Smartphone as laptop replacement?

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Everyone's talking about whether a tablet can replace a laptop, but what about a smartphone? After Windows XP went bye-bye, my old Asus EeePC netbook became a paperweight. I was able to install Win 8.1, but it's below minimum resolution for most programs and lag is horrific even on basic websites. Around the same time I discovered that keyboard and mouse support is fully implemented in Android, and as long as I can prop it up and don't sit far away, the 5.5" screen on my LG G3 is better than expected for web browsing and e-mail. This all made me wonder if I could stop lugging my netbook around and do everything that doesn't require desktop-level processing power from the smartphone, and maybe even hook up an HDMI monitor with an MHL cable for the office. It's certainly a lot faster and more responsive than my piece of shit netbook, and I don't need to access any special programs. Has anyone experienced success or failure with this type of setup? Also, if it's not feasible for most people to use a phone this way today, will that change later this year when Windows 10 phones come out?

[Iroscato]

While I don't have a setup to replace my laptop as you described, I do basically 90% of my browsing on my lumia 820 - and that's now a fairly obselete model. However, seeing as it supports screen projection and can use bluetooth keyboards, I could in theory replace my laptop at least partially and hardly notice the difference. It's an interesting concept, actually.

[Zaune]

Ask yourself this. Do you really want to watch porn on a screen the size of a fag packet?

And try putting Linux Mint, Lubuntu or some other small-footprint Linux distro on the Eee PC instead. It won't be great, but at least you'll be able to touch-type on it.

[Iroscato]

Ask yourself this. Do you really want to watch porn on a screen the size of a fag packet?

I manage fine, normally. Occasionally I break out my Big Bertha pc with surround sound for the full experience, but it usually does the trick for an afternoon release

[Zaune]

More information than I really wanted, thank you...

[Iroscato]

Really? Shit, I was holding back
Back to the topic, I am fascinated by how phones have basically morphed into all-in-one entertainment devices. We may have to come up with a new name for them, somewhere down the line. 'Phone' is...no longer adequate.

[Terralthra]

Exocortex.

And I second Xubuntu/Lubuntu on the EeePC. That's what I used on mine.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I used Linux Mint for a while but was having trouble getting the office printer to print, and company tech support wouldn't help me since I was running Linux. I later learned that I just needed to input my user code under properties, though, so I'll probably switch back. It's a lot faster and smoother than W 8.1. Even so, it would be nice to downsize the briefcase and run everything from the phone.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. A few things I'd like to toss out there on the contrary side:

If you're already committed to lugging around a keyboard, while your keyboard/phone/mouse combo may be smaller than a laptop, it's not necessarily that much smaller. If the extra bulk really does inconvenience you, fine- but it's not like being able to replace a briefcase with something that slips into your pocket.

The laptop's larger display may not be required to browse one thing at a time, but if you do things that involve looking at more than one thing and bouncing between them, or displaying large amounts of text for you to read, then a 5.5" screen wouldn't cut it for me. Fine for reading a 100-word email, not so fine for reading the long PDF attached to that email.

Having a laptop means you have a backup to whatever desktop computer you're now using, that is fully functional as a computer rather than being able to just manage the basics. At the very least you'd probably want a phone that carries its own printer drivers- and while those may be on the market I haven't heard anything about them (although I haven't looked that hard, so take my opinion with grain of salt)

Having a laptop means you have a fully functional computer if you happen to need to travel, or to spend substantial time on public transportation all of a sudden... rather than having to choose between full function in a machine too bulky to transport, and minimalist function in a device you could transport anywhere.

Of course, any of this might or might not matter. With sufficient ingenuity and willingness to make compromises you can probably make it work.

[Executor32]

You can actually get print service apps from most of the major manufacturers through the Play Store. Google's own Cloud Print app is also an option.

[General Zod]

They've got some decent tablets out there that are pretty dirt cheap. You can pick up a 7" Stream tablet from HP for $100 most places and it's running a full version of Windows 8.1. I've seen a few demos out there and it's even capable of playing some games like Fallout 3 or Modern Warfare at the lowest possible settings.

In my experience phones are okay for some things but anything complicated just makes it more time consuming than it's worth.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Hm. A few things I'd like to toss out there on the contrary side:

If you're already committed to lugging around a keyboard, while your keyboard/phone/mouse combo may be smaller than a laptop, it's not necessarily that much smaller. If the extra bulk really does inconvenience you, fine- but it's not like being able to replace a briefcase with something that slips into your pocket.

