Using an Android Device as a Desktop Computer

mrk said:
Well they would have but the moment they heard they have to buy a cable to do it.....

They'll buy it if they absolutely have to but before this they knew nothing of the capabilities.

That's my point.

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And it's because the people selling them these phones only gloss over the paper specs and sell on that merit. Most/all of them don't even know the capabilities themselves unless their company selling materials tell them.
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But thats pretty much the unassailable hurdle, as far as most normal people care its a 'show and tell' feature that their geeky friend would show them, rather than something practically useful, irrelevant if the geek in the room makes it obvious that it could be

Wait til Apple 'steal' it and more people will become interested ;) - they are just far better at marketing such geeky features...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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Again, my point is they would find it useful and use it if the cable was given to them for free. They will only buy it if the need was immediate or absolutely necessary for something.

It's one of those things that people don't realise how useful it can be until they actually use it for a few days and then wonder why they didn't do it sooner.

Public opinion is hard to sway but Technology has its ways. It's a convenient feature that's mighty useful at an inconvenient time where a desktop/laptop isn't practical.
 
Give them your cable for a month - then find out how often they use it, bet it would be counted on one hand - not really a PC replacement then.

I think you need to step back from your geekiness and realise that the vast general public doesnt really care about such niche applications unless it either becomes socially acceptable (takes loads of time) or is shoved down their neck via advertising (Ive never seen an Android related ad that isnt tech/spec based), if they did Im sure we would have hoverboards by now.

Hell its not been that long since laptops became the de facto computer item in the home and Im sure some people would argue that point. I do think sticking the feature and dongle on a tablet rather than a phone would lead to quicker take up, just because tablets are the in thing (and could be the input device once 'docked') and meant to be the alternative to a PC for a few daily functions, smartphones are just a standard piece of tech and never have been thought as a PC alternative, and I think its too late to change that opinion easily...

EDIT: Major additions :p

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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sarge78 said:
So in 50 years a phone should be able play a PC game on low settings? No way... Maybe in another few decades :D (Next year they'll have the same power as a 360/PS3)

Personally I only need a Lightroom equivalent and desktop UI to dump my PC completely.
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lol wut?

so what if it has the same power as a xbox 360 which is now an old console and even at launch it had old hardware in it PC spec wise. also im pretty sure the CPU power of the PS3 wont be available in a phone for many years, it has like 6-8 cores for a start does it not?

also im talking about having a full PC OS on your phone with fully capable hardware.

in 30 years time gaming will have advanced so much you will need a hell of a lot of power, something which you will never really have in a phone, so yes low settings. as phones advance, pc's also advance and games also advance.

saying a phone could run games of the future on high settings is ridiculous. it would be like trying to play whatever the top game is today graphics wise on pc on an iphone.

in the future the gap should shorten, but even still their will be a gap, so you should be able to play COD MW60 on low settings on your phone in 50 years time hooked up to screen. but you will still need a laptop most likely to play it on high settings.

i see laptop's being the future, with pc's as we know it becoming almost extinct, some people may have them but they will be a minority because portability is becoming a must have feature these days. the reason why tablet's etc are doing well.
 
in 30 years time gaming will have advanced so much you will need a hell of a lot of power, something which you will never really have in a phone
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You can't really say that though. We're approaching a time where silicon is reaching its speed limit and slowly thinking about more exotic ways of computing and in 30 years time it's not a thing of SciFi to come to the conclusion that we won't have the kind of boundaries that we have today between the power of a small device compared to the power of a full grown desktop computer.

Things we know today:
- Efficiency of components is improving at a very fast rate.
- Components are becoming smaller.
- Components are drawing less power while at least doubling in capability (dual>quad core, for example).
- Quantum computing is being realised, in some cases, tested in a lab environment.

There are other things too but in 30 years time it's almost a certainty that 'smartphones' will only be limited by their physical capacity, not their capability.
 
Thanks for posting up the video. I was aware that Android could do this but I didn't realise just how well developed it was in ICS. I can totally see a single device future where we take our computers to work and plug them into a monitor/kb.
 
mrk said:
The Atrix was the first to bring the components together in one package but other phones have had the featureset since launch, S2 for example has always been able to bluetooth up or USB up a keyboard and mouse and hook up to a monitor for 1920x1080 of computing.
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The atrix was the first phone to ship with a linux-based desktop replacement OS ("webtop"). I'm pretty certain it wasnt the first phone to feature bluetooth and hdmi video out though.
 
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mrk said:
You can't really say that though. We're approaching a time where silicon is reaching its speed limit and slowly thinking about more exotic ways of computing and in 30 years time it's not a thing of SciFi to come to the conclusion that we won't have the kind of boundaries that we have today between the power of a small device compared to the power of a full grown desktop computer.

Things we know today:
- Efficiency of components is improving at a very fast rate.
- Components are becoming smaller.
- Components are drawing less power while at least doubling in capability (dual>quad core, for example).
- Quantum computing is being realised, in some cases, tested in a lab environment.

There are other things too but in 30 years time it's almost a certainty that 'smartphones' will only be limited by their physical capacity, not their capability.
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most of these single components are still bigger than most smartphones.

