'Samsung Dex' Is a Galaxy S8 Dock That Turns Your Phone Into a Desktop (arstechnica.com)

Samsung has officially launched their new Galaxy S8 smartphone today, along with several different accessories. One of the accessories is the Samsung Dex, a dock that aims to replace your desktop computer with your phone. If the idea sounds familiar, it's because Microsoft attempted to do this with its Microsoft Display Dock that requires a Windows 10 Lumia 950 or 950 XL with Continuum and a USB-C connector. Given the abysmal market share of Windows 10 Mobile, it's no wonder the dock didn't take off. Samsung, on the other hand, may have more luck convincing users to get rid of their desktop in favor of the Dex. Andrew Cunningham provides some more details in his report via Ars Technica: Samsung hasn't announced pricing or a release date, and most of what we know comes from Samsung's presentation. The dock is small and circular, includes two USB ports and an HDMI port, and it is powered via USB-C (same as the S8 itself). The Verge reports that there's a small cooling fan inside the dock that presumably keeps the phone from throttling too much, enabling more desktop-y performance. The desktop UI looks mostly straightforward: there's a lock screen, a desktop, and a Windows or Chrome OS-esque taskbar with app icons on it. You can use apps full-screen or keep them in windows -- we're still talking about Android apps, and not all of them are well-suited to running on anything other than a phone or a small, narrow window.

Comments

Performance

[thegreatbob]

I was going to make a snarky comment about the relatively low performance of phones vs more general purpose machines, but I am generally impressed with the performance of modern mid to high-end phones. If you can obtain performance similar to what was available on an average desktop in ~2005, but at a small fraction of the power consumption, that seems like a win to me.

Re:Performance

[WilliamGeorge]

I dunno, my phone (a Nexus 6, so no slouch) is nowhere near as fast as my desktop - especially when it comes to multitasking. Granted, it may rival a 2005 desktop... but really, 12 year old computers is the benchmark?

I can see giving a phone a larger screen when to make some activities like watching movies more enjoyable, but it will be a long time before phone / mobile hardware is fast enough to satisfy me in a desktop environment. And anyone using their desktop or workstation for serious stuff - Photoshop, video editing, programming, etc - will not be pleased with a phone's performance, storage, or OS capabilities.

Re:Performance

[danlor]

The nexus 6 is a total slouch. Modern phones such as the iphone 7 and the S8 are completely on par with midrange desktop systems. https://browser.primatelabs.co...
The A10 fusion is only slightly slower than an i7 6600U. This a completely reasonable solution. The S8 is even faster. It's a crazy new world we are in. At this rate... In the near future our phones will faster than our desktops lol

Re: Performance

[subk]

It doesn't matter how fast the phone's CPU is if it still runs a "kid stuff" OS and doesn't support virtualization.

Re: Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would a person who wants to dock their phone to a larger screen so they can properly type out a document and email it be worried about virtualization?

Not everyone worries about that kind of thing, you know. Get out of your bubble.

Re: Performance

[subk]

This is Slashdot. Get off my lawn.

Re:Performance

[speedplane]

It's a crazy new world we are in. At this rate... In the near future our phones will faster than our desktops lol

It's not crazy, it's tragic. The death of Moore's law is what's causing this. Desktop processors are not advancing anywhere near the speed that they were, and mobile processors are closing the gap. I'm afraid our tech is plateauing, or at least, approaching a more linear rate of improvement.

Re: Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

Arm CPUs do support virtualization. Jus run Linux on the phone .

Re: Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

We it does sound like they rip the name off Pokémon's Poke Dex.....

So yeah it's suppose to be kid's stuff.

Re:Performance

[ChunderDownunder]

You with your 32GB RAM and 4TB hard disk aren't the target.

Those of us who no longer do 'serious stuff' would find an octa-core machine with 4GB RAM more than adequate, e.g. the iPad Pro crowd. Indeed one of these phones has better specs than the Core 2 Duo laptop I'm typing this from.

Re:Performance

[jawtheshark]

The A10 fusion is only slightly slower than an i7 6600U.

Wait? What?!? Why are even even using i7's then? From a power usage perspective, you'd be better off using an A10.

Re:Performance

[serviscope_minor]

Closed source, for profit benchmark tool that doesn't even say what the tests are? Do NOT trust.

But even if you do...

My ancient bricktop (thinkpad W510), interpolating lists of scores, still comfortably beats that A10 benchmark wise, has 16GB of RAM (compared to 2) and I think 750GB of flash disks. It'll take a lot more: it takes an internal 2.5" SSD and another SSD in the drive bay.

