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Over the last decade, the processing power of smartphones has grown exponentially. If the first iPhone had a single-core 412MHz processor, today’s flagship phones boast up to eight cores, each running and six times or more the speed of the first smartphone as we know it. And most of this processing power goes to waste – the majority of today’s smartphone owners only use up a fraction of this processing power in their everyday tasks.
After all, reading the news, updating social media, listening to music and playing game betway.com.ng doesn’t need the powerful hardware that modern-day smartphones hide under their hood. But there are initiatives that want to put this wasted processing power to good use. Several startups have made it their goal to transform smartphones – utterly unfit for work due to their small screen and lack of a keyboard – into laptop computers.
Microsoft was the first major smartphone maker to try to transform a smartphone into a desktop-like computer with 2015’s “Continuum” – unfortunately, it disappeared along with Microsoft’s Lumia line. But the idea survived – it has been kept alive by Samsung’s DeX docking station capable of something similar (only better), and Huawei’s latest flagship, the Mate 10 Pro, that comes with a “PC Mode” built into it. But products to transform a wider range of smartphones into computers are also being worked on – and they are a very affordable alternative to laptop computers.
Chinese startup Sentio has shipped its first mass-produced Superbook models this February. The base model is an 11.6″ laptop shell with a full-size keyboard, a trackpad, a power bank, and a few ports built into it that costs $149 at full price. It can work with any “modern” Android smartphone into a laptop computer – the phone needs to have at least 1.5GB of RAM, support for USB-OTG and run Android 5.0 for the Sentio Desktop app to work on it. As you might expect, the interest for the product was pretty high – the first delivered Superbooks should reach users as early as this April.
And the range of laptop shells for smartphones is growing as we speak. French startup Miraxess is working on a high-profile laptop shell with a higher price but more capabilities, including that of working with Intel ComputeSticks and Raspberry Pi computers. NextDock is a similar product that works with Intel’s Compute Card. And gaming accessories maker Razer has also presented a similar product to work with its gaming smartphone Razer Phone at this year’s CES. The product, Project Linda, is a high-end product with a backlit keyboard, a 13.3″ Quad-HD screen, the phone acting as a trackpad or a second screen, and 200 GB of internal storage added to the mix. There’s no way to know how much this option would cost – the product is still under development.
The spread of the increasingly powerful smartphones seems to have spawned a new market for shells to transform them into affordable laptops. Does it have a chance to grow? It remains to be seen.
