there.
A scooter, motorcycle, car, and delivery van all serve different purposes, though there is a little crossover between each stage.
The same is true about these devices: yes, in a pinch you can grab that document and search for something but really when editing it you want not just a keyboard and larger display, but a bit more horsepower and different apps.
So I use to think a fancy dock like this would be good, but their continued failure has taught me a lot.
A basic phone blows away the early computers. 40mhz one core cpus (spark, mips, 80486...) used to do a lot of work and be fast. What has changed is bloat.
I remember when I got a 1080p monitor and watched some slightly old content (~480p) on it. The experience was very lackluster. Now I'm getting a similar feeling with a recently-bought 4k-capable laptop, and watching 720p content that looked perfectly fine on the 1080p monitor. I don't even want to think about the 480p archives. Almost makes me not want to upgrade devices.
PS. I quite distinctly remember the point in time when I finally said my then desktop machine couldn't move video, and it really was time to consider an upgrade ...
(My 500 Mhz K6 II - DAE remember those AMD chips? - had finally become too slow. Video was 'unstoppable' ...
We also seem to have picked up a few features along the way. Rendering screen resolutions beyond 640x480, network speeds above 9600 baud, video, displaying images that each would fill one of the hard drives of that age, video and music editing, running programs that were unthinkable in terms of features set. Clearly, inefficiencies have crept in, but it’s not as if the software today wasn’t way more capable than what we had at that time.
We often had 100baseT and it was quite snappy for text heavy coms and reasonably sized images from the net. 9600 was already faster than you can read, this was an order of magnitude faster. Quake deathmatch was incredible, I remember getting almost twenty folks on a server once. :D
At some point I procured a 1600x1200 monitor… but not until a later job after 2k with an SGI was my computer able to handle that resolution comfortably.
People also used to write novels on pen and paper, later typewriters, then word processors. What we have now is far, far better in every conceivable way.
I think nostalgia gives rise colored glasses when if you were to put these things side by side you’d never actually go back.
We need different types of vehicles for all those things because they cover use cases with different storage capacity and performance requirements. This seems less true for cellphones now.
Sometimes I still find the need to write a lot on a phone and it's thumb typing in a touch mobile device that frustrates me the most. I believe a good add-on keyboard, preferably just as portable as the phone, would have more use cases than a hollow laptop that can be just as big (and similarly less convenient) as a normal laptop.
You can get an external monitor and seperate keyboard for about $100. The issue for me at least, is that I don't want to to put android apps on a monitor, I want a real Linux desktop experience when I plug my phone into a monitor.
Super book was another example of these type of devices which never got to market. Had the chance to play with the foldable devices and thought they are actually pretty great.
I think these type of formats are decent for travelers.
There was a meme a while back - my most millennial trait is that big purchases must happen on a big screen”.
My brother is a zoomer and the only computing device in his house is his mobile phone and work laptop. He does absolutely everything on his phone. I think we’re moving away from separated devices, honestly
I feel like it highly depends on what people are doing with a device: if there're only a consumer (of digital content or physical product), only owning and using a smartphone is fine. However for creating things (writing a PhD thesis, making a game, editing horizontal video) a PC is still required.
If we want to quantify every exception sure. We've moved away from mainframe devices but that doesn't mean none exist. We've moved away from Windows XP but that doesn't mean that they don't exist.
> I suspect the reason that mobile convergence hasn't been successful is that people like owning multiple devices that fit the mood you are in. My phone is for social stuff, my tablet is for entertainment stuff and my laptop is for work stuff.
Nah, I used to think the same thing about desktop vs laptop but turns out once laptops got good enough to be a true desktop replacement it was much better to just have one device. Phones aren't there yet, even if the raw processor speed numbers suggest they should be.
Not really. Let's look at Bell's Law from 1972 to understand this:
"Roughly every decade a new, lower priced computer class forms based on a new programming platform, network, and interface resulting in new usage and a new industry."