GPU's to run the top end games are 3-4 times the size of a smartphone.

CPU's needed to run the top end games, when you add in cooling are 3-4 times the size of a smartphone.

like i said you may be able to run games on low settings in 30-50 years, but i doubt they will ever equal the top end PC's/Laptops.

as i said above the gap is narrowing but their always will be a big gap.

as much as technology advances so do the games accordingly therefore more and more power is needed, the phone is always going to be lagging behind.
 
Have a look at whats happened in the last 30/50years and realise that your thoughts on just everything being faster but using todays established fundamentals is quite unlikely

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
Get the app called 'Airdroid'

If you're connected to a wireless network, any pc on the network can control your phone in a very similar way (which much more basic functionality). It'll show up in a web browser on the PC.

It works really well!
 
Psycho Sonny said:
like i said you may be able to run games on low settings in 30-50 years, but i doubt they will ever equal the top end PC's/Laptops.
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Exactly 10 years ago GTA III was the hottest PC game out. I play it regularly on my phones/tablets today in 2012.

I hate to sound rude but you are talking utter rubbish. How far has technology come in the last 30-50 years? If you had told me just 10 years ago I'd be playing GTA III on my phone I'd have been amazed and things are moving a lot quicker now than they did in the early 2000s.
 
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Psycho Sonny said:
most of these single components are still bigger than most smartphones.

GPU's to run the top end games are 3-4 times the size of a smartphone.

CPU's needed to run the top end games, when you add in cooling are 3-4 times the size of a smartphone.

like i said you may be able to run games on low settings in 30-50 years, but i doubt they will ever equal the top end PC's/Laptops.

as i said above the gap is narrowing but their always will be a big gap.

as much as technology advances so do the games accordingly therefore more and more power is needed, the phone is always going to be lagging behind.
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Your posts always crack me up :D
 
10 years ago I was amazed that I could play a near-perfect Pacman conversion on a Sharp flip phone I had. So that's a 1980 game on a 2002 phone. Today I'm playing a 2001 game on a 2011 phone. That should give a clue how the gap has closed in no time at all.
 
Em3bbs said:
10 years ago I was amazed that I could play a near-perfect Pacman conversion on a Sharp flip phone I had. So that's a 1980 game on a 2002 phone. Today I'm playing a 2001 game on a 2011 phone. That should give a clue how the gap has closed in no time at all.
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Aye, to put it more simply, today's phones can play games at a higher quality than many brand new laptops! Show someone a HD game on iOS or Android and they're always wowing at the sharpness and smoothness. 5 years ago if you told someone that you could play dead Space or GTA3 on a phone they'd have snickered in your face and quite possibly spat tea over you.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
most of these single components are still bigger than most smartphones.

GPU's to run the top end games are 3-4 times the size of a smartphone.

CPU's needed to run the top end games, when you add in cooling are 3-4 times the size of a smartphone.

like i said you may be able to run games on low settings in 30-50 years, but i doubt they will ever equal the top end PC's/Laptops.

as i said above the gap is narrowing but their always will be a big gap.

as much as technology advances so do the games accordingly therefore more and more power is needed, the phone is always going to be lagging behind.
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You keep mentioning games, this is completely irrelevant. The laptop/common PC market is not aimed at gaming. In fact the majority, of laptop/PC sales are not used for gaming at all anymore. There are used for the family home, web browsing, the odd bit of iplayer. But all in all, mostly web browsing.

Why spend a fortune on a laptop/PC, if you already have one sitting in your pocket?

As said in a post, once Apple start marketing this it will become mainstraim and sociably accepeted. Till then your non-geeky friends are going to look at you funny! :)

Then brag about it when there iPhone can do it :p Much like when tethering became available on them, I still remember a friend going on about how awesome it was. I couldn't even be bothered to explain my 3-4 year old Samsung done it out the box.
 
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Em3bbs said:
Exactly 10 years ago GTA III was the hottest PC game out. I play it regularly on my phones/tablets today in 2012.

I hate to sound rude but you are talking utter rubbish. How far has technology come in the last 30-50 years? If you had told me just 10 years ago I'd be playing GTA III on my phone I'd have been amazed and things are moving a lot quicker now than they did in the early 2000s.
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wow you can play a 10 year old pc game on a tablet.

now try running the new crysis with everything set on high ;)

that is what im saying, in 50 years time you should be able to run a brand new game of that time at low settings on your phone.

but there is no way you can run any brand new top end graphics game on your tablet.
 
Em3bbs said:
10 years ago I was amazed that I could play a near-perfect Pacman conversion on a Sharp flip phone I had. So that's a 1980 game on a 2002 phone. Today I'm playing a 2001 game on a 2011 phone. That should give a clue how the gap has closed in no time at all.
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like i stated above the gap is getting closer but still there always will be a gap. :o
 
Psycho Sonny said:
but there is no way you can run any brand new top end graphics game on your tablet.
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Tell the people at onlive that then?!? Pretty sure theyve got the latest games running on Apple/Android tablets already :p

To expand on my point, I very much doubt in the decades to come that actual client hardware is going to matter once high speed/bandwidth internet connections and cloud servers become a standard norm.

Far more will be about UI and experience than if the best GFX card fits into your device :p

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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