I wonder if replacing laptops with smartphones based computers has a potential to ever become mainstream. Instead of carrying a laptop, use your phone + foldable display + keyboard and mouse. This could be more ergonomic than laptops, you could have larger display, placed higher and further away, and use a more comfortable keyboard. It could also be smaller and lighter in total than carrying the laptop.
This has been tried several times (most notably Samsung Dex; but long, long back by Motorola in Atrix circa 2011) - nobody wanted it because the display plus the keyboard and a mouse is as heavy as a laptop.
You don't carry around the screen/peripherals. You arrive at a workstation and just plug in your phone. The monitor/mouse/keyboard are already there. You can work while on the go or out/about and then setup at a workstation instantly.
Dex is actually useful and I see people using it in business settings somewhat often. Basically anywhere a chromebook is useful Dex also fills that niche surprisingly well.
on android there's also windows connect or whatever it's called so you can pretty seamlessly use your windows laptop and samsung phone side by side. Everything syncs nearly instantly, including texts/phone calls. It's pretty rad when it works properly.
>You don't carry around the screen/peripherals. You arrive at a workstation and just plug in your phone. The monitor/mouse/keyboard are already there. You can work while on the go or out/about and then setup at a workstation instantly.
At that point, why are the peripherals not just accompanied by device with a CPU & internet connection?
As an ergo nerd who has played around with a ton of different form factors, including exactly the one you describe, I'm genuinely starting to believe that wearable tech, i.e. 'XR' glasses, is the most promising in this space. Something like this[0] but with a phone instead of the computer.
I plug the Viture XR pros into my Samsung phone and put them on, I get a beautiful 1080p screen projected 3m in front of me, the phone becomes a touchpad, and I have a low profile bluetooth split I type on. Very comfortable, very usable everywhere, including while you're walking around (not that I do this very often). It looks a little dorky but less with every iteration, and way less so than having an Oculus on your head. Not to mention that the quality of the displays is incredible.
One of the main issues with the infamous butterfly keyboard Apple put on MacBooks a few years ago was the near lack of tactile feedback. It had feedback, but not nearly enough for a half-decent typing experience. Zero tactical feedback is probably 100x worse than that.
There’s a crazy guy who’s the author of my favorite neovim plugin called markview that has 2k+ stars on github, he does everything from his phone, but I have no idea how lol
