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Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by fastball on Monday November 23, 2020 @09:23PM (#25194595)
People tried that I think and nobody really liked it.

Can't remember who did it, but seemed like the consensus at the time was that all you end up with is the worst of both worlds.

Hybrid devices only rarely end up successful it seems.

Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by tim-- on Monday November 23, 2020 @10:47PM (#25195074)
Samsung still does it (Dex)

https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/dex/

It's actually really good. I can wirelessly turn my TV into a 4K Android tablet, and with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, it turns into a computer.

Same with a USB cable plugged into my desk's monitor to HDMI. If I didn't require a computer for development, I would not buy computers any more.

Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by tejinderss on Tuesday November 24, 2020 @05:41PM (#25203865)
> It's actually really good. I can wirelessly turn my TV into a 4K Android tablet

Wireless Dex is limited to 1080p and wired one goes to max 1440p

Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by mrtksn on Tuesday November 24, 2020 @12:01AM (#25195424)
If it’s any good, why does not take over the world?
Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by tim-- on Tuesday November 24, 2020 @12:27AM (#25195577)
I'm guessing it was Samsung neutering the platform. They never have really given too much time to advertising the capabilities of the platform (for example, no displays in their stores demoing the "phone as a desktop" capability).

The Samsung DeX Station (https://www.samsung.com/au/galaxy-s8-accessories/dex-station...) is no longer manufactured which is a massive let down. It does however still work with the S10+, and I presume the S20. The ability send a network cable straight to the phone was pretty handy for a few situations.

Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by o-__-o on Tuesday November 24, 2020 @12:51AM (#25195691)
Samsung has stores?

My mom refuses to use dex, I found it to be great as a basic workstation. Definitely removes the need for eg a chrome book. Does not replace your power user machine however

Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by tim-- on Thursday November 26, 2020 @07:45PM (#25224641)
Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by lmm on Tuesday November 24, 2020 @12:11AM (#25195486)
The HTC phone-shell-thing didn't really work, but that was more because it gave a bad experience as a laptop - both at the hardware level (phone-in-shell not being as stable or nice-feeling as a normal laptop) and the software level (non-x86 laptops kind of suck in terms of software availability).

Samsung's Dex dock thingy still exists and can be useful when travelling - most hotel rooms you can plug into the TV with HDMI, so a phone and keyboard is less trouble than carrying a full laptop. If you could rely on finding a keyboard (even just a USB one) in any hotel room it would be a lot better. And hopefully with apple shifting to ARM there'll be a lot more desktop software that runs properly on phone processors.

Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by icelancer on Monday November 23, 2020 @09:34PM (#25194652)
Should just be able to virtualize Linux/Windows inside of it. Eventually phones will be more than powerful enough to do that and we'll hotdesk with dumb terminals + phones.
Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by teddyh on Tuesday November 24, 2020 @03:30AM (#25196462)
Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by com2kid on Monday November 23, 2020 @10:28PM (#25194976)
Motorola did it and Microsoft did it.

I think Samsung may have also given it a go.