So we can say, generally, mainframes, minicomputers, workstations, microcomputers, laptops, smart phones, and now wearables (watches, rings, wallets, bracelets, glasses, etc)
Next we'll have something I'll call the Mckenzie corollary (that's me I guess):
"Roughly a decade or two after introduction, the lower price computer class will subsume the upper price computing class."
So the minicomputers took on mainframe tasks.
The workstations took on the minicomputer tasks.
The microcomputers took on the workstation tasks.
Laptops took on the micros. All this happened with a significant lag time.
And now, the smartphones are vying for the laptops.
These are superstructural transformations and take years because a bunch of new things need to be invented, developed, mastered and widely deployed for it to happen.
We are roughly in the wearables and phones-become-laptops epoch.
Let's look at The Poverty of Historicism from 1944 to understand why you can't predict societal change with laws.
"[The evolution of] human society, is a unique historical process ... Its description, however, is not a law, but only a singular historical statement."
Karl Popper was being a logician about it. People aren't claiming supernatural powers with market trend analysis like some Helena Blavatsky of electronics or that these "laws" hold like thermodynamics.
If it's been good for 60 years so that might continue or maybe something unexpected will happen.
Popper's piecemeal alternative predicts nothing. The market trend analysis is at least accurate > 0% of the time. It's a non-scientific process with unquantifiable accuracy but it is empirically non-zero. For instance, Geofferey Moore's adoption curves proposed in 1991 are widely found but, every now and then, the galloping animal is a zebra. This doesn't mean you shouldn't plan for horses.
Presuming a decade or two from now people will connect their wearables powered by kinetic charging to foldable e-paper with a transparent solar panel layer is just a bet.
Maybe something radical will happen instead: The public payphone will come back as a public computer that people will biometrically log into after shunning personal electronics as toxic spy machines ruining society. Eh, probably not, but maybe.
The low end eventually becomes a satisfiable alternative for price sensitive consumers and may become the majority market if _consumer preferences follow_.
That's important. Even more expensive brands in the purely functional space like Tektronix, DeWalt and Zojirushi can still command a preference and not for the same reason as Patek Philippe or Christian Louboutin.
Also when preferences aren't considered, the base observation can become rather risky.
For example, it implies a majority of American cars will eventually be electric microcars like the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV or Chery QQ Ice Cream because:
1. Most cars on the road were bought used and these cars cost less than a used car.
2. The battery efficiency of the smaller vehicle means you can charge it without special hardware in reasonable time.
3. The vehicle speed and range are increasingly adequate to satisfy most consumers needs.
Do I think an EV microcar revolution is coming to the US? No. There's zero evidence of that. American consumer preferences would need to change first.
Fickle human behavior is an X factor in any market.
Preferences can change however. Pretend Apple comes out with iCar, a sleek electric microcar or Costco introduces Kirkland CarTwo, a practical second car that charges in a few hours on a normal outlet. Perfect for teenagers and easy to park in small spaces. Cost? $89/month for 48 months.
I basically just pitched the Geely Panda Mini EV or a number of similar cars which have been in production for years. The tech is here. The American preferences are not. Not yet.
I'd like to ignore American Consumer Preferences and talk about engineering examples.
Linux/OSS/MySQL: These were seen as toy alternatives to the real thing. Linux eventually displaced all the proprietary Unix operating systems. And it still isn't at feature parity with some of those OSes decades later.
Same goes for X86 and Arm.
High margin stagnant businesses often get consumed by a toy entrant that crosses that inflection point where it does what it needs to do for 20% of price. When the cost of something is less than your margin, you are screwed.
On the ACP in regards to vehicles. Americans have been conned into liking low-end vehicles wrapped in a high-end sheen. SUVs are high margin vehicles partially because they are cheap pickup trucks. US auto manufacturers got their asses handed to them imports from Japan, where people did prefer smaller, lighter more efficient vehicles. There was then an effort across all auto companies to change the tastes of US car buyers so that foreign vehicles couldn't compete.
# Semantic Scholar links for the paper, "Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention"
I always liked the idea that rather than your phone being the powerhouse for a laptop or desktop environment that it instead be a receptacle for data.
