I've been thinking that tablet on a stick probably has better ergonomics than a laptop for programming in the garden. This would be an interesting variant on that.
Maybe more importantly though, how feasible is the glasses suggestion? Are any now a reasonable proposition for a large emacs instance?
The suggestion to use AR glasses with this keyboard computer feels very Ghost-in-the-Shell cyberpunk to me. Stepping onto a train and you find some guy with glasses sitting near the train door staring blankly at other passengers while typing furiously on the keyboard. Looks a bit creepy. After a moment it's revealed he has an AR display and he's writing an email or whatever.
...why do I feel nostalgic for a cyberpunk dystopia?
I think IRC would slightly enhance the cyberpunk aesthetic, and is likely to give strong competition to email for the 'eternal communication protocol' contest!
This would be great when using a TV as remote display via AirPlay or Windows Screen-Mirroring etc. Unfortunately these things never works satisfactorily for me.
Possibly vaporware, though. Sorry for sounding so skeptic, I've seen too many announcements of cool devices I'd buy that later turned out to be twice as expensive as initially suggested, or they simply never became available anywhere in Europe. Companies should only announce devices when they can be actually bought.
Its crazy that ten years ago this would have an intel atom SoC with broken 32-bit EFI that causes linux support headaches. Today its got a Ryzen SoC that blows my 2 year old HP Probook out of the water.
Honestly, it's a real shame this doesn't have HDMI. I'd definitely get one for travelling if it did as it's rare to find a hotel room that doesn't have a TV with accessible HDMI port. Certainly it seems like a better option than an NUC and separate keyboard in terms of overall size and not needing as many cables, although I guess maybe it'd have the potential to feel bulky compared to a wireless keyboard as well as being tethered to the TV.
True, but when you're travelling for weeks at a time, you might need a replacement cable for whatever reason. It's easy to get a USB-C to USB-C cable or HDMI to HDMI cable pretty much anywhere. As soon as you want adapters, it'll be much harder to find and when you do it'll probably be 10x the price it should be.
The fact it obviously charges over USB-C is great - it's easy to get a new charger everywhere too. I've actually now stopped taking a travel adapter with me when travelling, and just buy a local USB power brick if I don't already have one for the country I'm going to. My oldish Dell laptop was my last non-USB powered device, but I found some cables on eBay that do the trick and even carrying a spare around (just in case) is less hassle than carrying the original laptop power brick.
I don't really get why you'd waste space on a battery in a device like this. It's going to be used plugged in, so who needs it? I know there's the idea of AR goggles but like, c'mon. Nobody really believes that will be more common than plugging it into a screen do they?
Man that's cool. Not for me personally as I need a display and not glasses, but it's cool we have so much computer power in such portable formats now.
I love that we have pretty powerful laptops with 20 hours of battery that only weigh a pound or so. I remember 20 years ago lugging around a 2kh brick with only 2 hours of battery.
Setup: A monitor keyboard and mouse and a dock with a USB C port.
Device: 1hr battery powered mini pc/device with USB c.
Use: Take device with me to work, school, or workstation outside of home. Work a few hours. And wrap up and leave.
This device can be a phone too! Like all amazing tech, I feel the opportunity for such devices will pass before it reaches to market.