It's still got a decent chunk of RAM for a laptop, and runs multiple VMs happily. On really heavy stuff (mostly web browsing sadly---other things just take longer to run rather than feel like crap while they're doing it) it's starting to feel laggy compared to an even vaguely modern laptop, never mind desktop.

If you go to Phoronix (yeah I know, they're far from perfect too, but everything is more open which makes it much more trustworthy), nd check out some of the PC scores in the Ryzen benchmark and in the recent Arm board benchmark (top end is a top end Cortex A57). You'll see that the top end ARM has trouble even matching a Phenom II X3 when it comes to CPU grunt. Compared to a top end i7 or Ryzen, there's no contest: you get 10x the performance on the desktop easily.

So, no, a modern phone is not remotely comparable performance wise to a modern PC. It's not surprising, really, the chip fab tech is similar in both cases, but the PC has a much larger power budget to work with. Also, driving fast, wide RAM busses is expensive, power wise, as is driving fast SSDs.

Re: Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

Which you can't, so back to kid's stuff.

Re: Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

Because typing a document was a good computer feature in 1989?
You might use something like the "laptop shell" on a $100 phone for such uses (USB 2.0 On The Go is needed but beware, some ~$100 phones don't support it)

Re:Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

The target demographic is people that use computers to browse internet and light productivity apps (like MSOffice), which probably makes for the vast majority of the desktop-using-people market. No, it won't run "AutofukCad 3000" or "PhotoDouche 9". So what? It's not like people that need to run these will be forced to use the solution. Again... not the target demographic.

And yes, Nexus 6 is a slouch, sorry. I've seem US$ 350 phones that swap the floor with it.

Re:Performance

[KozmoStevnNaut]

We're banging against the physical limits of silicon, which is why Intel and other companies are trying to find a replacement that will allow finer litography.

When that happens, we will see further increases in system power, instead of the relative plateuing we've been seeing for a couple of years.

I recently bought a 5 year old Thinkpad T420 through a refurb dealer. It has a second-gen 2.5GHz i5 and keeps up just fine with anything I can throw at it, short of 3D games (mostly due to the Intel integrated graphics). It doesn't feel meaningfully slower than my current work PC, which is several generations newer in every way. And once I upgrade it to 16GB RAM and an SSD, it'll be on par with the average laptop sold today.

Re:Performance

[dfghjk]

"The nexus 6 is a total slouch. Modern phones such as the iphone 7 and the S8 are completely on par with midrange desktop systems."

Your reference does not include any data to support the claim that the S8 is "completely on par with midrange desktop systems". The claim is also misleading as "completely on par with" must be interpreted as "the fastest phones ever" are significantly slower than desktops from 2 years ago.

If you take Android phones, the subject of this article, the benchmark you chose shows they are not as fast of modern desktops with the S7 being the fastest yet being roughly a third the speed of iMacs from 2 years ago and half the speed of the Apple phone you cherry-picked.

Your comparison uses a Geekbench summary score for a single core. Ignoring all the other absurdities of this, the multi-core scores are more interesting since desktops ARE fundamentally multi-core as are all the phones in the class being discussed. When viewed in this way, the cream of the crop iPhone 7 is a third the speed of crappy desktops built around the reference i7 6600U and roughly half the speed of a Mac mini from 5 years ago that was a dog when it was new. Modern desktop processors are far faster than this and benefit from far faster and larger memories, storage and IO. It's not even close.

Where is your data to support the S8 (a phone) is "even faster" that an A10 fusion (a processor) or that the A10 fusion is only slightly slower than a i7 6600U (no A10 processor benchmarks) and why have you used an Apple processor in an Android article at all? Why compare the latest phone processors to two year old dual-core desktop processors? What's the agenda here?

It's clear the narrative you're trying to push here, it's just wrong. Desktop processors kick the crap out of mobile processors and always will until the desktop is dead. This is because desktop processors are artificially limited out of lack of need, we could easily see a bump in core count should the need arise. Meanwhile, mobile platforms are throttled by their thermal envelopes, a problem that's far more intractable. If you want to see a more direct comparison of CPU capability between Intel and "mobile" look at the market performance of server-class ARM processors. It's not very impressive to date. Maybe Oracle or someone else can make a run of it, but so far it looks like a failure. Mobile CPUs may be adequate for their task but they are not in the desktop class.

