[HN Gopher] NexDock turns your smartphone into a laptop
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NexDock turns your smartphone into a laptop
Author : Bluestein
Score : 62 points
Date : 2024-07-04 20:57 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nexdock.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nexdock.com)
| tempest_ wrote:
| 15 years ago something like this was sold for my Moto Atrix
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G#Accessories
|
| Never bought but seemed interesting at the time.
| Bluestein wrote:
| _Actual buttons_ :)
|
| Nice phone.-
| crooked-v wrote:
| This website is pretty badly designed. The home page should be
| selling me on what phones this works with, and why I should trust
| these people to pull it off when a bunch of other projects have
| come and gone that failed to do the same thing.
| Zambyte wrote:
| > The home page should be selling me on what phones this works
| with
|
| Anything that can be connected to an external display,
| keyboard, and mouse.
|
| > why I should trust these people to pull it off when a bunch
| of other projects have come and gone that failed to do the same
| thing.
|
| My NexDock has served me well for 7 years. Even if the company
| flopped tomorrow, it would continue to serve me for years. I
| don't see the risk here even if you don't trust the company to
| continue to thrive.
| Bluestein wrote:
| I'd be (am) curious about the quality of the keyboard ...
| Zambyte wrote:
| It's reasonable as far as membrane laptop keyboards go imo.
| It feels solid (along with the rest of the build quality),
| and has a pretty good travel distance.
| arghwhat wrote:
| https://nexdock.com/compatible-smartphones/
|
| And while the site is badly designed, it does not have to
| explain why you should "trust these people". They should tell
| you what the product is, and for you to decide whether you like
| this product enough to buy it. Unless you suspect they'll run
| with your money (this isn't a kickstarter) or that the product
| claims are untruthful, trust is irrelevant.
|
| The reason companies in this space fail is just because too few
| people have been interested in this class of product. Maybe one
| day, when smartphones are more powerful and these products are
| convenient enough.
| nulld3v wrote:
| Agreed that the website is mid but I don't get the part where
| you say:
|
| > when a bunch of other projects have come and gone that failed
| to do the same thing
|
| This has been "pulled off" successfully for a long time now.
| Nexdock themselves have been around and shipping different
| "convergence" products since at least 2016.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| I started using my new 18" monitor attached to my phone.
|
| I just need a second phone so I can control my phone now. The
| Samsung remote control alas doesn't work with Linux, otherwise
| maybe I could try that (although I doubt it's really be all
| that.for this remote control case).
| Zambyte wrote:
| I've had a NexDock for about 7 years or so. Definitely a nice
| tool to have. I don't really have a normal laptop besides my work
| laptop anymore. I primarily just use my NexDock with either my
| phone or my Steam Deck. I've also used the dock with Raspberry
| Pis in the past.
|
| The older model that I have has a pretty terrible trackpad, does
| not have a touch screen, and does not fold back (I normally use
| my ergonomic keyboard with it). I think these are all resolved in
| newer models though.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Hadn't thought of the steam deck as an option, how do you find
| it?
| Bluestein wrote:
| > use my NexDock with either my phone or my Steam Deck.
|
| Indeed. What a combo ...
| capitainenemo wrote:
| I've just been using a small folding bluetooth keyboard and a
| mini-bluetooth mouse. Both are easy to carry around and fit
| in pockets. I find the steam deck's screen large enough to
| use on its own, although sometimes I plug it into an external
| monitor over HDMI. I use an overlay of /usr to add things to
| make the steam deck more useful.
| Zambyte wrote:
| Can you elaborate on your /usr overlay? I haven't gone very
| far with modifying my software setup on the Steam Deck, but
| I have been considering it for a while.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Ummm sure. Basically I didn't want to irrecoverably screw
| up my steam deck. So, I setup a partition on the SD card
| and pointed a /usr overlay at it. mount
| -t overlay -o "lowerdir=/usr,upperdir=/run/media/OVERLAY/
| overlay/usr,workdir=/run/media/OVERLAY/workdir/usr" none
| /usr
|
| Personal choice, I didn't set it to automount, since I
| really wanted to ensure boot process was same. I just
| mount it later.
