It has no video hardware, so it couldn't drive a monitor / panel for a laptop. It's more like an Arduino than it's like an RPi.
Sorry for being pedantic here, but despite lack of video hardware I would argue it has a lot more in common with the PI than an Arduino. It runs Yocto Linux and you can pretty much use the full suite of Linux tools to program it.
That's fair, I didn't mean to suggest that it wasn't a general-purpose computer running Linux, just that it wasn't really built to be used as a desktop. That said, I'd personally choose an RPi Zero W (which isn't much larger, costs 1/5th the price, and can drive a monitor, if you need it to).
It could also be run headlessly and combined with a Pi. The Edison running an X client (server) or RDP server, the Pi connecting into it.
Ah ok, I missed that, thanks for explaining!
blackbird_tm is right that there is no high-res display capability, but if you are ok with alternative methods of interaction, such as audio, OLED display, VNC, web, etc., it could be used as a "computing device." You could also use a USB video card from what I've heard, but of course that would be a rather lame laptop. It has a fair amount of storage, decent CPU, and runs Linux well in my experience.