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Comment by swiley | Hacker News Reader

Another expensive android?

Why don’t they just sell a phone with desktop windows on it? That could actually compete.

With desktop Windows on ARM, they would have OK battery life, but few apps. With desktop Windows on Intel, they would have apps, but no battery life. With desktop Windows on either architecture, they would have very little support for normal phone use cases; interesting as it might be, it doesn't sound like a recipe for mainstream success.

Edit: in fact, I suspect that even on ARM, without heavy-handed optimisation for battery, it wouldn't have good battery life.

Especially curious that they called a Surface which runs desktop Windows until now. Hopefully they'll make such a version that can still run Android apps. Otherwise I expect iPadOS will be better for things other than consuming faster than these Android devices will.

No one would develop apps for it. What is a smartphone without apps?

What are you talking about? Windows has an incredible app library, competitive (some say better even) with desktop Linux. Both of which have an even larger and more complete app library than OSX (and arguably the iphone.)

Take that App Library and compare it to iOS and Android. Windows is missing so many apps that people want it’s not even a comparison. Before Microsoft killed windows mobile they were desperate to get developers to make more apps for their OS. So much so that they

1. Paid people 100-200k to port their iOS or Android app to it 2. Invested in tooling that can let windows phone run ios and android apps natively

Both failed and now they are investing in PWAs likely with the hopes of getting a bunch of devs to switch over. With the end goal being them rereleasing windows phone in a few years with rich PWA support.

Basically the lack of apps killed windows mobile and would be no different here

All it needs is something for calls and something for MMS. Every other "app" would just be a Windows application. Windows application developers would be developing apps for it, but continuing to do what they do.

Microsoft abandoned their Windows Mobile OS years ago.

Yes, but that wasn't desktop Windows. In fact it inflicted some brand damage on desktop windows, back in the Win8 era, by moving all the new stuff to Metro.

(I'm not sure there's ever been a proper decent portable/handheld that ran Real Windows; there's tiny laptops from the Libretto to the GPD Pockect, which is a nice machine. Or there were handhelds that ran Windows CE back in the PDA era. And I've seen very cheap 8" tablets. But a phone-size form factor? Not quite. I suspect the never completely fixed UI scaling is a problem there.)

Trying to press controls intended for desktop Windows on that tiny screen would be an exercise in frustration. Trying using RDP software on your phone and see how productive it is.

1) RDP won’t give you a screen with even the same aspect ratio much less resolution so that’s not a good test.

2) relative pointer position makes small controls extremely usable. You only want absolute position for the keyboard.

If I have to make two remote desktop connections lasting ten minutes each per workday from the beach, which machine am I bringing: my phone/this? Or a full laptop?

Not as obvious a decision for some.

OK, so coming back to the original point, are you going to want a hotter, more power-hungry phone for 10 minutes of non-mobile Excel on it?

Windows 10 for ARM is far from abandoned. It could probably run on a device like this.

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