Between the lappy itself and its AC/DC power adapter, it makes a pretty huge difference, especially if I'm carrying one of those new slim Bluetooth keyboard / trackpads. Goes from eating 50-60% of my usable bag space to maybe 20%.

The laptop's larger display may not be required to browse one thing at a time, but if you do things that involve looking at more than one thing and bouncing between them, or displaying large amounts of text for you to read, then a 5.5" screen wouldn't cut it for me. Fine for reading a 100-word email, not so fine for reading the long PDF attached to that email.

That's true, I do tend to start reading an article and then switch to check my e-mail or the office newsletter halfway through, and that would be very cumbersome on a phone. But hey, multi-tasking is bad anyway, right?

Having a laptop means you have a backup to whatever desktop computer you're now using, that is fully functional as a computer rather than being able to just manage the basics. At the very least you'd probably want a phone that carries its own printer drivers- and while those may be on the market I haven't heard anything about them (although I haven't looked that hard, so take my opinion with grain of salt)

Ironically, the printer was actually easier to set up on the phone than the laptop through the manufacturer's app. I do appreciate the idea of a fully functional PC, but that 1.66 GHz Atom processor is just so damn slow for modern programs that I can't see myself using it for anything my phone couldn't do faster and prettier.

Having a laptop means you have a fully functional computer if you happen to need to travel, or to spend substantial time on public transportation all of a sudden... rather than having to choose between full function in a machine too bulky to transport, and minimalist function in a device you could transport anywhere.

Of course, any of this might or might not matter. With sufficient ingenuity and willingness to make compromises you can probably make it work.

I'll try it and report back. I really think that a lot of people are going to be doing this in 5 years, and I'm happy to be the vanguard guinea pig.

They've got some decent tablets out there that are pretty dirt cheap. You can pick up a 7" Stream tablet from HP for $100 most places and it's running a full version of Windows 8.1. I've seen a few demos out there and it's even capable of playing some games like Fallout 3 or Modern Warfare at the lowest possible settings.

In my experience phones are okay for some things but anything complicated just makes it more time consuming than it's worth.

Yeah, but what does a 7" tablet really bring to the table that a 5.5" phablet doesn't? Also, I'd argue that once you attach a keyboard with a trackpad and stand the phone horizontally, it becomes pretty close to a low-end laptop experience, and better than a tablet without the peripheral. The only hangup is having to pinch the screen to zoom in and out, but maybe there are keyboard shortcuts that I'm not aware of.

[General Zod]

Yeah, but what does a 7" tablet really bring to the table that a 5.5" phablet doesn't? Also, I'd argue that once you attach a keyboard with a trackpad and stand the phone horizontally, it becomes pretty close to a low-end laptop experience, and better than a tablet without the peripheral. The only hangup is having to pinch the screen to zoom in and out, but maybe there are keyboard shortcuts that I'm not aware of.

Depends on how much you really want to use Windows. With a dedicated tablet you don't have to worry about hardware optimization.

[houser2112]

I do appreciate the idea of a fully functional PC, but that 1.66 GHz Atom processor is just so damn slow for modern programs that I can't see myself using it for anything my phone couldn't do faster and prettier.

It sounds to me as if you're comparing your "phablet" to THAT laptop, which is inadequate because THAT laptop is a bit long in the tooth. Simon_Jester is comparing the phablet to any particular laptop, which is a fully-armed and operational computer without the limitations of the typical mobile device.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes. Your laptop may be old and inferior, but a replacement laptop, while costing a few hundred dollars, isn't crippling. And its extra capabilities might well pay off, if nothing else in terms of the peripherals you don't end up having to buy.

That's true, I do tend to start reading an article and then switch to check my e-mail or the office newsletter halfway through, and that would be very cumbersome on a phone. But hey, multi-tasking is bad anyway, right?

Sometimes it's not even multitasking. It's me wanting to take numbers from a page on a web-browser and insert them into a spreadsheet, when the web-browser can't be persuaded to create a .csv file easily.

If I can just open the web browser on one side of my screen and the spreadsheet on the other I'm good to go. If I can only have one up at once, it's a huge productivity drain.

