Android has been able to do this for years - here's video with details of someone using an android phone as a desktop replacement - with an external monitor and keyboard, etc...:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB-icTl2J-c

Also, ChromeOS is a functional replacement for Windows + Office: ChromeOS + Google Docs. It comes on hardware (ChromeBooks or ChromeBoxes) which are very cheap but capable, because ChromeOS is very lightweight. These devices are on par, cost wise, with a Windows Terminal - and require even less IT dept. effort to maintain.

Interesting video. It looks like the Chromecast can be used to mirror an Android phone's display, which might help with the HDMI vs USB connectivity trade-off.

https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6059461?hl=en

It also appears that Synergy allows you to control an Android phone using your PC mouse and keyboard (requires rooting).

http://synergyandroid.sourceforge.net/ (looks like it's in early development)

So, with a Chromecast and Synergy, it may be possible to use a spare screen and your existing keyboard/mouse setup, keeping all your personal email and browsing off your work machine. And you'd only have to plug in USB for power.

> Seriously why hasn't someone made a smart phone that "transforms" into a larger screen form factor when connected to a monitor?

It has been done repeatedly. Motorola and Ubuntu come to mind. Both were failures.

I don't want my phone to turn into a desktop. Desktops are all about muscle, massive storage, gigabit connections, etc. Phones are about saving battery life.

Desktops don't mean any of those things, crappy old computers with none of your characteristics are very common.

Technology has improved significantly in the 3 - 4 years since Motorola made theirs, and Ubuntu's failed as a crowdsourcing campaign. Nothing has been proven.

I interpreted Ubuntu's failure more a statement of lack of confidence in the ability of Ubuntu to execute on this idea than as a statement against the idea's ultimate potential.

Samsung, Google, Apple, or Nokisoft (MS+Nokia) could do it.

I think Microsoft could be in a position to do this with Windows 10. It certainly seems to me like it would be the next logical step after the Surface Pro.

And phones in nearly all cases are limited by thermal profile. That's what keeps you from running at full tilt on a mobile device even when plugged in.

I like the basic idea of it, but I think their implementations were too soon. We aren't too far off now from where the only way high-end phone CPUs are behind low-end laptop CPUs is power consumption and heat dissipation.

Maybe in another 5 years, it'll only be a mobile CPU because the power consumption is ramped so far down. Then you could plug in a big cable and get enough power to run full speed, plus your gigabit connection, massive drives, multiple monitors, mouse, keyboard, etc. Heat might be a tougher one to solve though.

Or maybe we'll stick to syncing the data over the cloud instead and keeping the two platforms separate.

Android phones /do/ do this. Pretty much all the phones released in the past 3-4 years support one of the mobile monitor connection specs that'll send either a displayport or hdmi signal through the USB port. I've not personally used it much, but it's something that I do know some people use a considerable amount of the time for connecting to a larger monitor, giving presentations, etc.

> So we're all going to code, write, etc. on four inch screens?

I have an Android device with a 12" screen. Android isn't just on phones.

The toolchain won't run on Android anyway. I would enjoy having, say, a Jolla or Ubuntu tablet that would run an Android toolchain.

ChromeOS is doing fine in the laptop/netbook form factor. Trying to unify the touch and pointing-device worlds is what made Microsoft late to the party.

Check out AIDE.

I use AIDE and a git client on my tablet to read and run code. But it is a long way from having the refactoring, linting, and good error reporting of a highly mature Java IDE. Could be used to fix a problem in a pinch, but it would need tons of work to match Android Studio or Eclipse.

To be clear: you are saying the toolchain does run, but not to your liking?

It has been possible to install real Linux distros on Android for a while (X and all), with no root required. So you can install and run Android Studio if you so wish. It probably will be slow, but it can be done - today.

Sure, tech companies aren't going to start writing code on mobile devices. But there are plenty of enterprise companies where writing, viewing and editing can definitely be done on phones and larger form factors such as tablets.

Magic Leap fixed this problem.