|
| Idea being that every once in a while I pop out the SD
| card, run the standard steam update, then wipe the
| overlay and reinstall the stuff I was using (I have a
| script to make that more convenient). If it seems I
| really did somehow mess up their setup beyond repair I
| can just remove the card, reboot (I did do that once, but
| I don't think it was my fault).
|
| Main issue I've run into is the fact that Valve upstream
| repo is a hackish snapshot of Arch that is not maintained
| and was not entirely consistent at time of creation and
| is using old gpg keys. So, while 95% of stuff installs
| using it, there's 5% that requires installing while
| ignoring the signature and just trusting valve's server,
| or pulling in an older lib (I symlinked in one from
| valve's steam runtime once).
|
| The other not-ideal thing about Valve is they really
| don't prioritise security patching, at all. It's
| astounding given the device does have an sshd running.
| Not to mention older problems like wifi vulnerabilities.
| Fortunately the recent ssh cve has a config workaround,
| or I'd probably just force-install an sshd from arch
| instead, or disable starting at boot.
|
| ... oh and pulling in new signatures for people does help
| sometimes. pacman -S archlinux-keyring , pacman-key /
| --populate / --refresh-keys /-r exact@name.org ... and
| since /etc persists during updates, sometimes you have to
| tell pacman to --overwrite since a prior install might
| still exist there. You could work around that by backing
| up /etc but, eh, it hasn't been a problem so far :D -
| there were no collisions on first install to /etc for any
| of them, so I assume everything was playing nice with
| existing valve /etc. And, well, valve did make that
| directory writeable ...
| Zambyte wrote:
| I can obviously only use it with ample desk space for both
| the dock and the Deck, but for my use case (usually visiting
| family or my local maker space) desk space is not an issue.
| As for the experience of using it, it just feels like it's a
| reasonably spec'd gaming laptop when I use it with the Deck.
| hexmiles wrote:
| Not op, I have the previous model with the keyboard, and it
| works well but a bit janky: the screen and the keyboard are
| pretty good, the combination of touch screen e touchpad make
| it usable without a mouse for most workload.
|
| I use it for anything, gaming, web surfing, developing and
| sometimes even work (it does raise a few eyebrows when I take
| it out of the bag)
|
| The big problem is the connection between nextdock and
| steamdeck: if I connect it directly via single usb-c cable I
| lose the ability to charge the steamdeck (the nextdock does
| not supply enough energy for keeping the steamdeck charged)
| and I also lose a lot of io (next dock as only one fullsize
| usb 3.0 port) so instead I use the steam-deck-dock and
| connect it to the nextdock with two cable (hdmi e usb) so
| that I can keep the steamdeck fully charged.
|
| I would love to find an usb-c cable splitter so that I can
| have a device simultaneously connected to an usb-c pd charger
| and a second connection only for usb data, there are some but
| none of them support usb alt mode necessary to use external
| screen.
| segasaturn wrote:
| I've seen these before and I always loved the idea of
| "convergence" even though its never been successful. I remember
| in at least 2013 when the Ubuntu Edge had a convergence feature
| that would blow your phone up into a (very slow) desktop PC over
| DisplayPort that you would then control via the phone touch
| screen [1].
|
| I suspect the reason that mobile convergence hasn't been
| successful is that people like owning multiple devices that fit
| the mood you are in. My phone is for social stuff, my tablet is
| for entertainment stuff and my laptop is for work stuff. The
| thought of cramming all of those head-spaces into one device
| feels stressful, like putting all my eggs into one basket. I'm
| always very happy when I hear about updates to DeX or new
| convergence docks though
|
| 1:https://youtu.be/bk9-v8Sl4yU
| Bluestein wrote:
| > that people like owning multiple devices that fit the mood
| you are in
|
| Sounds reasonable.-
|
| PS. As a counterpoint to that, many will I am sure remember how
| _one PC_ *was* everything and one did _everything_ on it. One
| per household, even ...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Haha.
|
| * counts 4 in the living room, about 10 servers in the lab,
| probably 20 computers in total in my single person home not
| including raspberry pis, mobiles or tablets :)
| Bluestein wrote:
| Insane.-
|
| (Yet, I am sure, not atypical nowadays - if a bit above the
| mean ...)