Having a laptop means you have a fully functional computer if you happen to need to travel, or to spend substantial time on public transportation all of a sudden... rather than having to choose between full function in a machine too bulky to transport, and minimalist function in a device you could transport anywhere.

Of course, any of this might or might not matter. With sufficient ingenuity and willingness to make compromises you can probably make it work.

I'll try it and report back. I really think that a lot of people are going to be doing this in 5 years, and I'm happy to be the vanguard guinea pig.

Well, I figure restaurant tips on a slide rule, so don't take my word for much of anything. I just wanted to mention this stuff.

People often don't think about the capabilities they give up by going to smaller, more 'portable' and convenient devices.

Plus I've become intrinsically averse to smartphones because in my profession they're probably doing more to hurt the educability of the current generation of high school students than crack cocaine...

[Joun_Lord]

Plus I've become intrinsically averse to smartphones because in my profession they're probably doing more to hurt the educability of the current generation of high school students than crack cocaine...

You ever hear anyone say that modern kids are smarter then old timers because they have phones always connected to Google and Wikipedia? My nephew said that and he was dead serious.

Children are becoming like dumb computer terminals, holding no information of their own but instead relying on a offsite server to think.

On topic, if you know a bit about computer repair and money is tight you can hunt for a replacement laptop on Ebay that might be a little beat-up or missing parts for pretty cheap. I got a 2012 Compaq for about 60 bucks with a fucked up keyboard and no hard drive or RAM a little while ago to fix up for a family member. Even giving it 4 gigs of RAM and a solid state drive all told I probably spent less then 150 on it and it runs pretty decently.

I see deals like that all the time. Something to look into if you don't need a super new laptop but just one newer then what you got.

[Terralthra]

People who bitch about having devices that can access reference libraries measurable in petabytes are so stupid I don't understand how you think brains work. Human memory is bad. There are huge limits on what humans can remember, and they aren't even clear or bright borders: your memory doesn't clearly report to you "I don't remember this fact," it gives you the wrong fact.

Offloading that onto something that is capable of perfect recall lets you spend your neurons on thinking and remembering your own experience and perceiving things in the world, and that's a huge win.

Smartphones are bad because they are distractions to concentrated focused learning, not because they provide easy access to vast libraries of information.

I'm less concerned as a professional educator with whether or not someone can remember all of Maxwell's field equations by heart (which is a neat trick, but is just that, a trick) than whether someone can correctly identify known variables, unknown variables, and decide which equation to use. That's the skill. Knowing the equation makes that a little faster, but knowing "I need one of Maxwell's equations, lemme look at them real quick," is perfectly adequate for 99.9% of situations.

[Terralthra]

More on-topic, I have a used laptop that is reasonable vintage, which I can sell for like $75 plus shipping from CA.

[Joun_Lord]

People who bitch about having devices that can access reference libraries measurable in petabytes are so stupid I don't understand how you think brains work. Human memory is bad. There are huge limits on what humans can remember, and they aren't even clear or bright borders: your memory doesn't clearly report to you "I don't remember this fact," it gives you the wrong fact.

Offloading that onto something that is capable of perfect recall lets you spend your neurons on thinking and remembering your own experience and perceiving things in the world, and that's a huge win.

Smartphones are bad because they are distractions to concentrated focused learning, not because they provide easy access to vast libraries of information.

I'm less concerned as a professional educator with whether or not someone can remember all of Maxwell's field equations by heart (which is a neat trick, but is just that, a trick) than whether someone can correctly identify known variables, unknown variables, and decide which equation to use. That's the skill. Knowing the equation makes that a little faster, but knowing "I need one of Maxwell's equations, lemme look at them real quick," is perfectly adequate for 99.9% of situations.

There is nothing wrong with augmenting ones own knowledge with the reams of knowledge available at a touch.

It starts to become a problem when all a persons knowledge is online and they think they are smarter for it. Its the problem of calculators magnified, where people think they don't need to know math because they can just get a calculator to do it for them. Now kids seem to think they don't need to know anything because Google will tell them.

[Jub]

People who bitch about having devices that can access reference libraries measurable in petabytes are so stupid I don't understand how you think brains work. Human memory is bad. There are huge limits on what humans can remember, and they aren't even clear or bright borders: your memory doesn't clearly report to you "I don't remember this fact," it gives you the wrong fact.