If only there were a standardized protocol enabling browsers (could be any smart terminal protocol, but browsers exist now, and would mostly work) to securely connect to nearby devices, maybe even require a physical connection if you want extra safety.
Then instead of a specific dock you could use just about any capable laptop or desktop as an environment.
I don't think it can be done at the moment without an on-internet intermediary. A local discovery and connection system that the terminal(browser) could be aware of. Maybe this could be shoehorned into existing systems like Bluetooth.
You could get an absurd usb connection working if the phone appeared as both a file store as well as a keyboard that types in the commands to launch itself. I see no potential pitfalls with that approach.
avahi/bonjour for discovery, vnc served up over http for UI. Intel proposed a box with Ethernet over USB for this a long time ago but it never caught on.
For me, it’s that I don’t have a monitor on hand to plug my phone into. And if I’m going to plan to bring a monitor, shit, I’ll just bring my laptop anyway.
Convergence happened already, I'm logged into the same apps from any device and have access to mostly the same files and functionality through the cloud.
The last generation of Windows Phone had convergence that provided a version of this. Allowed you to run UWP apps on a Windows desktop. But like many things in the Windows phone universe, it was simultaneously 10 years ahead and 10 years behind.
Convergence should work fine from modern desktop Linux: you should be able to attach a tiny, phone-sized screen to any SBC or mini-PC and run a mobile-focused experience (such as Phosh or Gnome-Mobile) and it should just work. Attach a bigger external monitor and apps should just scale up seamlessly. This will get quite interesting with the newer device form factor of handheld consoles running x86-64 hardware, since they too have a roughly phone-sized screen that usually supports touch input, as well as analog sticks that might be readily usable for pointer movement or scrolling, and lots of physical buttons that might be usable for gestures or chorded input.
> Convergence should work fine from modern desktop Linux: you should be able to attach a tiny, phone-sized screen to any SBC or mini-PC and run a mobile-focused experience (such as Phosh or Gnome-Mobile) and it should just work. Attach a bigger external monitor and apps should just scale up seamlessly.
My Pinephone Pro runs Plasma Mobile and yeah you can just plug it in to a USB-C dock with HDMI out and a mouse+keyboard plugged in and it scales up into a slightly odd desktop:)
> people like owning multiple devices that fit the mood
Agree this is a big factor, but with peripherals to extend your smartphone into a laptop you do still have to own multiple “devices” (discrete units of physical hardware). If you’re already gonna have to lug around a dongle/adapter and one or more pieces of hardware (mouse, keyboard, screen) to get the laptop experience, you might as well just lug around an entire laptop.
Also, “cloud” software (not just things like Google docs, but the widespread use of web applications allowing you to log in to some app from anywhere) has solved a lot of the biggest problems in this space. You can easily access all the important things on your phone from a laptop, unless you go out of your way to not upload something somewhere. So being able to convert a smartphone into a laptop is mostly about saving money on hardware (which may not be that much. Do you pay $200 for peripherals to get an underpowered laptop powered by a phone, or a mid-like laptop?) or addressing a very niche UX need.
This looks like a neat idea but the marketing for this is scummy. Adding a keyboard and screen does not like a "gaming PC" just because you can run cloud games on it. It advertises plugging a raspberry pi into it for a "fully functional computer at a revolutionarily low cost" which isn't true. You also can't turn your phone into a windows 10 laptop by running cloud services.
I understand the limitations resulting from differences in form factor between different smartphone models that make the idea impractical, but it's too bad these docks aren't designed for the phone to slot into them, Duo Dock[0] style. That'd be super slick.
I don't see why it's impractical. Just have a soft spring loaded clamp, like universal car phone mounts. Maybe it would be hard to line up the USBC port?
You can get a nice N100 mini-PC for much less than $200 (I got a nice compact one for my electronics bench for EUR 150: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2024/07/04/2200), and those pack enough computing power to be seriously useful… Especially when compared to ARM SBCs.
It's still using mirror mode by default. There's a Desktop mode you can enable in developer settings which works well with the NexDock hardware, but the desktop mode UI is still pretty buggy at the moment.
