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Comment by cbhl | Hacker News Reader

I think the biggest problem is the price point.

The person who most wants to use their phone as a PC is the person who can't afford spending $4000 on the entire suite of Apple devices.

That person probably also can't afford a $100 dock (let alone a $300 one) for their phone.

When someone makes a USB-C/Thunderbolt/Intel/Windows device that is phone sized but runs legacy Windows applications (like MS Paint and Quickbooks and 90s-era video games), and connects with commodity connectors, then the idea stands a chance.

(IMHO, Windows Continuum died because of a chicken-and-egg problem -- no iOS devs wanted to pay $1000 for Visual Studio plus a Windows laptop, but no users used the phone because key apps were missing.)

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> The person who most wants to use their phone as a PC is the person who can't afford spending $4000 on the entire suite of Apple devices.

I'd love to have just one computing device that covers everything for the sake of simplicity. At times I've found myself carrying a smartphone, laptop, tablet and a smart watch, plus ton of cables and adapters... almost 10 pounds or 5kg of electronics just to cover all my use cases. Dragging that through airports for example is ridiculous.

The iPhone in my pocket is as powerful as basically any iPad, and more powerful than many laptops.

An iPad is powerful enough for most typical workloads.

Therefore, my iPhone is powerful enough for most workloads.

If I could dock my phone into something that gave me a monitor, keyboard, and (so I don't have to lift my arm up over and over) a trackpad, that would solve my home computing needs 85% of the time.

Well the phone is already a trackpad, you can mirror the screen wireless via an Apple TV, and you can use a Bluetooth keyboard. In fact, I’m doing all 3 to write this (The user-experience is more than acceptable, but I’m not going to try to use the setup for coding any time soon).

Apple could pull the trigger on running full OSX on a phone or iPad if they thought there was a market for it but it would be a backwards-looking step.

It’s not exactly an innovation leap to think “hey, phones will match desktop PC performance, we could plug one into peripherals and make a device that can become a desktop”, everyone has had that idea. It just seems a bit backwards looking? In 10 years time the power of a current Mac Pro will probably be available in a watch with 5G+ bandwidth. If necessary, a desktop OS experience could be an app or a cloud service on whichever screen (or headset) is available.

TDP matters for serious work. Over normal work periods, that ipad is going to continue to operate at a fairly high frequency while the iphone will throttle because it can't dissipate as much heat. Dissipation and size affect many other parts of system design too (eg, memory speed, width, and size).

I have the same sentiment and when more apps run in the cloud, and all one needs is a fast web browser, that will make it more of a possibility to do coding, digital media editing, etc. from anywhere with available peripherals.

The entire home wall video monitor in the beginning of the movie Total Recall (first version) would be great to have everywhere. Just as you change music you could make your environment look like anything and this same technology would let you grab a little near by space to use as a screen. Too expensive now but in ten years, perhaps.

Don't get hung up too much on the price. They charge that because they can.

Expect Xiaomi to release a $25 knockoff for their phones if there's ever a demand for it. I suspect there's very little in the dock hardware itself over a standard USB-C OTG charging hub with HDMI passthrough and an ethernet port. Maybe I'm wrong but the rest is just software on the phone?

It is indeed only software, I bought a $25 USB-C to HDMI dongle on Ebay and it works just like the Samsung DeX device.

To be fair, you don't need $1000 to start developing UWP apps for Continuum. You just need a Windows license (~50$) since you can install it on Macs, and you can use Visual Studio Community, which is free (as in beer). Of course, plus the Continuum-enabled device, like a Lumia 950, but that's technically optional since you can debug your app on your local machine.

> That person probably also can't afford a $100 dock (let alone a $300 one) for their phone.

well the atrix costed $400 usd and even with a monthly plan was way cheaper than the samsung galaxy s8

and even on a monthly plan it was cheaper than the current galaxys. still all people bought the galaxys

The Huawei Mate has the same feature and uses a normal hdmi connector. Infact I recollect seeing a youtube video[1] and there is probably a thread on xda [2] that got Samsung Dex working with a normal usb-c to hdmi connector.

It's a useful feature and because we already have too many devices finds little use but once its seamless it could offer many possibilities.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s50GWuKphTI

[2] https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s8/how-to/dex-unexpe...

Yeah, DeX used some relatively obscure DisplayPort based implementation of Usb-C to HDMI, as long as you're using that (might be called slimport) it works. I'm getting away with using a $20 dongle.

I don't think the price comparison is fair. If someone spends 700$ on a phone, he would be ok spending 200$ if the system does work smoothly.

What I think people are more skeptic about is performance and user experience.

Except most people don't think of themselves as "someone who spends $700 on a phone", they pay $x9.95/month for $y00 minutes talktime plus $zGB of data and they get a "free" phone every two years... I doubt any of those people would think it's a good idea to spend an extra ~$15/month for a thing that lets them plug a screen/keyboard/mouse into their "free" phone.