Offloading that onto something that is capable of perfect recall lets you spend your neurons on thinking and remembering your own experience and perceiving things in the world, and that's a huge win.

Smartphones are bad because they are distractions to concentrated focused learning, not because they provide easy access to vast libraries of information.

I'm less concerned as a professional educator with whether or not someone can remember all of Maxwell's field equations by heart (which is a neat trick, but is just that, a trick) than whether someone can correctly identify known variables, unknown variables, and decide which equation to use. That's the skill. Knowing the equation makes that a little faster, but knowing "I need one of Maxwell's equations, lemme look at them real quick," is perfectly adequate for 99.9% of situations.

This has been my experience, we could let kids take devices into a test to look things up and make the tests about demonstrating knowledge rather than memorizing things. Sure it means not reusing tests any more and ensuring that there are multiple tests handed out per classroom so students don't cheat, but there aren't many situations these days where one can't juts look something up. Even cheating by asking another student for answers is kind of like the networking I do at my job when I ask the tier 2 support guys for help with a problem I don't have the info/know how to solve.

The biggest issue with schools and phone is that the schools and teaching methods are archaic, outdated, and unlikely to change any time soon. It's one of the largest reasons that I won't become a teacher in spite of my love of passing on knowledge.

There is nothing wrong with augmenting ones own knowledge with the reams of knowledge available at a touch.

It starts to become a problem when all a persons knowledge is online and they think they are smarter for it. Its the problem of calculators magnified, where people think they don't need to know math because they can just get a calculator to do it for them. Now kids seem to think they don't need to know anything because Google will tell them.

Then let these kids fail for once, learn their lesson and try again next year. Letting people fail for shit like this is one of the things that educators seem to have forgotten how to do.

[Darmalus]

Then let these kids fail for once, learn their lesson and try again next year. Letting people fail for shit like this is one of the things that educators seem to have forgotten how to do.

The current system punishes educators harder for failed students than the students themselves. Simon Jester can no doubt go into the details of the mental calculus used to determine if it's worth it to fail a student or fudge the grades and shovel them along.

[Jub]

Then let these kids fail for once, learn their lesson and try again next year. Letting people fail for shit like this is one of the things that educators seem to have forgotten how to do.

The current system punishes educators harder for failed students than the students themselves. Simon Jester can no doubt go into the details of the mental calculus used to determine if it's worth it to fail a student or fudge the grades and shovel them along.

That's the system being broken, not cellphones being an issue. A system that can't adapt to the times is a system that has already failed, and the US education system is broken, misguided, and politicized all to hell and going nowhere fast in terms of productive reform.

[J]

For me? No. Won't work without a lot of tears and broken windows. From my throwing the phone through them in frustration. My work requires a lot of research, report & presentation writing, these take the form of documents with lots of embedded charts, tables, and other stuff like that, mixed in with sidebars, footnotes and lots of text. Creating all this on anything short of a workstation or business class laptop (a Lenovo W530 in my case) leads to thrown objects & office rampages.

[Simon_Jester]

People who bitch about having devices that can access reference libraries measurable in petabytes are so stupid I don't understand how you think brains work. Human memory is bad. There are huge limits on what humans can remember, and they aren't even clear or bright borders: your memory doesn't clearly report to you "I don't remember this fact," it gives you the wrong fact.

Offloading that onto something that is capable of perfect recall lets you spend your neurons on thinking and remembering your own experience and perceiving things in the world, and that's a huge win.

Smartphones are bad because they are distractions to concentrated focused learning, not because they provide easy access to vast libraries of information.

Yes; the obstacle is the distraction power. Students are given a shiny toy at thirteen, one which the teacher cannot easily confiscate because it cost hundreds of dollars and the parents don't want it lost.

They start being obsessed with the shiny toy... the access it allows to their social network... and they never think again.

So you end up with alleged college students whose brains have still not matured beyond whatever level they were at when they were thirteen, simply because they never did any thinking hard enough to put their brain to the test beyond that time.

Which is even worse when the child was behind grade level then, because then you have mental ten year olds wandering around in eighteen year old bodies, with eighteen year old belligerence and hormones.