Re:Performance

[dfghjk]

Desktop processors aren't advancing because there isn't a market that demands it. Server and mobile processors are advancing because their markets do. It has nothing to do with Moore's law or your interpretation of it.

While mobile processors (and platforms) have improved greatly, they are still limited by battery technology and thermals, neither of which are subject to "Moore's law". Meanwhile, "our tech" improves as rapidly as it ever has, just not your small view of it.

Re:Performance

[Blaskowicz]

Server, laptop and desktop processors basically use the same technology. (AMD is retiring its Jaguar CPUs, too)
Desktop CPU have to run somewhere between 3.0 and 4.5 GHz, so they run at quite a higher voltage than laptop parts and power use increases quadratically with voltage. Then, Intel and OEM want to maximise profits, so they aim for an arbitrary power limit like 65 watts (same way laptops mostly moved to 15 watts instead of 35 watts, because the cooling is cheaper)

Desktops are moving right now to 8 cores (16 threads) as that now can fit under 95 watts or 65 watts. Although, this sucks anyway as the single-thread performance still is the same as 4-odd years ago.
There are a bit more expensive consumer desktops, high clock desktop version of Intel server CPUs up to 10 cores.

There is a way to go all out and extract a bit more performance. Just make a CPU like the IBM POWER8 or POWER9 or some IBM mainframes. 5.2GHz, a shit ton of L3 or L4 cache, sub-components built around that etc.
But the power budget is like 250 watts, like a high end GPU really. Also has only eight cores I think. Has on-die eDRAM which the two main PC vendors have refrained from using yet.
It's a better CPU, but not twice better that one that uses half the power. I'm sure gamers and workstation users might like an x86 built like that one, but putting a big chip out on the market costs like 1 or 2 billion dollars (I don't know) and this thing (Itanium alike) wouldn't work in beige servers, vanilla desktops and laptops.

Re:Performance

[tehcyder]

Granted, it may rival a 2005 desktop... but really, 12 year old computers is the benchmark?

The point is that the performance of a desktop computer 12 years ago was perfectly adequate for the majority of tasks for most people.

Re:Performance

[Blaskowicz]

People ran Photoshop and Autocad on netbook - the 1.5 or 1.1 generation of netbooks with Atom 1.6GHz, 1GB ram and hard drive.
Back then such a netbook could be an upgrade over some low end Pentium 3 or Pentium 4 with 256MB though.

If the phone CAN actually run Photoshop or Autocad, the same kind of people who ran them on netbooks would run them on docked phone.
In fact, to continue with the netbook analogy where the netbook owners had no other computer or an older, inadequate computer... A dockable phone would especially serve those who don't actually have or own another suitable computer and this is called the youth, or even the homeless, or those few who never actually got a computer. Or those whose computers from 2004 or 2006 died off. Those who cancelled wired internet and only subscribe to 3G/4G phone internet.

First reason for a "dock" (lol the microsoft "dock" is an ugly square hub/cabling thing) would be to watch crap on a TV or monitor.

Re: Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

A new phone is more powerful than your 7 year old computer. You don't say.

Re: Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

The physical limits issue is beaten by multiple cores, and much smarter compilers. Parallelization is the ultimate solution. Eventually enough small fast cores will mimic larger neural networks. Then we can get some great ... of wait, most people use their computers to either game, where GPUs are already pretty good at realistic scenery in real time, or browse the Internet, where connection speed and latency make decade old speeds for desktops just fine, or edit or read documents, where you can cut a few more years off what is needed for adequate performance. Few users actually do heavy compute bound tasks. Photo editing, orbital mechanics tracking all the known objects in the solar system, weather prediction, etc., those are tasks which require the compute power ... but the average user gets along quite well with less than the current state of the art. The high power users, they just need to recognize parallel processing is their only hope. And even then eventually communications speed hampers that. "c". It's not just a good idea, it's the law.

Re: Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

I/O speed also matters. Desktop chipsets tend to have significantly more bandwidth for things like storage devices, memory address space, etc.

Re: Performance

[ChunderDownunder]

Well it's more like 8 or 9 years :) But I picked it up 18 months ago cheap and it does all I need for my studies - run Windows 10, Office 2016 and a web browser. A 2009 era x86_64 might beat a phone on single core benchmarks but the GPU in a phone far exceeds the laptop.

Re: Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter how fast the phone's CPU is if it still runs a "kid stuff" OS and doesn't support virtualization.

