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Comment by faragon | Hacker News Reader

If that runs great on phones, and has virtualization support for e.g. running ARM Linux guests, I would change both my Android phone and my Ubuntu laptop for one phone (e.g. Snapdragon 835 or better + 8-12GB RAM + 256GB flash + USB 3.0 OTG), using a dummy screen + keyboard as laptop replacement.

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A desktop/mobile convergence phone is my dream. I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

I think I get it; but could you expand a bit on what you mean?

A phone form factor device that can run a full desktop OS, or something close to it. Canonical was getting close with Ubuntu Touch but that's essentially dead now. I don't want a gimped version of Windows like I'd get with Continuum, I don't want a "desktop-like" version of Android like Samsung is doing, I want a full version of Linux or Windows that can run desktop applications.

Ah ok; I actually want something similar; a tablet that can act like a phone but only on WiFi so I don't have a phone bill. Basically; an iPad but w/ real integration & iMessages etc via a free or cheap VoIP number w/o data

You might want to look into Google Voice. Free number for texting, calls over data. I receive and send texts and calls from a browser too.

How small do you want it? The Linx tablets do this but the smallest is 7".

That's pretty close but a bit too big. It also doesn't have a cell radio so it wouldn't be very useful as a phone.

you could do small android phones, install trinux or linux deploy on it, access X through VNC or X on Android - output or cast to display through wifi or cable

Commercially it would seem unviable.

Community ROMS? Keep an eye on Halium, unifying a common base for porting sailfish/luneos/plasma mobile/ubuntu; with anbox for Android apps.

You may be interested in the Gemini PDA (which I've funded on IndieGoGo) which provides an Android/Linux PDA.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini-pda-android-linux-...

That looks really interesting, I'm going to keep an eye on it.

Have you seen this? http://pgslab.com/

It's billed as a handheld gaming system but you don't have to play games on it.

Runs Windows 10 on a 5.9-inch 1920 x 1080 screen. Atom processor.

Whether it will lever get made is another matter (it's an ex-Kickstarter project now taking pre-orders), but the approach is interesting.

Dual booting isn't a perfect solution but I'm sure it's a lot easier than trying to design a UI that can adapt to screen sizes as disparate as a phone screen and a monitor. I'm a little leary of hardware pre-orders as it's easy to get burned but I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

Same here. But the price does look good....

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/Continuum

Maybe you are describing the rumored Surface Phone?

Samsung has a dock like this for the S8 apparently.

https://www.cnet.com/products/samsung-dex-dock/preview/

I am not sure there is a huge gap from dummy screen + keyboard + battery to laptop and your not going to be able to power a laptop screen from a cellphone battery.

I would use the "dummy screen + keyboard" only when plugged, obviously.

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