Razer Shows Off Android Laptop/Phone Hybrid Concept

[starshipeleven]

True but half the appeal of the setup Razer has

It's better only if the app supports 2 screens and can split touch controls to be shown on the phone while running the non-touch screen on the actual screen.

If app does not support their setup (which is imho 99.9%+ of apps since I'm sure none will really bother), then with screencasting you're not losing anything.

The product which should give best penetration in current environment and would not sound stupid crap (IMHO) would be to have a miracast/AirPlay screen with touch too, which pipes the touch events to bluetooth (so it appears as a bluetooth mouse or something).

That way you can connect anything to it, and all apps will support it (as it will just be a larger touchscreen).

[starshipeleven]

Why am I suggesting iPhone and iOS instead of Android devices?

Because you're not up-to-date about technology?

Pretty much anything, even Samsung devices in the 200-300$ price range are more than sufficient to do anything that isn't heavy "gaming" nowadays, you can change them once a year and sell the older one for half the price, and it will still sell.

phones and tablets are about media consumption not creation so I could care less whether the platform is closed so long as it does a good job of delivering content to me...

This defies the point of needing a very powerful processor. Besides, all media is decoded in hardware accelerators anyway, if you are doing it in software on a mobile device you're doing it wrong.

high performance means I'll be happy with it a lot longer

Depends from what were the starting levels of performance (see above), and how much it degrades over time. Apple devices are well-known for artificially degrading the performance over time (the official statment said it's for improving battery life on older batteries).
Android devices are rarely updated at all beyond security (newer ones ver 7.something do have better security updates), so unless the apps you use become significantly heavier (hint: not really common) then the device will keep working fine.

Not only is Android low-performance,

This is bullshit since at least 2 years. Even Samsung with their LagWiz interface are good enough even with midrange devices.

Huawei or Xiaomi are great brands with a decent foot hold in EU, if you are not in Europe you can still use Sony and LG.

it's fragmented too heavily even within a single manufacturer.

Less so if we are not talking of Samsung.

offer me great value for accessories and addons.

Yeah, right. The same stuff just made white for the sake of looking better with an iPhone costs 30% to twice as much.
Official Apple accessories are not great value either. Looking nice, but not great value.

What is true is that you have a lot of choice, since everyone and their dog will have accessories for iPhones, while the same isn't true for most midrange or lesser Android phones.

[grok]

There was the crowdfunded $99 laptop shell, I wonder what's the status of it? It went with display over USB (just USB, not some HDMI or DP scheme, nor networking)
What's proprietary there is the Displaylink USB chip.

There might be a strong tendency to overthink and overengineer all of this, forget about the atomics and turbo lasers then you might have a $99 phone, a $99 pseudo laptop and a USB wire between them which you need to power the phone anyway.

At worst you don't have a special OS either, just the basic mouse pointer support.
A wireless capable laptop shell would be a further option, or one with DP and HDMI over USB-C, or one with touch screen but let's get the basics going first?

[starshipeleven]

There might be a strong tendency to overthink and overengineer all of this, forget about the atomics and turbo lasers then you might have a $99 phone, a $99 pseudo laptop and a USB wire between them which you need to power the phone anyway.

USB on phones can be either be host (providing power to guest devices) or guest (receiving power for the phone), it can't do both.

Only a few select models had the ability to be in host mode while receiving power to power themselves.

[linuxgeex]

Because you're not up-to-date about technology?

Pretty much anything, even Samsung devices in the 200-300$ price range are more than sufficient to do anything that isn't heavy "gaming" nowadays, you can change them once a year and sell the older one for half the price, and it will still sell.

This defies the point of needing a very powerful processor. Besides, all media is decoded in hardware accelerators anyway, if you are doing it in software on a mobile device you're doing it wrong.

Depends from what were the starting levels of performance (see above), and how much it degrades over time. Apple devices are well-known for artificially degrading the performance over time (the official statment said it's for improving battery life on older batteries).
Android devices are rarely updated at all beyond security (newer ones ver 7.something do have better security updates), so unless the apps you use become significantly heavier (hint: not really common) then the device will keep working fine.

This is bullshit since at least 2 years. Even Samsung with their LagWiz interface are good enough even with midrange devices.

Huawei or Xiaomi are great brands with a decent foot hold in EU, if you are not in Europe you can still use Sony and LG.

Less so if we are not talking of Samsung.

Yeah, right. The same stuff just made white for the sake of looking better with an iPhone costs 30% to twice as much.
Official Apple accessories are not great value either. Looking nice, but not great value.

What is true is that you have a lot of choice, since everyone and their dog will have accessories for iPhones, while the same isn't true for most midrange or lesser Android phones.

You sound like me 3y3mo ago before I got a 5s to appease my girlfriend. Honestly I hated it. Especially the lack of back button, and that still irks me. I still find the software selection far better on the Android market, especially if you consider cost. For build quality, meh... I didn't find the iPhone any better or worst than my RazorHD, nor did I really appreciate the build quality any more than the $99 LG Optimus One I had for three years leading to the RazorHD. What I found was that the iPhone 5s ran circles around the Androids of its day, and it didn't cost me a penny more. The 8 Plus destroys anything from the Android camp, in any field other than freedom and perhaps software selection. If you want to stream to your TV, Android will stutter, even with the Pixel2 and a Roku. I know because I make fun of my cousin all the time when I'm at my brother's place, and I love to tease him exactly because I still respect the reasons he's made his choices. They just aren't choices I will make myself until Android gets competitive. Half the single-core speed isn't competitive, and no amount of fandom will every change that fact. Just like when I moved from the Amiga community to the PC community to get a Pentium-class CPU. Amiga was great. PC sucked, but it was fast, and I care about fast.

[linuxgeex]

USB on phones can be either be host (providing power to guest devices) or guest (receiving power for the phone), it can't do both.

Only a few select models had the ability to be in host mode while receiving power to power themselves.

USB-C has that capability. With USB-A it's one or the other at a time, yes. If your phone has a USB-OTG cable, then when you plug something into that OTG output then the phone powers that device and the phone generally can't be charged unless it has 2 USB-A ports... I remember seeing a review of such a phone on UnboxTherapy but for the life of me can't rememeber what make/model it was... only that it was very recent (last 2 months) and quite thick, basically a mini-PC phone hence the multiple ports.