

Idea: An Android Tablet "Shell" - there
http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2010/10/31/idea_an_android_tablet_shell/

======
bryanlarsen
Unfortunately, phone+shell will not be significantly cheaper than
phone+tablet.

Taking out the CPU from the shell and replacing it with a connector sounds
like a good idea, but what if the connector costs more than the CPU? The CPU
is just one small portion of a single chip in a phone, and high density high
speed connectors that can also carry significant power are really quite
expensive. You do save some money by not needing as much flash & RAM, but the
cost savings are far less than you'd expect.

What you're really doing is making your phone more expensive: adding that
expensive connector and the need to drive an external screen. Making
everybody's phone $20 more expensive is only worthwhile if a significant
fraction of the your buyers will also buy the "shell".

~~~
dkarl
Phone+shell would always be in sync. Two devices means constantly looking for
apps, books, media, etc. and realizing, "Crap, that's on the _other_ device.
Gotta download it/sync it." For the same price, I'd rather have a phone with a
tablet "dock" than have two different devices. Sounds like a great product to
me!

~~~
adambyrtek
Why should we require a clumsy physical connection to keep individual devices
in sync when all of them have internet connectivity? I have an Android phone
and I never copy data over a cable, everything is synchronized wirelessly.
(Large content like videocasts only over WiFi.)

I claim that every mobile device should be completely independent and it's
surprising to me that iPhones are still tied so closely to iTunes.

~~~
dkarl
I don't mean the shell will sync with the phone -- I mean the shell will be an
alternative display/control peripheral for the phone. One computer, two ways
of using it.

Trying to keep two computers in sync is a pain in the ass whether there are
wires or not.

~~~
wlievens
> Trying to keep two computers in sync is a pain in the ass whether there are
> wires or not.

True, _but you need to do it anyway_ regardless of this particular instance. I
want my phone and my ipod and my gmail account and my GPS device to have the
same address book without requiring supervision.

------
adolph
_The tablet would essentially be a big screen with no guts._

This is a pretty interesting idea because it speaks to the tight integration
within a Android or iOS system. For example:

* The shell tablet would also need a way to pipe multi-touch input back into the core system/phone.

* The core system/phone would need to support an entirely different screen size/resolution.

------
Geee
You can connect some Nokia devices on any screen with HDMI with full UI
replication on both devices. There is also a quite interesting demo using the
camera to track gestures and control the TV at
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA4uBPn7Czw>

~~~
borism
Indeed. Many high-end Android phones have HDMI too, but the interface is not
replicated on big screen AFAIK.

------
johngalt
How about just a regular docking station for my phone?

We already have phones with 1Ghz processors, and web apps that are reducing
the need for big local resources. How soon before I can just have one single
device and nothing to sync?

------
num1
I keep coming up with this idea once every month or so, and I always get stuck
on the problem of compatibility. What would be great, is if there did not need
to be a physical connection between the tablet and phone. I'm thinking of a
protocol (using Bluetooth 3.0?) that essentially lets the tablet ssh into your
phone and forwards keystrokes/audio/video across. The protocol, or course,
would be open source allowing your tablet to connect to any brand of
{phone,computer,home automation system}.

------
codehero
What would I do with the screen when my I change my phone? I'd have to take my
phone out of the case. Anyone who has a G1 knows this is a pain the ass.

------
glhaynes
These sorts of things are a bad idea for a number of reasons, but one that's
often forgotten: touch/tablet interfaces generally aren't great for
multitasking. And that's not an OS-level problem, it's just a weakness of a
platform that doesn't have a windowing GUI. I often use my iPad and my phone
simultaneously.

~~~
stcredzero
I can find you hundreds of people in short order who multitask on their
Windows PCs entirely in full screen. There's nothing about a tablet that
precludes multitasking. I bet lots of people multitask on their Android or iOS
4 devices.

~~~
glhaynes
It's certainly not impossible, and I do it all the time, too. (I'm running 4.2
on my iPad.)

But, still, I often find using the two together to be advantageous and
wouldn't want to not have that option.

------
j_s
similar existing product: redfly, a netbook interface for your windows mobile
or blackberry phone <http://www.celiocorp.com/>

