Hacker News Reader

Comment by jalgos_eminator | Hacker News Reader

Everyone is talking about gaming, but do you guys think this could be a laptop replacement? I've been intrigued by docking tablets for years now, but haven't found one I like yet (that can run linux well, so no Surface). I like the tablet form factor for web browsing and watching videos, but nearly all the tablets are too phone-like to get real work done.

I don't actually play games much anymore, but do people actually want a portable gaming device in addition to their phone? They always felt like gimmicks to me.

View on HN

Honestly full linux desktop in a handheld form factor is pretty attractive.

One of the biggest pain points of linux laptops is getting the drivers right.

That being said The screen is quite small if you are dealing with text & while you can do some typing with the steam controller you won't want to do too much.

If your general set up is doing a tiny bit of work while away from a dock (with mouse + keyboard + monitor) and you dock it most of the time I think this could be a really nice package.

I'm thinking this looks fantastic. I can dock it at home and in the office, its powerful enough to do a lot of dev work locally, and I can just VNC to my home/office server when I need more beef like I do with my laptop. So - first pass, the same as a laptop.

Second pass, anti-glare ok-nits screen means I can use it outside. Format means I can use it on the fortnightly train. Whilst I don't want to code with it without being docked I can review, plan, read, have meetings, and make minor edits + run tests while sitting in the garden.

Having meetings outside will probably be the best use of time and justify the spend.

I'd much prefer reading and reviewing code on an ipad, if only Apple wasn't so restrictive about their software.

Rather than a laptop, it would make a handy remote control for eg. a robot, with visualization integrated.

And also comes with a touch screen. So you can put whatever amount of custom control you want on it.

This video gets my hopes up. You can see it's a desktop with taskbar, browser etc.

https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamdeck/images/vide...

You can probably do it, it's just that the screen is probably too small to get any real major work done, but some quick VSCode editing should be no problem at all. You can also connect usb or bluetooth peripherals as much as you want.

You can connect it to external screen also just using a usb-c dongle with hdmi on it.

And I already own one. It came with my Pine Phone!

You won't be able to do much typing in the portable mode, though, right?

Looks fairly attractive otherwise.

Indeed, in portable mode it'll be hell to type. But for some server maintenance (ssh, service start / stop, read log) and database / app designing it won't be much of a problem.

I must say for programming or office related workstation, a non-joystick version will be better. But if we want a lite programming pc that's able to be docked that can also act as multimedia and gaming, it's suitable.

Well if the controller can be detached (maybe nintento patented them?) like switch it'll be awesome.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com