News - Intel powered i-mate smartphone runs Windows 8 Pro

[Brewster0101]

no doubt will be too slow, have no battery life,

Too true

[kingpotnoodle]

The idea is full of win, the let down is the Clovertrail CPU - definitely the future right there though once CPU tech gets good enough.

I wouldn't use the cabled phone handset, that should be a bluetooth/DECT headset/handset which docks next to the phone to recharge. The 23" screen needs different size options or they need to produce a dock-only version that can interface with any screen you like via HDMI/Displayport, ideally can be used with multiple monitors, they should sell a matching one for the 23" but non-touch as the start screen is one monitor only.

The 10.1 wireless tablet is great idea, like PadFone only practical (I assume it talks using Miracast or something to the handset not the screen/dock), especially if it can also be used Wacom style as a touchpad/penpad for the docked screen arrangement and has enough range to dock the phone in it's charger in the study and then use tablet in the living room.

I would love to see a concept though for people with more than web browsing to do whereby the phone is docked, the OS volume is the same but the dock contains a more powerful CPU, more RAM, networking etc - basically a SFF workstation without the OS disk. If you could slot your phone into that and it swap hardware without OS reboot that would be more than cool, must be possible if virtual machines can hot-add CPUs etc. I don't think the time where phone CPUs are all you ever need is <10 years away, desktop CPUs are still miles ahead and many work tasks do need them, phone level games would also look poor on a 23" screen.

[scaryjim]

well, AMD have already shown off the laptop-style dock with improved cooling and power to bump up performance on their ~ 5W APUs, which are OK for tablets and entry laptops (and will be miles ahead of the performance of this). The big question is whether they can shrink those SoCs to phone TDPs in the near future.

For a lot of office jobs, however, this would be fine: I could probably manage on an Atom for the stuff I do (mostly email and Office driven), and the fact that someone is now making this means it will become a form factor people will consider targeting. To be able to take my entire office PC everywhere IN MY POCKET would be fantastic - particularly if we can have touch-friendly versions of key programs (e.g. Outlook) to make it genuinely useful on the go.

Would I change anything? Well, personally I'd like to see a wireless desk-dock - you could drop your phone on a simple pad and it would pair, enable all the peripherals connected to the dock (including any screen you fancy) and wirelessly charge the phone. Then you could simply pick up the phone to use it as a phone, and as long as your wireless protocol has enough range it can remain docked while you're using it. Or you could have a handset port on the dock so you can plug any phone handset into it and it automatically communicates through the phone. The same principle could then be applied to a laptop dock design: have a recess in the wrist rest that you just drop the phone on to and it automatically pairs.

The one thing I'm not convinced about is a wireless dumb tablet. I don't see the value in just having a larger touch interface - if you've got a decent screen on the phone, it really shouldn't be necessary. OTOH, you could make the laptop dock convertible ...

[Kumagoro]

What level of cpu historically does this compare to?

I got the wife several years ago one of the first gen 10 inch Asus eee netbooks. This was a single core running at 1.6ghz and it was obviously not good enough even for office and web browsing.

last year I got her a q180 which is a dual core atom@2.13GHz plus AMD graphics. This is borderline okay for office and web browsing but not quite good enough.

So for me that is the comparison to whether something like this will be worthwhile as a pc replacement. I think it is going to be near 8 to 10 years before this sort of thing is going to be good enough. At the price I want to pay that is.

[MercutioUK]

I keep saying it but the sooner external PCIe (it exists, look it up) or the optical variant of thunderbolt go mainstream the better. Have this kind of idea with the bulk of ones "power" in something very portable. Have all the extras we "like" (Dedicated GPU, Raid card + mass storage drives, proper sound card, tv card etc etc) in the dock. Your processing power and the "brains" of your computer travel with you and are easily portable. The extra stuff for your choice of PC usage beyond a bit of typing or some web browsing is added to the dock.

[eugenius]

I just want the monitor and the wireless tablet.