Turn Your Android Phone Into a Laptop For $99 With the Superbook (techinsider.io)

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: A company called Andromium is attempting to harness the processing power of your Android smartphone and turn it into a full fledged computer. The 'Superbook' consists of a 11.6-inch laptop shell, which you connect to your phone via a USB Micro-B or Type-C cable, and run the Andromium OS application (currently in beta, but available in the Play Store)... The leader of the project and Company co-founder Gordon Zheng, previously worked at Google and pitched the idea to them... They refused so he quit his job and founded Andromium Inc.

In December 2014 the company had introduced their first product which was a dock which used the MHL standard to output to external monitor. That campaign failed, however their newest creation, the Superbook smashed their Kickstarter goal in just over 20 minutes.
And within their first 38 hours, they'd crowdfunded $500,000. In an intriguing side note, Andromium "says it'll open its SDK so developers can tailor their apps for Andromium, too, though how much support that gets remains to be seen," reports Tech Insider. But more importantly, "Andromium says its prototypes are finished, and that it hopes to ship the Superbook to backers by February 2017."

Comments

Atrix

[Tailhook]

Motorola did this five years ago with ATRIX. Didn't catch on then, but I though it was interesting at the time.

Re:Atrix

[evilviper]

I'd like to see this with bluetooth instead of a dock so you can just leave the phone in your pocket. Not sure if the bandwidth would work though.

One of the big things the Lapdock provided was POWER to the phone... Can't get that if you leave your phone in your pocket.

And no, bluetooth doesn't provide remotely enough speed for screen updates... WiFi is faster, but still not realistically fast enough, and you'd have to lose your internet connectivity to use it that way. Not to mention your phone would be consuming a lot of power just to refresh the screen, instead of doing any useful work.

Done, and Done, and yawn.

[thesupraman]

More to the point, I hope he has called ASUS and told them he is coping an idea they have put out several times over the years, each of which was a sales flop.
Mind you, after they tried it is 2012, and 2014, perhaps being 2016 makes it 'new' somehow.

2012, Asus padfone
2014, Asus transformer book

http://www.wired.com/2012/02/meet-the-asus-padfone-the-phone-thats-a-tablet-thats-a-notebook/
https://www.engadget.com/2014/06/02/asus-transformer-book-v-hands-on-video/

but yeah, go crowdfunding!