What is a "kid stuff" OS? The OS on Android phones is Linux (some GNU and some not, bionic for example) and has tremendous capabilities. Exactly what is it you think you cannot do on this "kid stuff" OS?

As far as virtualization is concerned a great many applications (in fact the overwhelming majority of personal computing applications) do not need virtualization.

Re:Performance

[speedplane]

Desktop processors aren't advancing because there isn't a market that demands it.

Please. Remember "640kb of RAM should be enough"? Even if there isn't a known market for it, that processing power will get eaten up quickly if provided. From 3D video, to AR, to multiple streams of interactive HD video, to deep learning algorithms ... there's plenty of market for more processing power. It's just getting harder and harder to get there. The move to mobile is a because of the death of Moore's law not the cause of it.

Not really new

[markdavis]

>"If the idea sounds familiar, it's because Microsoft attempted to do this with its Microsoft Display Dock that requires a Windows 10 Lumia 950 or 950 XL with Continuum and a USB-C connector"

Nice try giving MS "innovation", but that is not the only example. This has been tried before in many various ways over the years. Here are just a few:

https://www.technobuffalo.com/...

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/d...

http://maruos.com/

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/...

Re:Not really new

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Atrix4G Laptop dock before these.

http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Motorola-ATRIX-4G-Laptop-Dock-Review_id2667

Re:Not really new

[Anonymous Coward]

Continuum was the real first credible crack at this concept, really. Microsoft actually put forward a software and infrastructure stack that was a good attempt at making a phone-desktop. I'm sure they'd love to sell you a great, if a little pricy, office365/onedrive/microsoft account experience.

Trouble is all reviews I've seen say it's sluggish and glitchy. Basically worse than a 200 dollar ultra-cheap laptop in every way. (But really what's holding it back is nobody uses windows phone. Or Edge.)

Still, better than anything that came before it.

This new dock looks nice but really what work are you going to get done with a quirky android-desktop-ish userland and a webrowser? Yeah. Not much. You're gonna go use a cheap netbook or chromebook - And you get to use your phone as a phone at the same time!

Re:Not really new

[markdavis]

>"This new dock looks nice but really what work are you going to get done with a quirky android-desktop-ish userland and a webrowser? Yeah. Not much. You're gonna go use a cheap netbook or chromebook - And you get to use your phone as a phone at the same time!"

I can't say without actually using it. But a Galaxy S8 is far more powerful than any "desktop from phone" attempt before. For some people, it might work just dandy and be as fast as a current lower-end laptop from a few years ago. If the desktop "work" they need to do is mostly browser based (and that isn't unusual nowadays) it might be no less feasible than a Chromebook currently is...

As for using the phone at the same time, we don't know quite yet how that is addressed. But I don't see why one couldn't text from the big screen, make calls using bluetooth and speakerphone, etc, while it is in the dock. The technology is all there, it really just comes down to how well they implemented it all. I am somewhat curious, although not a target customer.

Re: Not really new

[mspohr]

Here's a Kickstarter keyboard screen which uses your phone as the processor.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Re:Not really new

[Anonymous Coward]

The Lapdock that went with the Atrix (as well as my Verizon version, Bionic), make a nice dock for a Raspberry Pi with the right USB and HDMI adapter cables (micro at both ends).

Re:Not really new

[Anonymous Coward]

loved my Atrix Dock. Moto were onto a good thing with that but unfortunately years ahead of it's time and too many dumbfucks not knowing what it could do

Re:Not really new

[azrael29a]

Don't forget about the Ubuntu Edge phone concept, that was announced in 2013, but failed to meet its Kickstarter funding goal. Ubuntu Phone

Re:Not really new

[azrael29a]

Don't forget about the Ubuntu Edge phone concept, that was announced in 2013, but failed to meet its Kickstarter funding goal. Ubuntu Phone

I meant Indiegogo. I'm too used to use kickstarter as a generic term.

Re:Not really new

[jareth-0205]

I think one of the problems is there kindof isn't a target customer. Who is supposed to want this? It's been tried so many times and the core problem is always there, that nobody has a screen and keyboard mouse hanging around not connected to a computer...
If it were a laptop dock then maybe we're talking, a light device I could take with me / have around the sofa that would take the phone as its core and provide a big screen and keyboard. But who uses a desktop now? It's already a niche setup.

Re: Not really new

[Anonymous Coward]

I loved my IBM PC Convertible.