Google only recently enabled USB-C display mode recently. It is only the Pixel 8 and later. Don't know if earlier phones will get it, it depends on having the hardware and getting the OS update.
Bought an S8 a few years back cheap and Dex basically replaced my desktop and Android box until the phone stopped working. Think with some better communication to older people the format could have taken off because it did do all the basic functionality you'd need from a larger screen if you're not very technical
Wild that I'm seeing this on Hacker News. I just found out about the Dex capablilties of my zfold phone. I've been using it pretty much all week and have been considering going all in on this format.
I love that I can just use my phone for virtually everything I use my laptop for (developing probably being the only obsticle).
I've been considering some of the other options out there for portable monitor/keyboards and these seem (so far) the most affordable option. I wonder how the build quality it.
You don't get the large display, but you get a full keyboard/trackpad for $50 at Amazon. It's great when I'm on the road or traveling and need to write stuff on Google Docs. I don't bring my laptop when I travel -- just my phone, iPad and a keyboard like the above. I get to travel really light.
I have bought two different earlier generations of these and
I never got either to work properly.
The second should also be able to operate as a terminal,
(Monitor and keys) for a computer, which was basically
impossible to get working.
The user experience to operate / change modes was exceptionally poor.
I figure plug in the HDMI from the computer plug in the provided USB
cable and it's smooth sailing.
but that was not the case at all.
Connecting a device was difficult to get working but it
varied by which device.
This appeals to us hackers, but it doesn’t really make that much practical sense, I think.
The SOC and storage you’re saving by using your phone aren’t the most expensive items. A good 14” screen, keyboard, trackpad and battery aren’t cheap. And if you’re paying $300 for them, you might as well throw in a few hundred dollars more and get a full laptop.
For low-income users who don't already own a desktop, I think it can make quite good sense. A "good" keyboard/mouse/monitor/etc. are not strictly necessary, and if you can't afford new ones, used ones can be had for extremely cheap or even free often times, like from garage sales, thrift shops, friends etc. And most of those people have a phone already, so adding the peripherals is not a big cost for them, but a full size desktop likely would be.
I can get a working LCD screen, keyboard and mouse from my local thrift shop for $20, whereas the cheapest new laptop is at least $200.
I am curious how many people even own a personal desktop/laptop anymore. I imagine that more and more people do everything on a phone or maybe a tablet. Are past peak PC?
> used ones can be had for extremely cheap or even free often times, like from garage sales, thrift shops, friends etc. And most of those people have a phone already
What you described is actually an use case. Hadn't considered the 'second hand' peripheral options ...
Reminds me of the Neptune Duo[0], which sadly never became a thing. And the ASUS Padfone[1] which barely did. Would've loved to get my hands especially on the former. Actually still would even today, as it would really reduce the waste of having multiple smart devices that inevitably reach EoL with lots of still-working parts. Looking at my nonfunctional ASUS Transformer[2] that served me so well in college years ago, with its phenomenal battery life (keyboard dock also has a battery), and I still have hope I can get it repaired and use it again, even if only as an e-reader.
Huh. It's a lot cheaper than I expected it to be. Only $300.
Might be kinda useful if the pendulum swings back towards actually storing all your data on your own devices instead of in the clown. And if anyone starts writing actual tools for Desktop Android.
That's the best typo ever, I had an extension for chrome many years ago that allowed to replace "cloud" with a different word for funsies because it was used everywhere, might ressurect it using clown.
PS. Actually, it might be a good word for "self hosted cloud" setups, where you "[c]loud [own] (as in, 'ownership')" your data and infra is under user control ...
I have 7" touch screen waiting me to attach a pi4 to make a proper portable Linux device I can travel with. Laptops too big and the GPD tiny ones too expensive for me. I can't use anything smaller than 7" and don't want bigger than 10" for convenience.
Less than $200 can have "ideal" setup.
I've said this for years, since I owned a Samsung Galaxy something with the dock that had USB, ethernet and HDMI; you put your phone in and you have a desktop...
This will be the future, but only when Apple does this to their iPhones lineup; the experience will be consistent and seamless; I'm not a fan boy, but one thing i'm sure is that they will release this and it will be like working on macOS, but you have it in your pocket.
