We have seen a few attempts at using a smartphone to power a PC. Microsoft has Continuum. Samsung has their DeX Station which, similar to Continuum, allows you to turn your phone into a computer using a cable and a dock. Smartphone manufacturer, Razer, has come up with Razer Linda, a laptop with a smartphone dock.
Razer Linda is basically a laptop shell with a screen, keyboard, and giant battery, but with no internal processing power. Yes; no processor, no RAM, no internal storage, no motherboard. Insert a Razer phone in the smartphone dock and the phone handles all the processing.
Sounds like a brilliant idea. Buy a Razer Phone, buy the Razer Linda, and you can use your smartphone as a laptop anytime you want. Just insert the phone in the dock area – situated where a laptop’s touchpad is traditionally located. In use, the smartphone screen becomes the touchpad.
As mentioned earlier, Linda has a giant battery, so your phone undergoes charging while in use as a PC. This smartphone-powered laptop is still a concept, but I can see how it is a much more convenient smartphone-PC solution than Microsoft’s Continuum or Samsung’s DeX.
Meanwhile, there are initiatives to use just the smartphone OS to power a PC. Jide came up with Remix OS to deploy Android OS on PCs. That approach eliminates the smartphone completely and gives you a standalone PC, quite different from the smartphone-as-a-PC solution.
Razer Linda In Demonstration
Here is a demonstration video of Project Razer Linda in use.
Hopefully, Razer will see this beyond concept stage and produce for the market. Continuum requires a desktop. So does DeX. A smartphone-powered laptop like Razer Linda is more portable and convenient to use, requiring no cable or extra dock. This is exactly what the doctor prescribed.
Something new…but i can see how this works bt having a shell powered by a phone’s processor can n only do so much. And the way technology is chured out in days it is only a matter of time before this becomes a snag on users willin to upgrade
Samzy, smartphone processors are quite powerful these days. I’ve used Continuum via the Lumia 950’s processor held its own quite well.
This innovation scare me some how.. I’m just having a awkward feeling towards it.