Sure, it was a pain chasing down the modules to upgrade the memory from 128k to 512k, but it was portable, had an LCD screen, and two 720k 3-1/2" floppy drives. The 8088 processor was a CMOS version for power savings!

Re:Not really new

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately for Canonical. They don't know shit about manufacturing hardware. It would have been the biggest success and failure in the crowfunding history.

Windows 10 dock

[DogDude]

Regardless of whether or not it "took off", I wasn't aware of the Windows 10 phone dock. Super cool. The Microsoft one is much more appealing to me, at least, because I don't have to give Google all of my personal information as part of the deal. That, and MS hardware tends to be very good (and not explosve).

Re: Windows 10 dock

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 to Microsoft

The only reason why their continuum isn't the best thing ever, is because no x86, and Windows isn't plan9.

Almost perfect.

Re: Windows 10 dock

[Anonymous Coward]

is because no x86

Windows 10 on ARM will support x86 Win32 applications. So that solves the problem.

Re:Windows 10 dock

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is designed to capture all your information. That's no win.

I'm not sure this is going to work...

[hyades1]

Storage would be an issue. I doubt whether such a phone-and-dock combination would have enough space to contain my Library of Congress sized collection of pron.

Re:I'm not sure this is going to work...

[Anonymous Coward]

If only someone made hard drives that could plug into a USB port....

Re:I'm not sure this is going to work...

[lucm]

How do you organize your pron? Dewey or LCC style?

Re:I'm not sure this is going to work...

[hyades1]

A modified system called "Dewy", of course...though some might use another term.

Re:I'm not sure this is going to work...

[hyades1]

Wow! Those exist??? Is it true only drooling, humourless jerks that know about USB hard drives?

It may also

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn you into a fudge packer

Re:It may also

[Anonymous Coward]

No that's what apple hardware does.. The plastics emit outgassed xenoestrogens that turn you gay.

Performance on Android

[Khyber]

Given Android has zero fucking multitasking capability, it's simply not ready for the desktop, period.

Come back to me when you can get your web browser to not need to reload a fucking image already stored in RAM, you incompetent 'Droid programmers.

Re:Performance on Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero is a bit (read: a whole lot really) of a stretch.

I take it that you never used two simultaneous windows on Android (if you don't know how to do it then please google it)?

That's pure and blissful multitasking happening right there.

Re:Performance on Android

[Khyber]

To me, multitasking is being able to see every one of my running applications at once. ALL of them. On my computer, I can have my tuner, recording program, mixing program, all of my IM clients, and even a game going at once, and see them all and have them all operate, not 'suspend when not being currently interacted with.'

Windows Phone had this

[Anonymous Coward]

more than a year ago. Not new or interesting news. Nothing to see here people. Move along.

Re:Windows Phone had this

[Dog-Cow]

And the summary had this information before your post. You are truly nothing worth looking at. Even your dog probably hates your face.

It's not time yet...

[drew_92123]

They're still 3-5 generations too early for this... the performance of phones simply isn't up to snuff yet, but it's getting there very quickly.

I'm sure a few folks will buy it, but there's no way it'll be common place before 2020.

Re:It's not time yet...

[murdocj]

but by the time it "gets there" the desktop will have moved on. Hard for the phone to hit a moving target.

Re: It's not time yet...

[mspohr]

Face it. There are very few people who need desktop power. Email, web browser, word processing doesn't need much CPU. That's why Chromebooks are just fine for most people.

Re: It's not time yet...

[larryjoe]

Face it. There are very few people who need desktop power. Email, web browser, word processing doesn't need much CPU. That's why Chromebooks are just fine for most people.

You're right that current low-end systems offer sufficient performance for many users. Of course, if I'm used to using a high-end system, then the slightly lower performance of the lesser system will noticeably bug me.

But more than performance, the real issue is features. The phone is crippled relative to the desktop due to screen space, input devices, OS/platform features, and application features. Of these, the screen space is the least important. Having a mouse and keyboard makes a huge difference in productivity. Having platform support for multiple windows, file explorers, etc. is nice. And having a non-dumbed down version of the desktop application is really nice.

Re: It's not time yet...

[mspohr]

Good points. You really need multiple windows, etc.
It will be interesting to see how Samsung handles these issues.

Re: It's not time yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean... Multiple windows like Android ALREADY have for a long, long time?
It's just me that uses it?

Do I get root?

[Gravis Zero]

If not, fuck off.

Re: Do I get root?