I totally want to lose all of my desktop computer stuff when I smash my phone. “But you are not supposed to have anything locally, everything you do has to be in The Cloud”. You will own nothing and you will be happy. Not even any data.
215 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 253 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G#Accessories
Never bought but seemed interesting at the time.
Nice phone.-
Still, a great device to have around a pile of rPi's.
Although, I do prefer to just use my external LCD monitor .. far less likely to destroy the cables.
Anything that can be connected to an external display, keyboard, and mouse.
> why I should trust these people to pull it off when a bunch of other projects have come and gone that failed to do the same thing.
My NexDock has served me well for 7 years. Even if the company flopped tomorrow, it would continue to serve me for years. I don't see the risk here even if you don't trust the company to continue to thrive.
And while the site is badly designed, it does not have to explain why you should "trust these people". They should tell you what the product is, and for you to decide whether you like this product enough to buy it. Unless you suspect they'll run with your money (this isn't a kickstarter) or that the product claims are untruthful, trust is irrelevant.
The reason companies in this space fail is just because too few people have been interested in this class of product. Maybe one day, when smartphones are more powerful and these products are convenient enough.
> when a bunch of other projects have come and gone that failed to do the same thing
This has been "pulled off" successfully for a long time now. Nexdock themselves have been around and shipping different "convergence" products since at least 2016.
I just need a second phone so I can control my phone now. The Samsung remote control alas doesn't work with Linux, otherwise maybe I could try that (although I doubt it's really be all that.for this remote control case).
The older model that I have has a pretty terrible trackpad, does not have a touch screen, and does not fold back (I normally use my ergonomic keyboard with it). I think these are all resolved in newer models though.
Indeed. What a combo ...
Idea being that every once in a while I pop out the SD card, run the standard steam update, then wipe the overlay and reinstall the stuff I was using (I have a script to make that more convenient). If it seems I really did somehow mess up their setup beyond repair I can just remove the card, reboot (I did do that once, but I don't think it was my fault).
Main issue I've run into is the fact that Valve upstream repo is a hackish snapshot of Arch that is not maintained and was not entirely consistent at time of creation and is using old gpg keys. So, while 95% of stuff installs using it, there's 5% that requires installing while ignoring the signature and just trusting valve's server, or pulling in an older lib (I symlinked in one from valve's steam runtime once).
The other not-ideal thing about Valve is they really don't prioritise security patching, at all. It's astounding given the device does have an sshd running. Not to mention older problems like wifi vulnerabilities. Fortunately the recent ssh cve has a config workaround, or I'd probably just force-install an sshd from arch instead, or disable starting at boot.
... oh and pulling in new signatures for people does help sometimes. pacman -S archlinux-keyring , pacman-key / --populate / --refresh-keys /-r exact@name.org ... and since /etc persists during updates, sometimes you have to tell pacman to --overwrite since a prior install might still exist there. You could work around that by backing up /etc but, eh, it hasn't been a problem so far :D - there were no collisions on first install to /etc for any of them, so I assume everything was playing nice with existing valve /etc. And, well, valve did make that directory writeable ...
I use it for anything, gaming, web surfing, developing and sometimes even work (it does raise a few eyebrows when I take it out of the bag)
The big problem is the connection between nextdock and steamdeck: if I connect it directly via single usb-c cable I lose the ability to charge the steamdeck (the nextdock does not supply enough energy for keeping the steamdeck charged) and I also lose a lot of io (next dock as only one fullsize usb 3.0 port) so instead I use the steam-deck-dock and connect it to the nextdock with two cable (hdmi e usb) so that I can keep the steamdeck fully charged.
I would love to find an usb-c cable splitter so that I can have a device simultaneously connected to an usb-c pd charger and a second connection only for usb data, there are some but none of them support usb alt mode necessary to use external screen.
That basically shattered my dream of leaving my work laptop at home on short business trips. Well, that and it weighs as much as a laptop anyway so there wasn't actually a benefit.