This has been my experience, we could let kids take devices into a test to look things up and make the tests about demonstrating knowledge rather than memorizing things. Sure it means not reusing tests any more and ensuring that there are multiple tests handed out per classroom so students don't cheat, but there aren't many situations these days where one can't juts look something up. Even cheating by asking another student for answers is kind of like the networking I do at my job when I ask the tier 2 support guys for help with a problem I don't have the info/know how to solve.

Except then you do not have an accurate measure of what that individual person knows, which means you cannot certify that they know what they are expected to know.

The fact that you have a good friend willing to tell you how to do your math and write your essays doesn't mean you should get a diploma. It doesn't mean you should be accepted to college. It doesn't mean you should get hired.

All the knowledge is in your friend's head, so all the credentials should go to them, not you. And who in their right mind would hire someone for money to do a job when every time they hit a problem of more than trivial difficulty, they have to call a friend? At that point it makes more sense to just hire the friend and have done with it.

The biggest issue with schools and phone is that the schools and teaching methods are archaic, outdated, and unlikely to change any time soon. It's one of the largest reasons that I won't become a teacher in spite of my love of passing on knowledge.

Actually, schools all over the US (I can't speak for other nations) are scrambling to adopt modern technology. The problem isn't resistance to the technology. The problem is figuring out how the hell to get useful results from the technology. Especially when special software is called for.

Don't speak so confidently about practices in a profession of which you are ignorant.

There is nothing wrong with augmenting ones own knowledge with the reams of knowledge available at a touch.

It starts to become a problem when all a persons knowledge is online and they think they are smarter for it. Its the problem of calculators magnified, where people think they don't need to know math because they can just get a calculator to do it for them. Now kids seem to think they don't need to know anything because Google will tell them.

Then let these kids fail for once, learn their lesson and try again next year. Letting people fail for shit like this is one of the things that educators seem to have forgotten how to do.

Educators remember. Believe me, we do.

The bureaucratic administrations that run the school districts forgot.

In my district, I can give the kid an F all I want in first year algebra. They still wind up in geometry and second year algebra courses next year. It's a matter of county policy.

Why is that so? I couldn't tell you.

But it's sure as heck not the educators making this systematic mistake.

Then let these kids fail for once, learn their lesson and try again next year. Letting people fail for shit like this is one of the things that educators seem to have forgotten how to do.

The current system punishes educators harder for failed students than the students themselves. Simon Jester can no doubt go into the details of the mental calculus used to determine if it's worth it to fail a student or fudge the grades and shovel them along.

That's the system being broken, not cellphones being an issue. A system that can't adapt to the times is a system that has already failed, and the US education system is broken, misguided, and politicized all to hell and going nowhere fast in terms of productive reform.

The cell phones are an issue because they make an existing problem worse. The children were already undisciplined and insulated from the consequences of failure, and now they have a new way to fail, one that is if anything more seductive and appealing than the ones before.

The broken-ness of the system comes, quite simply, from the American taxpayer's insistence that 100% of their children receive a high school diploma, and that anything less indicates failure on the school's part, when in reality the failure is usually on the part of the parent or the student.

Imagine a school that is basically required, by policy from above, to keep every kid who doesn't try to blow up the school or murder someone with an axe. Regardless of whether those kids are wandering the halls instead of attending actual classes. Regardless of how many classes they fail because they never actually try to do anything. Regardless of how constantly they behave in grossly disrespectful and disruptive ways, regardless of how blatantly they spit upon the people trying to provide them with a free all-expenses-paid education.

Welcome to my world.

The only reason American schools are even keeping performance on par with what it was in the 1960s and 1970s is because, even as they took away our ability to protect students from the chronic troublemakers and delinquents among their ranks, educators did a great deal of research into how to teach more effectively.

There have been major breakthroughs in theory of education in the past few decades, and computers enable a lot of very interesting teaching techniques, which a lot of educators are very actively trying to use, directly contrary to Jub's claims.

The main obstacles to accomplishing this are the very bad disciplinary environment, and the massive waves of standardized testing that drain off so much of the time and energy we need in order to innovate. Basically, we can't afford to come up with technological solutions to our problems because we're too busy coming up with technological solutions to how to administer tests.

[Terralthra]

I'm a college professor. Everything Simon says is true of primary and secondary education, and a large part of why I opted to pursue post-secondary education as a career is that a lot of that educational cancer has not spread to us.