[Anonymous Coward]

And off Ive fucked

Phones supporting the HDMI

[TWX]

I just wish that it was easier to find out if one's phone supported MHL or not. I really like my Kyocera Duraforce XD and I've used a bluetooth keyboard with it as needed and I've used USB-OTG for serial to network device console ports, it would be swell if it could do MHL but I haven't found any documentation either way and I don't want to start speculatively buying cables.

Re:Phones supporting the HDMI

[Blaskowicz]

Don't bother maybe. The more generic solution might be USB to HDMI (or VGA) chips / adapters i.e. real, digital and plain USB, not "random signal over USB connector". Displaylink is a company that makes (most?) such chips

Brilliant

[OneHundredAndTen]

Do that, launch some big integer factorization, and watch your phone burst into flames. Most fitting for Samsung.

And

[Ol Olsoc]

The crowd goes mild. Raspberry Pi performance, coming to a gastraphagus near you.

Samsung copying Apple again

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Apple patent this just last week? Damn those copycat engineers at Samsung are fast.

It seems

[kamapuaa]

Wouldn't it be possible to just have a USB-C Hub plugged in to the monitor, power supply, etc., and then connect the hub to the phone?

This is probably going to cost $150, and at that price it makes far more sense just to buy a cheap Android computer, or one of those Intel computer sticks, or something....mass produced, surely Samsung could have thrown in some kind of hub to every single phone they sold.

Re: Please more S8 stuff that is what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mojokid is already on it

Also, screw the Dex - Dual BT Audio?

[Khyber]

Why stream to two devices? Solutions already exist for pretty much any and all use-case scenarios as-is, and BT is simply utter shit for audio in the first place. I went so far as to root my Droid phone and remove all BT capability (the battery life is fucking wonderful, now,) because it's simply useless garbage.

Re:Also, screw the Dex - Dual BT Audio?

[swb]

See, and I think the inability to multiplex bluetooth is a big limitation. Why shouldn't I be able to "broadcast" BT audio to multiple paired devices or "receive" BT audio on one device from multiple transmitters?

The obvious example is switching headphones between a phone and PC -- why do you have to do it it all? Why couldn't you get audio from both PC and phone to a single headphone without some switchover dance?

Re:Also, screw the Dex - Dual BT Audio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even simpler is (would be) to stream from a single phone to two speakers - the left speaker and the right speaker. Duh.

Why couldn't you get audio from both PC and phone to a single headphone without some switchover dance?

You can possibly get a high end or bespoke bluetooth speaker that contains two "bluetooth devices", this way you get two sources on the same device. A kludge.

For stationary applications look at lepai ta2020 a tiny, cheap ass amplifier. takes dual RCA in and small jack. Both RCA and jack input work at the same time so it summarily mixes audio from phone and PC together (both wired in from their respective jack outputs). No bluetooth or wireless anything though but it does work (phone also receives FM radio).
Misses headphone out too but some slightly different hardware could have headphone or line out, and then perhaps bluetooth audio out.

Re:Also, screw the Dex - Dual BT Audio?

[Khyber]

Just use an FM transmitter. I have FM receivers in all of my rooms. Hey, look, there's one device transmitting to my entire house without needing to pair, and with much higher bandwidth. It's also a very cheap to implement solution, and does pretty much jack shit to your battery life to boot (since it will have its own or external power supply.)

Erm ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot you piece of shit, please remove the fucking bottom add banner! Other ads are bearable. Ty.

Re:Please more S8 stuff that is what we need...

[lucm]

only when every article on slashdot is about samsung S8

Same thing happened when the iPhone took the crown from the bloody hands of Blackberry. It's the circle of life. iPhone is dead, long live Samsung.

I wonder what's coming after Samsung. Probably not Windows Phone.

Love the concept, don't trust the phone

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully expect the that phone and OS will be completely compromised out of the box to keep track of absolutely everything you do, provide remote access to files, camera, microphone, etc. If I can't choose, install and secure an OS myself then it's dead to me.

Re: Love the concept, don't trust the phone

[Anonymous Coward]

No root access means that problems can't be fixed.

Windows 10 for ARM will succeed on mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the abysmal market share of Windows 10 Mobile

The big change that's coming though is that Windows 10 for ARM will have a Win32 x86 emulation layer. This will allow you to run unmodified Win32 applications on your ARM device. Neither Apple nor Google have any similar to offer. 2017 will see Microsoft start to succeed on mobile.

Re: Windows 10 for ARM will succeed on mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

Software emulation is never an efficient use of resources.