Not everywhere.

Here in Europe, contracts are the exception not the rule.

Most people just charge with 15 to 20 euros their SIM card whenever they feel like it, and have to pay full price for mobile phone.

Or pay it in rates to only have it unlocked from the network at the end of two years, so they are going to use that phone until it dies or gets stolen.

> Here in Europe, contracts are the exception not the rule.

I'm pretty sure that hasn't been true for years.

Data to back it up please, since you are pretty sure?

"Around 70% of customers in Western Europe and China use prepaid phones with the figure rising to over 90% for customers in India and Africa"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepay_mobile_phone

I only know people with contracts regarding iPhone, which is the only affordable way to get them new in many of the European countries.

    > while in Europe the proportion is 50%, reaching 75% in
    > Northwestern Europe as compared to 40% in South-Eastern
    > European states.

https://www.globalrewardsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/GRS...

Data is from 2015. Given the overall trend I wouldn't be surprised if even more people have switched to contract by now.

Thanks. I do confess as south-european that probably my reality is a bit biased, as you can still see on the report.

But I do agree from 2012 to 2015 it did change in the direction you meant.

That data is from 2012. I don’t have any feeling for what it currently is (most people I know are on contract, but that’s specifically the people I know), so it would be good to see up to date data.

I know, but it was the only one I could quickly find out.

As teamhappy pointed out, I am kind of wrong, as the data did indeed change for contracts, but was is still low in 2015 regarding southern countries, the ones I tend to visit regularly.

But it would still be nice to know if someone can point out to 2017 data.

China is cited by an OP. No serious options in China for contract phone.

What has become super common is for home cable provider to provide SIM with around 2G of data in order to pay monthly broadband charge. SIM recharge being easier than vanilla broadband recharge.

Yeah, and, to be honest, I've bought both of my phones I've had over the last few years and there's no way in hell I'd spend another $200 on a stupid dock. If this were an $80 device I might go for it but they killed it with a high price tag. Surprise surprise!

No this model is dead. They pay $x0/month for unlimited everything (with X gigs of high speed data) and then another $20 or $30 a month for the equipment lease or installment plan. The 2 year contract is dead, and we got something worse to replace it.

A lot more good phones are available off-contract than in 2012 or so, and plenty come at reasonable prices.

(I've always had a prepaid smartphone, and the options were atrocious in 2010 and barely existed beyond the Nexus in 2012)

> What I think people are more skeptic about is performance and user experience.

I think that's what the parent was talking about: Most people that wouldn't mind a simpler UX and less performance can't afford this phone/dock in a first place... and the people that would afford this (have an S8 and don't mind buying a $300 dock) will be skeptical about the usefulness and performance of this system.

Are you forgetting that most people get their phones with their plans?

People will feel that they can absorb $20 or even $30 extra per month on their plan for a top tier phone. Absorbing any hit over $200 when someone lives hand to mouth makes these a non-starter.

The best chance for mass success for this option is for it to be included in the base purchase.

Well there is nothing preventing Dex from coming with a monthly plan. Note that all plans are very low interest rate loans, there is nothing special about a phone plan.

Also, majority of people just use email and word suite. An S9 is easily capable of doing these tasks and it saves the individual or company cost of a cpu box (400 USD at the low end).

Plans are also just generally a good way to hide the actual cost of the device. Notice that, when you walk into a Verizon store, they aren't saying "BUY PHONE FOR $760!" they're saying "A New iPhone for just $32/mo!" So most of these people aren't going "Oh MAN only $760 in the end?!" they're going "I can afford $32/mo!"

My point is, it really doesn't matter what the reality of the cost/loan is, people who think "$30/mo! I can do that!" are probably not also going to think $200 seems like a good price for basically a cable to plug my phone into my computer.

Obviously, your other point was that it could come with a plan too but that seems doable but also there's yet another cost on top of the phone they were just barely justifying already. I'm not saying you're wrong but I think the price of this device is ridiculous.

I might pay $80 for it if it were really something I needed but, as others have said, I don't carry my phone around to be a computer. I carry it to be a phone. On top of that, I never really have a situation where I've got a keyboard, mouse, and monitor just sitting around waiting for something to activate them. So I'm not sure when I'd use this anyway.

They already have a few iPads and laptops.

The competition for phone dock is from cheap laptop or desktop. Also, phone dock requires monitor and keyboard which is extra expense. Most people would choose laptop before full desk setup. There are also all-in-one computers and compute sticks that provide cheap alternatives for someone who wants simple or portable.

I already have dual monitors, keyboard, usb audio and mouse. Via a KVM switch, they drive a Windows 10 laptop and a Linux box.

So I don't need additional computers in my life but if my phone had docking support I'd seamlessly just plug it into my existing setup.

As the laptop and pc depreciate over time and phone hardware improves with every generation, a DeX platform becomes more attractive as a node on my KVM setup.

It's $60 on eBay (new), how's that a problem?

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