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Meh, it works fine for me. You can also use work profile
| (island app) to segment your phone a bit further.
|
| I really love DeX and I just spent a whole week working with it
| as my primary computing device. I don't have a mobile dock
| though. The reason being that they're not an awful lot cheaper
| or lighter than a real laptop so what's the point.
| Bluestein wrote:
| > they're not an awful lot cheaper or lighter than a real
| laptop so what's the point.
|
| True. Probably one of the biggest obstacles to adoption.
| Their price point pretty much overlaps with an entry-level
| laptop.-
| maxglute wrote:
| It wouldn't be hard to trigger DEX/desktop enviroment to load a
| different profile. I feel like most hardware companies don't
| want to eat away at different segments.
| Bluestein wrote:
| (Along those lines, some phones have a "second" or "secret"
| profile/mode that is accessible through a different PIN code
| at the lockscreen, for example ...)
| obscurette wrote:
| I see a an increasing number of people around me using phone
| only for stuff they absolutely need to carry around -
| payment/banking, loyalty cards, 2FA, maps. Maybe also some pure
| messaging app, some puzzle game, but that's it. No any social
| media, news, work etc.
| Bluestein wrote:
| Two (diverging, yet simultaneous) tendencies: "The phone as a
| glorified wallet" and "The phone as your life". Both at play
| ...
| xattt wrote:
| I've got a Samsung Android phone that I tried with a
| DisplayLink dock for browsing. It was able to use the Ethernet
| OOTB, but browsing was PAINFUL. The responsiveness is/was not
| there.
| gumby wrote:
| A scooter, motorcycle, car, and delivery van all serve
| different purposes, though there is a little crossover between
| each stage.
|
| The same is true about these devices: yes, in a pinch you can
| grab that document and search for something but really when
| editing it you want not just a keyboard and larger display, but
| a bit more horsepower and different apps.
|
| So I use to think a fancy dock like this would be good, but
| their continued failure has taught me a lot.
| bluGill wrote:
| A basic phone blows away the early computers. 40mhz one core
| cpus (spark, mips, 80486...) used to do a lot of work and be
| fast. What has changed is bloat.
| input_sh wrote:
| No, what changed is our expectation of what such a device
| should be capable of doing. You're not gonna load a 1080p
| YouTube video on 400 MHz.
| ozim wrote:
| Some would say 1080p is bloat when you can watch videos
| perfectly fine in lower resolution ;)
| tambourine_man wrote:
| The parent wrote _40mhz_. You could probably do 1080p on
| 400mhz if you're clever
| Xylakant wrote:
| We also seem to have picked up a few features along the
| way. Rendering screen resolutions beyond 640x480, network
| speeds above 9600 baud, video, displaying images that each
| would fill one of the hard drives of that age, video and
| music editing, running programs that were unthinkable in
| terms of features set. Clearly, inefficiencies have crept
| in, but it's not as if the software today wasn't way more
| capable than what we had at that time.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| We had much better specs than this available at an
| aerospace company in the mid 90s, not to mention LAN
| storage and direct T1 to the internet.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| So much this. I could edit documents on my first 8088 PC
| with 512K memory. And people wrote novels on computers like
| this.
| bee_rider wrote:
| We need different types of vehicles for all those things
| because they cover use cases with different storage capacity
| and performance requirements. This seems less true for
| cellphones now.
| RachelF wrote:
| Yes, Samsung has had their "Dex" which looks just like NexDock.
|
| Modern Motorola phones have a similar feature.
|
| VNC has been around for a long time.
|
| It just seems like something people don't want to use. I'm not
| sure why, though?
| Bluestein wrote:
| Price point might be an issue ...
| Narhem wrote:
| Super book was another example of these type of devices which
| never got to market. Had the chance to play with the foldable
| devices and thought they are actually pretty great.
|
| I think these type of formats are decent for travelers.
| maccard wrote:
| There was a meme a while back - my most millennial trait is
| that big purchases must happen on a big screen".