About google and apple not running win32 programs... why would they even wantyou to?win32 programs are a microsoft windows thing. Google and apple would rather you make native google play and ios apps (which also run faster too because they are not being emulated). If youre talking about legacy win32 programs they are going to run like crap because old programs arent designed for the ui interface andcontrols on a touchscreen. At best they will only run well when youre docked to a monitor and kb&m. While android and ios apps will give you a better experience because they are newer and have always been disigned with high dpi screens and multiple inputs interfaces in mind. Backwards compatibility isnt going to help microsoft win back the mobile market. Your existing programs are going to run poorer on it. If they are new then you would be getting the native version and that is ios orandroid for arm, win32 for x86. You wouldnt be getting a win32 just to emulate it on arm when a native port of the program exists. If it diesnt its not goingto help you win themarket either because people will just run it on a x86 computer natively where they get higher performance too.

Re: Windows 10 for ARM will succeed on mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

Software emulation is never an efficient use of resources.

Watch the video. Their implementation is efficient.

why would they even want you to?

Because the Windows software ecosystem is huge.

arent designed for the ui interface and controls on a touchscreen

You forget that Continuum is part of the deal. The whole point is that you have the option to use your phone as a desktop. Trust me: this will be huge for businesses. Win32 x86 compatibility with Continuum will be the thing that drives Windows 10 adoption on mobile starting later this year.

Re: Windows 10 for ARM will succeed on mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, this is just like a "netbook" and thus can sell millions.

Although, a mobile "app" for ordering something or delivery something or having to do with whatever thing with some over business will be likely to run on Android only or Android + iOS. Do you get pizza, burger etc. delivery on Windows Phone/RT/10? No, because that is made for the duopoly.

So, if you're a company with an in-house dev team that can make web or .NET apps if the phones need phone apps, that'd be workable. Or you need no specific apps (just communication, documents, pictures etc. all in a private "cloud" preferably).
But if you interface with businesses that require duopoly apps this doesn't work.

Re: Windows 10 for ARM will succeed on mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

A docked arm phone emulating legacy x86 windows programs offers nothing new that a x86 tv stick and x86 mini pc couldnt do and we all know those did not sell well at all. This will have the same fate because it brings nothing new to the table.

Oh that's funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Damsung Sex" Really?

Do you buy a desktop every 2 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the idea sounds apealing there's a huge bear trap in it - planned obsolesence.

I can use a laptop for 5-7 years and a desktop can last even longer. And I can expect security and feature updates for the entire peropd. I can install Linux on my (lap|desk)top and be happy.

Andoid phones are by default not supported after you buy them and security updates are spotty at best, For the more expensive devices one can expect up to two years of updates, but then you're on your own - phone manufacturers need to sell you the next shiny and outrageously expensive toy.
Oh, and just try and install an alternative OS on one of those things - UX is beyond terrible.

Re:Do you buy a desktop every 2 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Windows on phones that's the better bet for now (unless we hear of Red Hat, Suse, AIX or HP-UX on phones)

I'm puzzled or wondering about if you can use a Windows 10 Phone without creating a Microsoft account (just like you can use 7/8/10 without an online account). Would that work? Are you allowed to get by and use the built-in apps/accessories?, and the Win32 desktop.
(In another vein, you can use a phone without a SIM card. It doesn't technically have to ever get on a network)

I did want to try Firefox OS hoping to get 5 years instead of 2 years. The Firefox OS OS itself died in two years. (I waited for a final version of 2.2 or 2.1 till the end)

Benchmarks, damn benchmarks and lies

[Blaskowicz]

With such statements you don't know if they benched some 1980s "drhystones" that fit entirely in L1 cache, and moreover we now have severe distortions because the phones are severely thermally constrained.
If benchmark only runs for 2 or 5 minutes, phone might keep up with the PC. If benchmark runs for one hour, phone might be 3x slower than the PC (very rough order of magnitude statement there). It also depends on room temperature, air conditioning or other measures.

Re:Benchmarks, damn benchmarks and lies

[jawtheshark]

I don't believe the claim... Hence my comment.

Cooking phones & Lithium Ion Batteries.

[Wild_dog!]

I just worry that this might be a tad premature.
Using a phone to drive a desktop might cook the phone a bit.
Lithium batteries tend to destabilize around heat I have heard.

Wonder if by making your phone do this you are killing off your phone earlier than it should be dead.

I don't get it.

