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Comment by zyberzero | Hacker News Reader

So, the thing that Microsoft called Continuum? If you had their Windows Phone-device, you could just hook it up to a big screen either via a docking solution or Miracast and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It worked quite good for some of the applications (mostly used Outlook and PowerPoint this way, also RDP to my "real" computer to use Visual Studio).

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Yes. I remember that. But that was a "phone". Close. But not the "universal computing device" I'm dreaming of.

Currently, nearly every device I have is massively underutilized because I'm chained to a fix UI (screen size) for a given moment / need.

p.s. Do you know if this new Surface (via some W10 feature?) will be able to serve as an extended monitor for my laptop. At home I'm used to an extra screen but on the road that's no possible. 10" would be better than nothing.

The problem is you'd end up with almost the same underutilization in a scenario where the "core" was provided by one device -- for the big desktop setup, for example, you'd still need a large display, power supply, input devices, etc... yeah, you'd be able to lose the powerful CPU (which is sitting idle when not being used anyway), but you'd replace it with (admittedly less complex) support chips that handle the remote-desktop-from-the-smartphone features. How would that be handled? With a low-power SoC. So in almost any situation, it ends up being worth it just to spend a tiny bit more on a good SoC — then you'd have more power, both devices able to be used simultaneously and/or by different people without compromise, etc.

Should be possible with the Connect app thats been out since the Anniversary update

Yes but still needs to have 5G for it to be viable for everyday for me.

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