We carry computers in our pockets. Tiny little computers that we occasionally hold up to our ears to hear other people. Mostly we use them as portable gaming, non-verbal communication and entertainment devices. Often we wax poetic that our phones could be our only computer, if only there was a way to make our laptops emulate our phone screens. If there was a way to turn our laptop into a shell of a device powered by the apps on our phones. Well, with the Superbookfrom Andromium, we can.
The Superbook has already raised over $1.3 million on Kickstarter and has a hell of a good price point. Under a hundred bucks gets you an 11.5 inch screen, 8-hour battery life and a multi-touch trackpad and keyboard. The Superbook is literally what it is advertised as — a shell of a laptop to extend your Android phone to laptop functionality. Everything that you can do on your phone you can do on the Superbook, especially type without fat thumbing every single text message as I do. Also any IDE built for Android can be accessed by your Superbook.
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“Superbook is our attempt at turning smartphones into laptop solutions. Basically, in the history of computing, there have been many attempts to allow you to use your cellphone as a laptop,” says Andrew Jiang, Co-founder of Andromium. “You know, dumb hardware shells — laptop shells — but all the processing happens on your phone. The idea is that since cell phones are getting more and more powerful, they’re cheaper than everything, and everyone has one, so why not run everything on it? All the information on apps is already on your phone, so why not keep a shell in the office and a shell at home, and instead of lugging around your laptop, just plug your phone in?”
Well, I dunno about keeping a shell at home and the office, and I also don’t know about relying on using my phone for all my computing. I work in two sectors, publishing and finance. I know that my phone cannot even come close to handling the calculations that I do on a daily basis (I currently use this at work). If you’ve ever used WordPress on a mobile device, you’ve probably wanted to smash said mobile device. I can see keeping a shell for casual or travel use. Though I have my laptop for that, which is also pretty powerful and a touch screen. However, that’s just me. For many people, Superbook is the solution they’ve been waiting for.
Many people can’t afford multiple computers (neither can I really) and their lives are centered around their phones. The Superbook would give these folks a low cost option to have a laptop and a more traditional computing device so they fit in better at Starbucks SBUX -1.54%.
Going down the global humanitarian rabbit hole, Superbook offers a solution to workers in developing countries who have mobile devices, but little access to actual computers. Says Jiang, “When you try to get out of poverty in developing country, the best thing you can do to shift into an upper-income bracket these days is to become mobile developer, starting as a freelancer on Odesk, or something along those lines. We ourselves work with a few developers in developing countries, and for them, a lot of really positive things happen when laptop productivity is possible. One of our main goals is to bring that to everyone else.”
Except Apple AAPL +0.46% iPhone users. Superbook is just for Android. What effect will the Superbook have on the ongoing battle betweenGoogle GOOGL -0.14% Android and Apple iOS? Time will tell. Or it won’t affect a damn thing. The market share is big enough for both.
Another added Superbook bonus is that you would never have to worry about data sync, as your phone is the primary device. Plugged into the Superbook or on the go, you know you’ve got the same documents or music or whatever right there with you. For someone who totes around multiple hard-drives for that purpose (I don’t trust the cloud), that’s a bonus.
The software for the Superbook is simply an app from the Google Play store. It works on any Android phone running Android 5.0 and above. From there, you plug your phone into the Superbook and Snapchat away, or whatever it is you kids are doing on your phones now. The Superbook is Type-C compatable, and there is no need to install a fork or custom ROM. Literal plug and play.
The demand is there. We’ve been using our phones as our primary computing device for so long, we actually want to use our phones as our computers. The Superbook embodies the old adage of “find a need and fill it.” Step three: profit. With 18 days left at the time of this writing and on pace for well over a $2mm dollar backing, Superbook is blurring the lines between phones and laptops. With phones continuing to advance in their own computing power, Superbook could usher in a future where all other computing devices outside our pockets are unnecessary.
[Source:- Forbes]