I suspect the reason that mobile convergence hasn't been successful is that people like owning multiple devices that fit the mood you are in. My phone is for social stuff, my tablet is for entertainment stuff and my laptop is for work stuff. The thought of cramming all of those head-spaces into one device feels stressful, like putting all my eggs into one basket. I'm always very happy when I hear about updates to DeX or new convergence docks though
1:https://youtu.be/bk9-v8Sl4yU
Sounds reasonable.-
PS. As a counterpoint to that, many will I am sure remember how one PC *was* everything and one did everything on it. One per household, even ...
* counts 4 in the living room, about 10 servers in the lab, probably 20 computers in total in my single person home not including raspberry pis, mobiles or tablets :)
(Yet, I am sure, not atypical nowadays - if a bit above the mean ...)
I really love DeX and I just spent a whole week working with it as my primary computing device. I don't have a mobile dock though. The reason being that they're not an awful lot cheaper or lighter than a real laptop so what's the point.
True. Probably one of the biggest obstacles to adoption. Their price point pretty much overlaps with an entry-level laptop.-
Of all the things on my phone, the only thing I feel like I absolutely can't live without (in my phone) is my OneBusAway app that tells me when my next bus is coming.
Also: /shameless-plug-for-free-and-awesome-app :)
The same is true about these devices: yes, in a pinch you can grab that document and search for something but really when editing it you want not just a keyboard and larger display, but a bit more horsepower and different apps.
So I use to think a fancy dock like this would be good, but their continued failure has taught me a lot.
PS. I quite distinctly remember the point in time when I finally said my then desktop machine couldn't move video, and it really was time to consider an upgrade ...
(My 500 Mhz K6 II - DAE remember those AMD chips? - had finally become too slow. Video was 'unstoppable' ...
They felt like 1080p at the time.
That said, I could have and should have said Bluray, which came out in 2006 and did do 720 and 1080
At some point I procured a 1600x1200 monitor… but not until a later job after 2k with an SGI was my computer able to handle that resolution comfortably.
You make an interesting point: This *is* some sort of breakthrough point: When "average human textual input bandwidth" was matched ...
(This might be comparable to AI: Now we are trying to match "average human processing capacity" ...
Sluggish modem websites have no one to blame but themselves.
This really puts things in perspective ...
I think nostalgia gives rise colored glasses when if you were to put these things side by side you’d never actually go back.
Sure.-
(But "good" and "portable" [keyboard] are antagonistic here ...
... maybe, perhaps, someday, one of these "newfangled" projected keyboards, chord keyboards, one-handed keyboards, foldable keyboards ...
... will hit the mainstream.-
Modern Motorola phones have a similar feature.
VNC has been around for a long time.
It just seems like something people don't want to use. I'm not sure why, though?
I think these type of formats are decent for travelers.
My brother is a zoomer and the only computing device in his house is his mobile phone and work laptop. He does absolutely everything on his phone. I think we’re moving away from separated devices, honestly
Nah, I used to think the same thing about desktop vs laptop but turns out once laptops got good enough to be a true desktop replacement it was much better to just have one device. Phones aren't there yet, even if the raw processor speed numbers suggest they should be.
"Roughly every decade a new, lower priced computer class forms based on a new programming platform, network, and interface resulting in new usage and a new industry."
So we can say, generally, mainframes, minicomputers, workstations, microcomputers, laptops, smart phones, and now wearables (watches, rings, wallets, bracelets, glasses, etc)
Next we'll have something I'll call the Mckenzie corollary (that's me I guess):
"Roughly a decade or two after introduction, the lower price computer class will subsume the upper price computing class."
So the minicomputers took on mainframe tasks. The workstations took on the minicomputer tasks. The microcomputers took on the workstation tasks. Laptops took on the micros. All this happened with a significant lag time.
And now, the smartphones are vying for the laptops.
These are superstructural transformations and take years because a bunch of new things need to be invented, developed, mastered and widely deployed for it to happen.
We are roughly in the wearables and phones-become-laptops epoch.
"[The evolution of] human society, is a unique historical process ... Its description, however, is not a law, but only a singular historical statement."