|
| My brother is a zoomer and the only computing device in his
| house is his mobile phone and work laptop. He does absolutely
| everything on his phone. I think we're moving away from
| separated devices, honestly
| gwervc wrote:
| I feel like it highly depends on what people are doing with a
| device: if there're only a consumer (of digital content or
| physical product), only owning and using a smartphone is
| fine. However for creating things (writing a PhD thesis,
| making a game, editing horizontal video) a PC is still
| required.
| lmm wrote:
| > I suspect the reason that mobile convergence hasn't been
| successful is that people like owning multiple devices that fit
| the mood you are in. My phone is for social stuff, my tablet is
| for entertainment stuff and my laptop is for work stuff.
|
| Nah, I used to think the same thing about desktop vs laptop but
| turns out once laptops got good enough to be a true desktop
| replacement it was much better to just have one device. Phones
| aren't there yet, even if the raw processor speed numbers
| suggest they should be.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Not really. Let's look at Bell's Law from 1972 to understand
| this:
|
| "Roughly every decade a new, lower priced computer class forms
| based on a new programming platform, network, and interface
| resulting in new usage and a new industry."
|
| So we can say, generally, mainframes, minicomputers,
| workstations, microcomputers, laptops, smart phones, and now
| wearables (watches, rings, wallets, bracelets, glasses, etc)
|
| Next we'll have something I'll call the Mckenzie corollary
| (that's me I guess):
|
| "Roughly a decade or two after introduction, the lower price
| computer class will subsume the upper price computing class."
|
| So the minicomputers took on mainframe tasks. The workstations
| took on the minicomputer tasks. The microcomputers took on the
| workstation tasks. Laptops took on the micros. All this
| happened with a significant lag time.
|
| And now, the smartphones are vying for the laptops.
|
| These are superstructural transformations and take years
| because a bunch of new things need to be invented, developed,
| mastered and widely deployed for it to happen.
|
| We are roughly in the wearables and phones-become-laptops
| epoch.
| card_zero wrote:
| Let's look at _The Poverty of Historicism_ from 1944 to
| understand why you can 't predict societal change with laws.
|
| "[The evolution of] human society, is a unique historical
| process ... Its description, however, is not a law, but only
| a singular historical statement."
| kristopolous wrote:
| Karl Popper was being a logician about it. People aren't
| claiming supernatural patterns with market trend analysis
| like they're some kind of Helena Blavatsky of
| product/market fit.
|
| I think everyone understands that a trend that's held for
| 60 years will probably continue ... or maybe it won't and
| something novel and unexpected will happen.
|
| Millions of non-technical consumers swapped out their
| laptop for their smartphone years ago. Every step but the
| last one of this transition has already happened.
|
| Popper's piecemeal alternative explains and predicts
| nothing. I'll Popperify Popper here. His framework is
| definitionally correct 0% of the time because it makes no
| forward assertions while the market trend analysis is
| accurate > 0% of the time and is thus mathematically
| superior.
|
| Alright, take that father of 20th century scientific
| philosophy.
| Lerc wrote:
| I always liked the idea that rather than your phone being the
| powerhouse for a laptop or desktop environment that it instead
| be a receptacle for data.
|
| If only there were a standardized protocol enabling browsers
| (could be any smart terminal protocol, but browsers exist now,
| and would mostly work) to securely connect to nearby devices,
| maybe even require a physical connection if you want extra
| safety.
|
| Then instead of a specific dock you could use just about any
| capable laptop or desktop as an environment.
|
| I don't think it can be done at the moment without an on-
| internet intermediary. A local discovery and connection system
| that the terminal(browser) could be aware of. Maybe this could
| be shoehorned into existing systems like Bluetooth.
|
| You could get an absurd usb connection working if the phone
| appeared as both a file store as well as a keyboard that types
| in the commands to launch itself. I see no potential pitfalls
| with that approach.
| treflop wrote:
| For me, it's that I don't have a monitor on hand to plug my
| phone into. And if I'm going to plan to bring a monitor, shit,
| I'll just bring my laptop anyway.