[Thumper_SVX]

Well, I do. I was one of the people who bought into the Motorola Atrix and its Lapdock... the latter I still have sitting around here and I'll probably hook up a Raspberry Pi to it soon so I can put it to use.

What I don't get with this these days is why. What's the use case? Let's review why you might want this;

* Having all your data in one place and up-to-date: Hasn't "cloud" stored documents kind of made this irrelevant? I have two cellphones (one for work, one personal... it's a choice thing) and I already have the ability to edit files on my desktop, laptop or tablet and then open or even edit them on my phone. Yeah, there are the odd occasions when a sync takes longer than anticipated but it's rarely more than a few seconds... and I can force a sync.

* Convenience: Nope; if I'm carrying around a clamshell dock then why not carry around a small laptop or a tablet? I use a Dell Venue 11 Pro as my secondary device on the road (with both keyboards for different use cases) and I can pull up any document or note that I have taken on my phone easily. Between DropBox (not used much any more), OwnCloud (primary) and OneDrive I think I'm pretty much covered. In fact I rarely use the commercial solutions these days except OneNote... which is also available on all the phones.

* "Cool Factor": No. Again, I don't see that people are really going to get it. The use cases just aren't there.

Besides there are lots of downsides. Security is a joke in the mobile space, storage and RAM are still small and slow because of the power budgets required for it, and the CPU performance just isn't there... again because of power budgets. Yeah, I can plug my phone into a dock and surf the web or launch Citrix apps... but then why bother? Why not do the same with my full-featured tablet that won't take a shit on a complex web page? And if I need online then I am rarely far away from a WiFi access point in most cities, and when I am not then I can just use my phone as a tether.

You might say I'm not the target market... but I'd say I am exactly the target market. I loved that Atrix and lapdock because at the time they really did fulfill a need that was important; documents and usable applications on-the-go. But the simple fact is that other technologies have really bypassed this concept and made it irrelevant. On my desktop in front of me I have three computers... one Linux and two Windows. Three screens, but only one set of keyboard and mouse... I use Synergy (https://symless.com/synergy) to tie them together for workflow and OwnCloud (https://owncloud.org) to my ZFS-based server at home on all three of them so the same documents are available on all three. I can edit a document on my desktop (primary when I'm at home) and the files are on my laptop and Linux box in seconds. When I'm on the road I can use my laptop to edit these documents (and yes, my OwnCloud is available outside my home as well) and then in a meeting with a client I can pull up most of those documents on my phone for reference if I need to. I say most because simply put the phone is not powerful enough or does not have the application support to open up really complex docs. But that's fine, because if I need more complex there's the laptop or the tablet to pull these documents up.

And the thing is, none of this is that complex. The average person could do the exact same thing with DropBox or OneDrive... no problems. I just happen to use OwnCloud because (a) I'm a geek, (b) I can and (c) I like control of my data. But that's just me. Between OneNote, EverNote, DropBox, OneDrive etc. etc. etc. there's no reason that you need some kludgy Lapdock to actually get any real work done.

Bonus; due to OwnCloud I get multiple backups. Even if my house burned down then statistically one of my devices with my data on it will have been with me... and if not then I have it all backed up to Amazon Glacier anyway... so while slow it CAN all be restored.

I would say the ONLY use-case I see for this is someone who maybe only has enough m

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

soooo, you work for owncloud and this is one long boring commercial for it?

When I can dock a phone to a monitor

[p51d007]

Keyboard and mouse, and can run photoshop, with the performance of my PC, THEN I might consider it. Otherwise, forget it.

Re:When I can dock a phone to a monitor

[Blaskowicz]

Use a "dockable" phone and run an RDP client or X11 server to your PC

Re:When I can dock a phone to a monitor

[joemck]

It's not supposed to be a desktop replacement. Mobile tech simply isn't there yet. However, it does have a place. It would be quite nice for travel to be able to use a small gadget to plug your phone into a keyboard, mouse and monitor or TV, and have something in between phone and desktop. You could check email, write documents, browse the web, use webapps, write and compile code, etc., all on a larger more comfortable screen than your phone can offer, and without the travel weight or bulk of a laptop. You could then unplug at any point and take your work with you. Or you could connect it to a TV and wireless clicker thing to do a presentation with nothing but your phone and a couple wires.

This really ought to be made into a USB C to HDMI + audio + multiple USB + charger input octopus cable rather than a dock.

BHD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tool.
This info is worthless

Re:Please more S8 stuff that is what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea where the trends lead but for now the best choice seems a replicant compatible device.