If it's been good for 60 years so that might continue or maybe something unexpected will happen.
Popper's piecemeal alternative predicts nothing. The market trend analysis is at least accurate > 0% of the time. It's a non-scientific process with unquantifiable accuracy but it is empirically non-zero. For instance, Geofferey Moore's adoption curves proposed in 1991 are widely found but, every now and then, the galloping animal is a zebra. This doesn't mean you shouldn't plan for horses.
Presuming a decade or two from now people will connect their wearables powered by kinetic charging to foldable e-paper with a transparent solar panel layer is just a bet.
Maybe something radical will happen instead: The public payphone will come back as a public computer that people will biometrically log into after shunning personal electronics as toxic spy machines ruining society. Eh, probably not, but maybe.
With permission, I am going to put that on a t-shirt :)
So steal away
(As is the intellectual honesty :)
(And, don't forget, "mass adopted" ...)
That's important. Even more expensive brands in the purely functional space like Tektronix, DeWalt and Zojirushi can still command a preference and not for the same reason as Patek Philippe or Christian Louboutin.
Also when preferences aren't considered, the base observation can become rather risky.
For example, it implies a majority of American cars will eventually be electric microcars like the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV or Chery QQ Ice Cream because:
1. Most cars on the road were bought used and these cars cost less than a used car.
2. The battery efficiency of the smaller vehicle means you can charge it without special hardware in reasonable time.
3. The vehicle speed and range are increasingly adequate to satisfy most consumers needs.
Do I think an EV microcar revolution is coming to the US? No. There's zero evidence of that. American consumer preferences would need to change first.
Fickle human behavior is an X factor in any market.
Preferences can change however. Pretend Apple comes out with iCar, a sleek electric microcar or Costco introduces Kirkland CarTwo, a practical second car that charges in a few hours on a normal outlet. Perfect for teenagers and easy to park in small spaces. Cost? $89/month for 48 months.
I basically just pitched the Geely Panda Mini EV or a number of similar cars which have been in production for years. The tech is here. The American preferences are not. Not yet.
I'd like to ignore American Consumer Preferences and talk about engineering examples.
Linux/OSS/MySQL: These were seen as toy alternatives to the real thing. Linux eventually displaced all the proprietary Unix operating systems. And it still isn't at feature parity with some of those OSes decades later.
Same goes for X86 and Arm.
High margin stagnant businesses often get consumed by a toy entrant that crosses that inflection point where it does what it needs to do for 20% of price. When the cost of something is less than your margin, you are screwed.
On the ACP in regards to vehicles. Americans have been conned into liking low-end vehicles wrapped in a high-end sheen. SUVs are high margin vehicles partially because they are cheap pickup trucks. US auto manufacturers got their asses handed to them imports from Japan, where people did prefer smaller, lighter more efficient vehicles. There was then an effort across all auto companies to change the tastes of US car buyers so that foreign vehicles couldn't compete.
# Semantic Scholar links for the paper, "Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention"
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Experimental-evidence-...
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Supplementary-Material...
----
Evolution of opinions on social networks in the presence of competing committed groups
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22448238/
I've got an hour long talk with about 70 or so slides that talk about it
https://siliconfolklore.com/linux-corrections
If only there were a standardized protocol enabling browsers (could be any smart terminal protocol, but browsers exist now, and would mostly work) to securely connect to nearby devices, maybe even require a physical connection if you want extra safety.
Then instead of a specific dock you could use just about any capable laptop or desktop as an environment.
I don't think it can be done at the moment without an on-internet intermediary. A local discovery and connection system that the terminal(browser) could be aware of. Maybe this could be shoehorned into existing systems like Bluetooth.
You could get an absurd usb connection working if the phone appeared as both a file store as well as a keyboard that types in the commands to launch itself. I see no potential pitfalls with that approach.
I miss the thing all the time.
This is a great way to put it. "Recipes" were ahead of their time, but half-baked ...
