Ubuntu Edge Is Up To $9 Million USD In Funding

[uid313]

,

While it may seem like a neat idea on paper, IMO there are a few practical hurdles that come to mind that render the "phone as your desktop/laptop" concept of the Ubuntu Edge impractical:

• What happens if you loose your phone or it develops a fault?
• If you still need a keyboard etc. to use it as a desktop, why not go the full hog and have a full desktop system?
• What happens if you receive a call when the phone is being used as a desktop and you don't want to use a loudspeaker?

Motorola tried the similar idea with the Atrix phone and it's netbook-like dock, it wasn't a success.

1. Same thing as happens if you lose your laptop or it develops a fault. Always keep backups. File police report. Use find-my-phone services.

2. You dock it in your keyboard/mouse/screen at home, then you goto work and dock it in there, then goto friends house and dock it in there. Just bring the phone, not the other stuff. Borrow the keyboard/mouse at work or friends place.

3. Then you use a Bluetooth headset.

[GreatEmerald]

2. You dock it in your keyboard/mouse/screen at home, then you goto work and dock it in there, then goto friends house and dock it in there. Just bring the phone, not the other stuff. Borrow the keyboard/mouse at work or friends place.

Your phone will clearly have several standard USB ports, a VGA port, a PS/2 port, etc.

[uid313]

Your phone will clearly have several standard USB ports, a VGA port, a PS/2 port, etc.

Bluetooth keyboard, Bluetooth mouse and WiDi/Miracast/WirelessHD/WHDI display.
So the phone needs absolutely no physical ports at all, it does it all wireless!

Or you place your phone in a dock, and the dock have two USB ports and a HDMI port.

[GreatEmerald]

Bluetooth keyboard, Bluetooth mouse and WiDi/Miracast/WirelessHD/WHDI display.
So the phone needs absolutely no physical ports at all, it does it all wireless!

Or you place your phone in a dock, and the dock have two USB ports and a HDMI port.

Thus you either can no longer borrow the peripherals from others, making your phone usable as a desktop only in your home (so you're still better off with an all-in-one), or have to lug a dock around (which is just the same thing as lugging a laptop).

[danielnez1]

1. Same thing as happens if you lose your laptop or it develops a fault. Always keep backups. File police report. Use find-my-phone services.

Even if you do all of those things, for a certain amount of time you are still without your phone and have no redundancy.

2. You dock it in your keyboard/mouse/screen at home, then you goto work and dock it in there, then goto friends house and dock it in there. Just bring the phone, not the other stuff. Borrow the keyboard/mouse at work or friends place.

What about if you and a bunch of your friends want to play a Multiplayer game?

3. Then you use a Bluetooth headset.

Yay, more accessories to buy!

For all in intents and purposes, I don't think the concept will work, others have tried similar things and failed (i.e. Motorola). The only was I could see it working is if the device could magically transform from a Phone to a full size Laptop etc.

[dee.]

To get rid of your laptop and your desktop.
Only have a phone.
Take it wherever you go, and dock it to a keyboard, mouse and screen and it should be powerful enough to do real work.

I look forward to 8-core 64-bit phones with 8 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD.

I've been telling people for years... this needs to be filed in the "cool but impractical" folder.

There's simply no practical benefit you could get from this type of convergence. Any possible benefit you could get from using your phone as a desktop computer, you could also gain from simply having both a phone + desktop computer with a well-designed interface and sync between them, but the same is not true the other way around - the phone-as-desktop convergence is the inferior solution, because it places all of your data in a single point of failure that is much easier to lose, break or have stolen than desktop or even laptop computers.

You're also talking as if there are places with keyboards, mouses and screens just waiting to mate with your convergence-phone. Where are these places? Usually, where there are keyboards, mouses and screens, those are already attached to desktop CPU's, because why would people just have keyboards, mouses and screens hanging around... just to be hospitable on the off chance that someone wants to stick their phone in them? I don't think so. And if you have to carry around your own screen, keyboard and mouse, well then it kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?


Now, since I don't want to bash down ideas without proposing something better...

A good solution would be to have a desktop/laptop computer that has a dock for a phone, but also works as a stand-alone computer. Better yet, do away with the dock and just have configurable, automatic connection between the phone + computer whenever the phone comes in wifi/bluetooth range (Of course there needs to be security measures implemented, so that someone can't just impersonate your phone or computer, but that's trivial to implement with key pairs). As soon as you walk to your home, the phone in your pocket connects automatically with your computer, syncs the storage, browser data, other app data (calendar, notes, etc.), all configurable of course. Then, both the phone and desktop computer can even have different OS's, both linux based, but they'd have tools for interoperability - the computer could have some nice, basic Linux distro, the phone could have Sailfish, Mer/Nemo, Tizen or similar... you'd have the option to remote to your computer from your phone and use the desktop from there, or you could remote to your phone from your computer...

All of this is better than having all your data, all your computing capability in one point of failure that you carry around with you... home computers (ones that never or almost never leave your home) are still very much useful, for practical reasons as well as security.

[intellivision]

Thus you either can no longer borrow the peripherals from others, making your phone usable as a desktop only in your home (so you're still better off with an all-in-one), or have to lug a dock around (which is just the same thing as lugging a laptop).

A proprietary dock isn't the only solution.
A breakout cable with HDMI, USB and possibly 3.5mm audio output would be sufficient for a more portable solution.

Then there's the option of a company developing a portable lapdock or dumbtop for this and other similar devices. Past examples of these devices include the Motorola Lapdock and the Celio Redfly.

[GreatEmerald]

A proprietary dock isn't the only solution.
A breakout cable with HDMI, USB and possibly 3.5mm audio output would be sufficient for a more portable solution.

As mentioned by dee., you won't have spare peripherals anyway, and even if you do, you can't be sure they will be compatible (some monitors are VGA-only, some are DVI-only; while most keyboards/mice are USB, the spare ones may very well be PS/2).

And that's not even talking about the phone's battery life and performance when "docked".

[intellivision]

As mentioned by dee., you won't have spare peripherals anyway, and even if you do, you can't be sure they will be compatible (some monitors are VGA-only, some are DVI-only; while most keyboards/mice are USB, the spare ones may very well be PS/2).

And that's not even talking about the phone's battery life and performance when "docked".

Most monitors released in the last 5 years or more use HDMI as a standard, same goes for peripherals since USB has largely replaced PS/2.
I know what you're trying to say, but it simply isn't an issue these days.
And as for charging, that could easily be achieved with having a USB charging cable. These simply aren't problems that 70+% of the potential market will experience.

[uid313]

And that's not even talking about the phone's battery life and performance when "docked".

It can be on power and charge when docked.
So whenever you undock, it will have full battery charge!