| vsuperpower2021 wrote:
| This looks like a neat idea but the marketing for this is scummy.
| Adding a keyboard and screen does not like a "gaming PC" just
| because you can run cloud games on it. It advertises plugging a
| raspberry pi into it for a "fully functional computer at a
| revolutionarily low cost" which isn't true. You also can't turn
| your phone into a windows 10 laptop by running cloud services.
| jwells89 wrote:
| I understand the limitations resulting from differences in form
| factor between different smartphone models that make the idea
| impractical, but it's too bad these docks aren't designed for the
| phone to slot into them, Duo Dock[0] style. That'd be super
| slick.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_Duo#Docking_stations
| miffe wrote:
| I've wanted to try one of these together with my steamdeck for a
| long time.
|
| Do they offer international key layouts yet (Swedish
| specifically)?
|
| Also i find the dimensions a bit funny, 320x240 :)
| 627467 wrote:
| shame that Samsung handicapped their flip product line by
| removing dex
| Bluestein wrote:
| Really a missed opportunity there ...
| a-dub wrote:
| will be interesting to see if google ships a decent desktop mode
| for the pixel line in the next revision.
| da768 wrote:
| Looks like it's finally getting somewhere in the latest Android
| beta, but definitely not read for production.
|
| NexDock 360 works pretty well with the Pixel 8a in desktop mode
| so far
| shortformblog wrote:
| I like the idea of using a mini PC with one of these and then
| swapping that out while keeping the display and keyboard.
|
| The Khadas Mind, which has been controversial in tech reviewer
| circles, kind of carries itself like that:
| https://www.khadas.com/mind
|
| The pricing is all off, but the model has potential.
| rcarmo wrote:
| You can get a nice N100 mini-PC for much less than $200 (I got
| a nice compact one for my electronics bench for EUR 150:
| https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2024/07/04/2200), and those
| pack enough computing power to be seriously useful...
| Especially when compared to ARM SBCs.
| perryh2 wrote:
| I came across this which fits an Intel N100 in your pocket:
| https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-s100
| solardev wrote:
| Does anyone know if the Pixel phones will ever support this?
| da768 wrote:
| Pixel 8a works just fine.
|
| It's still using mirror mode by default. There's a Desktop mode
| you can enable in developer settings which works well with the
| NexDock hardware, but the desktop mode UI is still pretty buggy
| at the moment.
| forgotacc240419 wrote:
| Bought an S8 a few years back cheap and Dex basically replaced my
| desktop and Android box until the phone stopped working. Think
| with some better communication to older people the format could
| have taken off because it did do all the basic functionality
| you'd need from a larger screen if you're not very technical
| laconicmatt wrote:
| Wild that I'm seeing this on Hacker News. I just found out about
| the Dex capablilties of my zfold phone. I've been using it pretty
| much all week and have been considering going all in on this
| format.
|
| I love that I can just use my phone for virtually everything I
| use my laptop for (developing probably being the only obsticle).
|
| I've been considering some of the other options out there for
| portable monitor/keyboards and these seem (so far) the most
| affordable option. I wonder how the build quality it.
| wenc wrote:
| I've just been using a Samser Bluetooth foldable
| keyboard/trackpad with my iPhone (or iPad). It's great.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C1VSRZ59/
|
| You don't get the large display, but you get a full
| keyboard/trackpad for $50 at Amazon. It's great when I'm on the
| road or traveling and need to write stuff on Google Docs. I don't
| bring my laptop when I travel -- just my phone, iPad and a
| keyboard like the above. I get to travel really light.
| zer0zzz wrote:
| I'm convinced the only reason Apple invented continuity is so
| that people don't realize that they only need one or two devices
| total.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| I have bought two different earlier generations of these and I
| never got either to work properly. The second should also be able
| to operate as a terminal, (Monitor and keys) for a computer,
| which was basically impossible to get working.
|
| The user experience to operate / change modes was exceptionally
| poor. I figure plug in the HDMI from the computer plug in the
| provided USB cable and its smooth sailing. but that was not the
| case at all.
|
| I hope they are better now. It is a great idea.
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(page generated 2024-07-04 23:00 UTC)