My Pinephone Pro runs Plasma Mobile and yeah you can just plug it in to a USB-C dock with HDMI out and a mouse+keyboard plugged in and it scales up into a slightly odd desktop:)
Agree this is a big factor, but with peripherals to extend your smartphone into a laptop you do still have to own multiple “devices” (discrete units of physical hardware). If you’re already gonna have to lug around a dongle/adapter and one or more pieces of hardware (mouse, keyboard, screen) to get the laptop experience, you might as well just lug around an entire laptop.
Also, “cloud” software (not just things like Google docs, but the widespread use of web applications allowing you to log in to some app from anywhere) has solved a lot of the biggest problems in this space. You can easily access all the important things on your phone from a laptop, unless you go out of your way to not upload something somewhere. So being able to convert a smartphone into a laptop is mostly about saving money on hardware (which may not be that much. Do you pay $200 for peripherals to get an underpowered laptop powered by a phone, or a mid-like laptop?) or addressing a very niche UX need.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_Duo#Docking_stations
Do they offer international key layouts yet (Swedish specifically)?
Also i find the dimensions a bit funny, 320x240 :)
NexDock 360 works pretty well with the Pixel 8a in desktop mode so far
The Khadas Mind, which has been controversial in tech reviewer circles, kind of carries itself like that: https://www.khadas.com/mind
The pricing is all off, but the model has potential.
It's still using mirror mode by default. There's a Desktop mode you can enable in developer settings which works well with the NexDock hardware, but the desktop mode UI is still pretty buggy at the moment.
I love that I can just use my phone for virtually everything I use my laptop for (developing probably being the only obsticle).
I've been considering some of the other options out there for portable monitor/keyboards and these seem (so far) the most affordable option. I wonder how the build quality it.
I used to write software on my phone using termux (usually via DeX).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C1VSRZ59/
You don't get the large display, but you get a full keyboard/trackpad for $50 at Amazon. It's great when I'm on the road or traveling and need to write stuff on Google Docs. I don't bring my laptop when I travel -- just my phone, iPad and a keyboard like the above. I get to travel really light.
The user experience to operate / change modes was exceptionally poor. I figure plug in the HDMI from the computer plug in the provided USB cable and it's smooth sailing. but that was not the case at all.
Connecting a device was difficult to get working but it varied by which device.
I hope they are better now. It is a great idea.
The SOC and storage you’re saving by using your phone aren’t the most expensive items. A good 14” screen, keyboard, trackpad and battery aren’t cheap. And if you’re paying $300 for them, you might as well throw in a few hundred dollars more and get a full laptop.
I can get a working LCD screen, keyboard and mouse from my local thrift shop for $20, whereas the cheapest new laptop is at least $200.
Very much so. For a number of years already.
What you described is actually an use case. Hadn't considered the 'second hand' peripheral options ...
On it's face, merging the device we have in our pocket and on our desk makes so much sense. The biggest difference being screen size.
[0] https://www.cnet.com/reviews/neptune-duo-preview/ [1] https://m.gsmarena.com/asus_padfone-3965.php [2] https://m.gsmarena.com/asus_transformer_tf101-3936.php
Might be kinda useful if the pendulum swings back towards actually storing all your data on your own devices instead of in the clown. And if anyone starts writing actual tools for Desktop Android.
That's the best typo ever, I had an extension for chrome many years ago that allowed to replace "cloud" with a different word for funsies because it was used everywhere, might ressurect it using clown.
PS. Actually, it might be a good word for "self hosted cloud" setups, where you "[c]loud [own] (as in, 'ownership')" your data and infra is under user control ...
(I was doing "portable" using a then-huge 8'' 'generic android phablet' with a foldable Bluetooth keyboard a few years back ...)
You can easily sync your media to a server you own (Immich or NextCloud), Notes can live in Obsidian, which syncs to a place you control etc.
This will be the future, but only when Apple does this to their iPhones lineup; the experience will be consistent and seamless; I'm not a fan boy, but one thing i'm sure is that they will release this and it will be like working on macOS, but you have it in your pocket.
... and - methinks - couple it with JobsAI :)
... somehow, maybe through a "token hardware" AI device. "AIOT" (?).-